Kyle Busch spoke to FanSided before the Brickyard about how the 18 team feels going into the playoffs, why he’s had success at Indianapolis and the latest M&M’S Caramel promotion.
A soggy few days leading up to the Big Machine Vodka 400 at the Brickyard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway may have dampened some spirits around the NASCAR Cup Series garage, but not those of Kyle Busch and his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team. There’s no reason they should be down, considering they will enter the NASCAR Playoffs with at least six victories and figure to be in the mix for a seventh, considering Busch has won at Indy two of the last three seasons.
This will be the first time the Brickyard 400 will serve as the cutoff race before the playoffs, swapping to September from its former summer date. The fast but flat Indianapolis track has been a headache for some, but the 18 team has managed to find consistent success there.
Busch explained to FanSided exactly what that is prior to the race weekend.
“I just think the last few years we just really have been able to capitalize on what I’ve been feeling in the race car and to be able to work on it and fix it,” Busch said. “I feel like that’s probably the biggest thing is just there’s times when you’re at race tracks and you’re working on your car, working on your car, working on your car and it just seems to be doing the same thing over again. You just can’t find the niche that will fix it, and I think that Adam (Stevens, crew chief) and myself, we were able to find that here a couple years ago and we’ve been able to answer all of our questions, so that’s certainly been the biggest thing.”
With Busch currently holding a 39-point lead over Kevin Harvick, it would take a mechanical failure of some sort or a disastrous day combined with a great one by the 4 to prevent the 18 team from winning the regular season Cup Series championship. The change from Richmond to Indianapolis would seem to make that even less likely, but Busch said he would like his chances to compete for a win no matter where the cutoff race was taking place.
“I’m not sure the schedule change makes too much of a difference; there aren’t many places we don’t run well, but Indy and Richmond are both really good places for our M&M’S Caramel team,” he said. “We want to seal up the regular season title this weekend, so we feel confident in what we are bringing to Indy and we also are looking forward to Richmond as well, which is also a good track for us.”
Even though there is some rain possible on Sunday morning, Busch is hoping to see many members of Rowdy Nation show up to take advantage of the latest promotion in conjunction with one of his more popular sponsors and paint schemes, M&M’S Caramel. The first 100 fans who show up at the M&M’S display at the track with a pack of M&M’s Caramel will get something cool, possibly from the man himself.
“At the Brickyard this Sunday, we will actually give fans the opportunity to use M&M’S Caramel as an all-access pass to get some really cool merchandise,” Busch said. “It will be taking place at an infield display and I am going to be there. Hope to see lots of fans with their M&M’S Caramel.”
No matter how the M&M’s Caramel car finishes on Sunday (or Monday, if necessary, though we’re hoping Mother Nature wants to see the race this weekend), Busch and his team will enter the playoffs with plenty of momentum. Only Harvick has more race wins, and no one has topped the 18 team when it comes to consistency.
The final 10 races will prove whether it’s enough to win a championship, but Busch likes the position he and his team are in, and his attitude is completely understandable.
“I feel good about our team as we head into the playoffs, we’ve had a great season and now we need to execute for the next 11 weeks like we have all year so far,” Busch said. “There are a lot of good tracks for us in the playoffs, probably with the exception of Talladega, which is really a crapshoot. You are always working to get better and keep moving forward, that never stops. But I feel really good about where we are at and this team has proven it knows how to get it done.”