Kyle Busch was wearing his owner’s hat Thursday.
Any trace of the petulant “Rowdy” that occasionally appears when things don’t go his way was nonexistent.
There have been lessons learned from the time when a green 18-year-old showed up in the NASCAR garage with handlers overseeing the logistics. Certainly, Busch took a lot for granted. But owning his own truck team has made Busch more appreciative of the daily operations.
“I got hired by a team to go drive a race car, got my fire suits and helmets given to me and got my plane ride given to me and everything, and I would just show up and drive a race car and took it for granted all the work that the team does and everything to build the cars, to build the engines, to get the sponsors on the car to go to the racetrack and all that,” Busch said. “It was a lot to understand. There’s no set handbook on how all this works.”
So it was not surprising that Busch blew his horn, to a degree, on the official opening of Kyle Busch Motorsports. Based on the fans that appeared Wednesday — one day before the shop opened to the public — it was a rousing success.
“Yesterday we had people show up at 8 a.m. knocking on the doors wanting in, wanting a sneak peek and we told them, ‘No, it’s tomorrow.’ And they go, ‘Yeah, we know it’s tomorrow.’ They camped out all day — they were there the whole day yesterday and then again this morning,” Busch said. “We were sold out of our 200 passes for autographs this (Thursday) morning well within 20 minutes or so.”
Busch’s new race shop comes complete with a museum. Just think, how many 25-year-olds have accomplished enough to need their own exhibition hall? Only the youngest driver in NASCAR history to amass 82 victories across its top three series.
While Busch has experienced tremendous success, one would be hard-pressed to find a driver that hates to lose as much. His resignation last week at California after his engine expired 155 laps into the 200-lap race was reflective of his typical disappointment.
“On to another year,” Busch said after climbing from the car Sunday. “It's over.”
Certainly, the realization of falling from seventh to ninth in the points standings, 187 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson with six races remaining in the season, was tough to take. After further evaluation, however, Busch will assume the role of the spoiler in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
“Our goal is to go out there and win the rest of the races,” said Busch, who qualified sixth for Saturday night’s Sprint Cup series race. “Realistically, you’re not going to beat seven, eight guys — however many are in front of me, 187 points, the rest of the year. Unless they all have trouble at least once or twice. That is why I said our championship hopes and dreams are lost.
“We can go out there and race how we know how to race for, which is wins and to be competitive and to do the best we can. We see the championship hopes kind of diminishing, but we don’t see the reason not to race.”
And the Chasers better beware when Busch takes the track Saturday night. In his last six starts at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Busch’s average finish is 4.5. No wonder he considers this one of his favorite places.
“We’ll see what we can get,” Busch said. “If we can get back up to fourth in points, third in points, second in points even — that’s great. I just don’t foresee eight guys in front of us all having enough problems that gets us back into the running of this deal. It’s going to take an awful lot of bad luck. One of those guys is our teammate. We don’t want to wish any bad luck on any of our teammates with Denny (Hamlin) and him having to go out there and try to win this championship, too.
“Coming out here with the M&M’s Camry should be fun. (I) like running around here. We had a good practice (Wednesday) with the Nationwide stuff, so feel pretty good about how the Cup car will run around here. Maybe get back to trying to win some races here and get ourselves built up here as best as we can (to get) back in the points race.”
Moving on up
Andy Lally has his first shot at running a full oval-track race Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The 35-year-old former Long Islander is better known in sport-car circles for winning three titles in Grand-Am and twice in his class in the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
But it has always been his dream to compete in NASCAR.
“I’m extremely respectful of how talented these guys are,” Lally said humbly. “This series has a huge draw, and it draws a lot of talent. The talent pool is deeper than any other form of motorsports — Formula One, IndyCar, sports cars, NHRA. They all come to NASCAR because they want to excel in the most competitive circuit in the world.”
While he has raced at New Hampshire and California, his TRG team was not capable of completing the entire events. With sponsorship from ModSpace (one of the largest global suppliers of permanent modular construction) coming on board, Lally expects to run the full 334 laps Saturday.
“With only 10 minutes of practice, I couldn’t expect to be at the top of the chart,“ said Lally, who will roll off 38th on Saturday. “But I love the challenge. This has been my dream forever, so I’m not going to back off.
“I think this will be easy for me (physically) if I can just stay calm.”
Nose job
NASCAR will conduct the final confirmation test on the new front nose on the NASCAR Sprint Cup car by the end of the month, according to Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton.
Pemberton said the goal on the aerodynamic data for the noses “was to be as good as the cars are today.”
Mission accomplished according to crew chief Todd Berrier. The No. 31 Chevrolet ran the new nose during the tire test at Richmond this week.
“We showed up with our car and ran the new lower nose during the second run and kept it on for the test,” Berrier said. “We were able to use the same setup on the car that we used last month. Nothing changed.”
Say what?
Zach Brewer dedicated his third-place finish in the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified tour Thursday night to his friend Shane Hmiel.
Hmiel, 30, remains hospitalized in Indianapolis following a violent wreck at Terre Haute Action Track last Saturday night.
“He called it Scary Haute,” Brewer said. “It was going to be his last (Silver Crown) race.”
Brewer remains optimistic. He asked fans to continue to pray for Hmiel, who is expected to undergo a third surgery Friday.
Fans wishing to donate to Hmiel’s recovery fund can go to http://www.usacracing.com/store/shane-hmiel-road-to-recovery-decal.html for more information.
