Conversation: Kyle Busch

ROCKINGHAM, N.C. -- Kyle Busch doesn't mind being Kurt's younger brother, but don't call him that.

Kyle, seven years younger than Kurt, wants to be his own man. And that's at age 18.

Kyle Busch has already had a checkered career in NASCAR, and he's not yet driven a full season in the sport. But he'll compete full-time in 2004, driving the No. 5 Chevrolet vacated by defending Busch Series champion Brian Vickers.

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Busch will also attempt to make his Nextel Cup debut next weekend at his home track, Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

NASCAR.com's Lee Montgomery recently sat down with Busch to talk about the pressure of driving for Hendrick Motorsports, about superstitions, and about being the "younger brother."

Are you still pinching yourself that you're with this ride with Hendrick? Or has the reality of it all sunk it yet?

Kyle Busch: The reality of it all has sunk in, but it's still an unbelievable opportunity for myself being 18. Just being in the sport here for the little while that I have been, to have such a great organization and opportunity, it's definitely great to be able to go out there and have a solid ride.

KYLE BUSCH  •  Driver Page  •  Conversation: Kyle Busch 02|01|04

A lot is expected of you, even like you mentioned, at 18 years old. How do you deal with the pressure? How do you handle it? Do you just ignore it or what?

Kyle Busch: Everybody wants to say that there's a lot of pressure to do good because Brian last year did so well in the car and ended up with the championship. I've got a great opportunity with Lowe's. I race every week just as I would on a local short track: give it 100 percent. If it gets me in trouble - hopefully not - you just kind of go on with whatever happens to you. The man upstairs has got something destined for you, so if you're going to win that week, he's set it forth. If you're going to finish 43rd, then that's it.

What has Rick Hendrick taught you about getting ready for this year? What kind of things has he said to you? Not to try to overdrive? Has he made it comfortable for you?

Kyle Busch: He really has. He's actually been one of my biggest supporters. He's the all-time great. Rick and Ricky and Papa Joe have built an awesome family-run business. Everybody works together. There are 460 employees at Hendrick Motorsports that all work together as one big happy family. It's really neat how the stuff gets done and gets done correctly. He's really been one of the main men. He's always taught me that you go out there and you do your best, and whatever that is is what we have.

Are you the youngest employee of Hendrick Motorsports?

	Kyle got his first top-10 of 2004 in the race at Rockingham. Credit: Autostock

Kyle Busch: I think I am. There are a couple other young kids running around there. But I think they're like 20, so I think I'm the youngest.

I understand that you're pretty superstitious and you don't like certain words -- and I won't say them -- to be mentioned on a race weekend. Why are you so superstitious?

Kyle Busch: I could say it in this sentence, but if you go to the racetrack to win, then you're not going there for the reason you're supposed to be there. Of course, everybody wants to win, but you're going there to do the best job you can, to give your team the best job that you can do, and they're going to do the best for you. Whatever comes of it is meant to be. It's just a matter of ... if you had a great car and you finished second, you should've won, but you finished second. There's no reason you should win every week. It's just a matter of how you're prepared how you run the race, and that's where you're going to be.

And what's the other phrase you don't like saying? Victory Lane?

Kyle Busch: Oh, yeah. The guys in the ARCA car, after we won our first two, they were like, "All right, we've got a special meeting after the race in Victory Lane." I'm like, "You guys ..." And we never won a race after that, after the first two. Because we didn't know we were supposed to go out there and win our first two, and now they expecting it. We never won again. They just kind of ruined it.

So it's less superstition than it is a reality check.

Kyle Busch: It's kind of superstitious because I just don't want to say it. You don't want to put yourself in a situation where you have to be there, because if you have to win the race, then you can get yourself caught up in trouble your own self.

Any other silly superstitions? Do you pick pennies up that are face-down or walk under ladders?

Kyle Busch: No, I never do the little stuff that has been around forever. What do I do? The only thing that I have done forever -- it's not really one of those superstitious-type things -- is I've always put my right-hand glove on first. I guess it's because I always pick it up first, I don't know.

Could be the Michael Jackson thing.

Kyle Busch: Yeah.

You're father has been a big influence on you and Kurt. How did he prepare the two of you for this kind of career? What are some things he taught you growing up?

Kyle Busch: Pretty much the things he taught both Kurt and I (is), "We're going to go out there and do the best job we can. We only have one car, one motor, one set of tires." We had a few spare parts here and there, but if we got ourselves caught up in something, then it would be pretty tough to get back there to the racetrack the next week.

We were always out there taking care of our equipment but giving it 100 percent of all that we could. We ended up winning a lot of races just because we had that mentality of going into the race weekend saying, "We're here to do the best job we can and go on to the next week." We weren't there just to win every race, and I think that got a lot of guys into some trouble, too.

There was another young kid out in Vegas that I raced, and he was there to win every week. Well, OK, I'm there to finish second to him every week. But he had a lot of bad luck: drive shafts falling out and this and that, and just getting caught up in stupid stuff. I guess our mentality was a little bit better than some other people.

Did you run into any -- I don't want to say trouble, but did people dislike you just because you were winning so much out there? Did you face any of that kind of stuff?

	Busch will attempt to start his first Nextel Cup race at Las Vegas. Credit: Autostock

Kyle Busch: I did a little bit. It came a lot in the 2001 season, when I was winning a lot of Legends races, and I was winning pretty much every Late Model race. The first couple, I was like, "Yeah, cool. Everybody cheered. Yah." And then once it got like every week -- I think it was seven in a row that we had -- it was like nobody cared. "OK, Kyle's going to win so we might as well go get a hamburger during this one." It wasn't really worth watching for them sometimes.

Did you get any boos? How do you handle that kind of stuff?

Kyle Busch: I never really got a lot of boos. There were a lot of cheers because you do well, but it was kind of like a Jeff Gordon-type. There weren't a whole lot of boos. It wasn't that it was a lot of cheers, it wasn't that it was a lot of quietness, it wasn't that it was a lot of boos. It was just kind of all mixed together.

It wasn't like Earnhardt Jr., where everybody just goes wild when Junior's announced. It's like, "Geez. How do you become Earnhardt Jr.?" But you can't. The worst time that I ever got booed was after Kurt's melee, at Darlington when I ran my first Busch race after that crap.

I was going to ask you about the stuff he went through last year. What did you think when you were seeing that? Was that something that you took as a learning experience?

Kyle Busch: I definitely took it as a learning experience, but I also took as though there have been drivers in the past who have done that, too, and it's just that none of it was ever mentioned in the media. But it doesn't bring up anything anyway. Maybe he was in the wrong for doing that kind of stuff, but on the other hand, he's a true racer. He just wants to go out there and do the best job he can and try to get his team to the winner's circle. He's one of those tough, competitive racers who wants to do good.

Does the phrase "Kurt's younger brother" bother you at all? Is it something that you have to work on to "become your own man," so to speak?

Kyle Busch: That was the reasoning of going to Hendrick Motorsports. Around the shops, I was, "Hey, kid," or "Younger brother, come here." It was kind of like that stuff. Everybody knew me as Kurt's younger brother. Once I got out of that and got over to Hendrick, it was more known as "Kyle" and I wasn't called, "Hey, kid." It was a lot better as far as all that went, and I was known at the racetracks as my own person, as Kyle.

Growing up in Vegas, did you see much of the bright lights as a little kid? Or did your parents keep you away from that stuff?

Kyle Busch: It wasn't that they kept us away from it. Racing did more than they did. It was kind of like, OK, you wake up at 6 o'clock in the morning, you go to school, you get your schoolwork done, you're in the garage working on racecars, getting that stuff done, going to the racetrack on the weekends. You never had time. On the off-weekends, even if they did have any, Legends cars raced every weekend, so we didn't have many. I'd work in the garage on my little RC cars and goof off with them on the off-weekends, so it wasn't even like going out to any kind of parties and getting drunk and all that kind of stuff with kids from school. Racing was it.

Since you're only 18, you can't really do any gambling anyway.

Kyle Busch: Yeah, that's right. You could walk through the casinos and go to the movie theaters that are in there and the arcades, but you can't drop any quarters or throw any money down on the table.

Going back to Vegas, is that going to be cool to race in your hometown again and see a lot of old friends?

Kyle Busch: Yeah, it really is. There's a lot of friends who want in, but they're so limited. We're definitely going to have a good time. We're going to meet up with some of those friends outside of the racetrack and try to mingle with them a little bit.

Otherwise, going out there for the first Cup race, I'm only 18 years old, and I've only raced with Hendrick Motorsports (16) races now, and we're going to make our Cup debut after my 17th race in Busch, so it's like, "Wow, this is cool." But like I said, I'm just trying to go out there and do the best job I can, not only for my team, but for the sponsors and Mr. Hendrick, too.