{"id":22606,"date":"2018-11-02T18:38:16","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T23:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=22606"},"modified":"2018-11-02T18:39:50","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T23:39:50","slug":"kyle-busch-enjoying-drama-free-ride-to-homestead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/02\/kyle-busch-enjoying-drama-free-ride-to-homestead\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Busch enjoying drama-free ride to Homestead"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

Not involved in any high conflict during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup<\/strong> playoffs so far, veteran Kyle Busch<\/strong> seemed comfortable and at ease heading into Sunday\u2019s AAA 500 at Texas Motor Speedway<\/a> (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

\"\"

Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M’s Toyota, stands in the garage area during practice for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on November 2, 2018 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Josh Hedges\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

The regular season champion and current championship leader – who holds a sizable 46-point lead on the field – was willing to offer his take on last week\u2019s victory battle at Martinsville Speedway between Joey Logano and Martin Truex Jr. But he was more eager to talk about his own game plan for a second Cup championship.<\/p>\n

The \u201cbump-and-run\u201d used by Logano to get around Truex for the victory last weekend \u2013 and a berth in the Championship Four at Homestead-Miami Speedway \u2013 has dominated NASCAR social media channels, radio talk shows and television commentary. As for Busch, the 33-year old maintains he\u2019d prefer not to be so aggressive, but acknowledged it is on a case-by-case basis and largely depends on who the other driver is.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, it\u2019s just there\u2019s certain guys and individuals that you can race that wouldn\u2019t do those sorts of things,\u2019\u2019 Busch said, of the bump-and-run to win technique.<\/p>\n

\u201cNames that come to mind would be Jimmie Johnson, Martin Truex Jr. that you can race with and battle with and do it cleanly and there\u2019s guys that you have names that you know are going to just flat out run into you on lap 128 when they get to your rear bumper and move you out of the way in a 500-lap race. \u2018Okay, whatever dude.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"

Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M’s Toyota, stands in the garage during practice for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on November 2, 2018 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Brian Lawdermilk\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about who it is. It\u2019s their norm and if it\u2019s their norm then you have to treat them back because it\u2019s their norm, but when you do it back because you\u2019re doing it to somebody that you know will do it then you\u2019re now associated as being that kind of guy. How do you balance that? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor instance, if it was me and Joey (Logano) and Joey flat out ran over me when he got to me at Martinsville then when I go back on him the next time, am I just doing it because it\u2019s Joey or am I doing it because it\u2019s me. I would say I\u2019m doing it because of who it is not that\u2019s the way I want to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Busch has been known to go door-to-door throughout his 50-win Cup career. But the father of three-year old Brexton, who spent Halloween handing out sponsor M&Ms candy to trick-or-treaters, concedes he may have mellowed. His path to the 2018 championship hasn\u2019t included any major detours into full-on aggressive driving. Yet.<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/TMS_MENCS_KyBusch_110218.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n

And the driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota doesn\u2019t necessarily consider the 1.5-mile Texas high banks a prime backdrop for that style of racing either.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s opportunity to be aggressive here if you want to be aggressive, but there\u2019s a lot of risk for reward at this place, especially on restarts with as slick as we\u2019ve seen it be, as narrow as we\u2019ve seen it be the last few years since the repave,\u2019\u2019 Busch explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cDepending on how the rubber application gets going here this weekend and how wide of a groove you kind of see between the Truck race and the Xfinity race leading into the Cup race, that kind of determines what all you should expect or how hard you feel like you can go on restarts. \u201c<\/p>\n

As for last week\u2019s situation with Logano and Truex, specifically?<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously I didn\u2019t go back and rewatch it, but just remembering what I remember about it, the 78 (Martin Truex Jr.) worked hard for quite a few laps to make a move at Martinsville and at a short track as clean as he possibly could and just cleared a guy too soon and got run over through three and four,\u2019\u2019 Busch said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith sometimes who you\u2019re racing around, I guess you have to know what\u2019s going to happen and expect that and try to plan for it I guess. When you try to do too much planning, last time I checked, that\u2019s not racing.\u201d<\/p>\n

More pressing for Busch, is another playoff win so he doesn\u2019t have to points-race his way into the four-driver shot at a title. Texas has certainly proven to be a positive venue for him. Of the drivers competing this weekend, only Jimmie Johnson (seven) has more wins than Busch\u2019s three. He\u2019s had seven top-five finishes in the last 10 races on the Fort Worth high banks and won here just this April.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to think our odds are pretty good,\u2019\u2019 Busch said. \u201cObviously anything can happen. We won Martinsville last year and came here and had two flat tires in the race and we didn\u2019t fair very well. You still have to have some luck on your side and have everything kind of go your way. It\u2019s tough to rebound sometimes after a difficult start to a day or even if you have trouble later in the day it\u2019s really difficult to rebound and get a good finish like you need.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d love to be able to win and automatically lock ourselves through, but if that\u2019s not the case then you just have to be smart and mindful of a good points day and try not to hurt yourself and minimize mistakes if some are made.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Not involved in any high conflict during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup playoffs so far, veteran Kyle Busch seemed comfortable and at ease heading into Sunday\u2019s AAA 500 at Texas Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The regular season champion and current championship leader – who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":22608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[366,59,16,21],"class_list":["post-22606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-aaa-texas-500","tag-kyle-busch","tag-nascar","tag-texas-motor-speedway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/775251032_JH_6869_CC06AD98B453804DCDD40BDA87ECA5AF.jpg?fit=3414%2C2394","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5SC","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22606"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22611,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22606\/revisions\/22611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}