January 24 2017: during the Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, N.C.
Photo – HHP/Andrew Coppley
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch spoke with media during Tuesday afternoon’s segment of the 35th Annual NASCAR Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway. Below are some of Busch’s comments from his media availability.
On having input in NASCAR’s race format enhancements:
“The Drivers Council had a little bit of say in all of that. Obviously it was a huge industry-wide (decision). All the stakeholders were involved … I think late-December and January was when the decisions were finally being made but some of the ideas that were shared earlier on were last year’s Council’s (ideas) as well.”
On teammate Carl Edwards’ retirement:
It was certainly a shock to the entire industry, but also to us as a team at Joe Gibbs Racing. It was a shock to me. It was something that I didn’t expect to see happen. I know that Carl ran really hard and really strong there at the end of the year and was probably the car to beat at Homestead. He had the best car all weekend long and was the fastest guy. … He had a shot to win the championship and then all of a sudden he just decides he doesn’t want to do it anymore. That’s kind of a shock to everyone I would presume. It’s his own decision to make and you’ve got to give (respect) to a guy when he says he’s had enough and he’s done and he walks away. If that continues to hold true then more power to him but if there’s something else waiting in the wings, we’ll all have to wait to find out.”
On working with rookie teammate Daniel Suarez:
“He’s very eager, that’s for sure. He definitely was either told by Coach (Joe Gibbs, the team owner) or (Executive Vice President of XFINITY Series Operations and Development) Steve DeSouza that, ‘Hey, you’d better go use the resources as much as you can, so go use Kyle,’ because we were teammates in the XFINITY Series. His rookie season in XFINITY, he came to me every single Thursday. I pretty much knew it said on the calendar, ‘Daniel Suarez phone call, 3 o’clock.’ We would talk about that weekend’s race track and what to expect and practice and tire wear and everything else. During our practice breaks if I didn’t have to go back to my Cup hauler he’d come over to my hauler and he’d be right there. He wore me out but it wasn’t a bad thing. Then, we’d go back to the race tracks for the second time and I’d be like, ‘No, no, you can’t do this again. You’ve already been there once. I already gave you everything I knew the first time, so no more.’ This past year he came to me a couple times and I said, ‘Hey, you don’t use me as much as you used to,’ and he says, ‘You told me not to.’ And I said, ‘No, I didn’t say you couldn’t. Just do it sparingly, like once every five weeks or so.’ Now he has me, Matt (Kenseth), Denny (Hamlin) and Martin (Truex Jr.). I would be once every five weeks again. That works. That’s good.”