Conversation: Kyle Busch

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- When Kyle Busch arrived in NASCAR racing at the tender age of 16, he was a known commodity.

In large part, that was due to the success of Kyle's older brother Kurt Busch.

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But since he first stepped into a Roush Racing Craftsman Truck Series machine in 2001, Kyle began fashioning a legacy totally on his own.

Nothing illustrated that more than the day when Kyle announced he would leave the Roush organization to go to work for archrival, Hendrick Motorsports.

Little more than a year later, and on the verge of his first full Busch Series season, Kyle sat down with NASCAR.com's Dave Rodman during a break in Preseason Thunder testing at Daytona International Speedway to discuss escaping his brother's shadow, racing for a championship team and what drives Kyle Busch.

Q: Before you start your Busch Series season, you're running the ARCA RE/MAX Series opener. Is any seat time good seat time?

Kyle Busch: It definitely is. Being able to come here to Daytona -- what an awesome facility it is, just to be able to run on it. Having this dream since I was a little kid, it's really amazing to come here now and be able to do it.

Q: In addition to the Cup races you've already announced, will you run any other RE/MAX Series races?

Kyle Busch: Right now we're just running the one at Daytona. Being able to come here and get some seat time before the Busch race is a really great opportunity for me, just to be able to get some extra seat time for that Busch race.

Q: What kind of anticipation do you have for making your Nextel Cup debut -- not only in making the jump to that level, but to do it at your home track, Las Vegas Motor Speedway?

Kyle Busch: We're really looking forward to it. The guys have really been busting their butts at the shop, getting ready.

	Kyle Busch tools his No. 5 Chevrolet around Daytona International Speedway during Preseason Thunder. Credit: Kevin Wakefield/Motorsports Images and Archive

Being able to make my debut out there in Vegas at my home track is really neat. With all the fans out there and all your supporters -- your family -- it's going to be really neat to be able to showcase it right out in front of your hometown crowd.

Q: Do you anticipate having much difficulty keeping your Busch and Nextel Cup efforts in perspective -- I assume with your Busch program being the priority?

Kyle Busch: The Busch program is definitely the priority. We're going to go out there in the Busch Series and I've got a championship team right behind me.

I've got a crew chief, Lance McGrew, who's a great leader and a great organizer -- the whole team is (great). To be able to work with those guys is really amazing and we're going to try to go out there and hopefully we can repeat (Brian Vickers' 2003 Busch championship).

Being the rookie driver that I am, I'm sure there will probably be a couple bumps in the road. I just hope they're not big ones.

Q: Despite having a fairly young career, you've had a chance to work with some pretty prominent crew chiefs. How important is it to you to have the "right fit" with a chief mechanic, and how well are you and Lance hitting it off?

Kyle Busch: Lance and I are really doing well together. I worked with Brian Pattie and Gary DeHart last year and had a great crew chief when I ran Late Models.

It's just a matter of how you get everybody together -- getting the right pieces together so you can be the most successful. It's a great opportunity in this sport when you can get the best people behind you.

Q: Have you felt any pressure to follow in the footsteps, either of Kurt, or coming here and following up Brian Vickers' championship season?

Kyle Busch: There's no pressure that I put on myself. There are probably a lot of other people that want to see me do exactly what those guys do, and hopefully I'll be able to do that.

Brian left behind a great team and also a lot of big shoes to fill, so hopefully we can make the best of that opportunity. I've got the whole Hendrick organization behind me as well as the Lowe's family, so it's just an amazing opportunity for me to even be here, and we're going to make the best of it.

Q: People standing outside the sport and looking at Roush Racing, a big Ford organization and Hendrick Motorsports, a big GM organization might wonder how you could choose between the two. A year after making that choice, what's your impression of switching from Roush to Hendrick?

Kyle Busch: I think it's a little more based on the people that are behind the organization. You know, Rick (Hendrick) is a great man as well as Jack (Roush) is; but the whole family-oriented organization that Hendrick holds is really what it's all about.

I really didn't think I could find anything like that except for running back with mom and dad in Vegas, but being able to be here -- and also to be working with the Lowe's family. They're always trying to be my best friend and everything like that.

	Kyle says he's learned quite a bit about racing from older brother, Kurt. Credit: Autostock

They've brought along some vendor partners that have also wanted to step into the sport and get their opportunity, such as Pella Windows, Briggs & Stratton, Gladiator GarageWorks and Shop-Vac. They also wanted to be here and that's important.

Q: Racecars are just steel and rubber, so from the human side, what differences have you seen in the two organizations?

Kyle Busch: I think it's just the way that everybody works together. The whole (Hendrick) chassis shop and body shop is one big place where everything gets built, and then it gets distributed within the organization to the different teams: Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Terry Labonte, Brian Vickers and myself.

So, pretty much that's the biggest thing. Roush has a little bit different set-up, where they have two of their teams together, and then three more teams together. They're a little bit separated (at Hendrick's) but they're still in the same complex.

Q: How much of Kurt's experiences in racing have you been able to use as a learning tool, either things you wouldn't want to do or things you've been able to use as aids?

Kyle Busch: I think I've definitely been able to use all of his driving abilities. He's probably one of the best out there, and I've seen him race from driving Legends cars and Dwarf cars back in Vegas, so I know exactly how he grew up.

I knew what set-ups where underneath those cars and I actually got to drive all those cars as well and to win races in them. It's really neat to have been able to do that. He goes out there and wins races and I can do the same thing.

I've learned a lot of his driving abilities from him and hopefully I can relate to those later this year and possibly win some races.

Q: You're going to be awful busy this year, but if we had an opportunity to hang out with Kyle Busch, what do you like doing, away from racing?

Kyle Busch: Pretty much, it's racing the whole time. You guys would be bored with me, pretty much. I'd be sitting down playing X-Box, racing games or something like that.

Possibly I might be working on a radio-controlled racecar. That's another thing I like to do. It's all about racing. Four wheels and go fast -- that's it.