CONCORD, N.C. — This week’s race at Richmond will be a final shakedown of sorts for NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Kurt Busch, one last dry run before the championship-determining Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup gets underway a week later in Chicago.
A winner earlier this season at Pocono Raceway, Busch will head into Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway (7:30 p.m. ET, MSNBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR) without the pressure of securing one of the final positions.
“Overall, it’s a great way just to do a tune-up, to pretend that this is a Chase race, there are no consequences,” Busch said Wednesday during an appearance at zMAX Dragway. “Of course we want to win for our sponsors, but most importantly the Chase is on the horizon.
“We’re just going back to the basics now, give our best effort at Richmond, see how it plays out and then get everything dialed in for Chicago.”
Busch, the 2004 Sprint Cup champion, is a former winner at Richmond (2005, ’15). He is currently 10th on the Chase grid.
SHR teammates Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart have also earned Chase berths for 2016.
Stewart missed the season’s first eight races due to injury, but returned to win at Sonoma and put himself in line for the Chase.
“It was fantastic to have that moment from Tony at Sonoma, it really changed the direction of the team overall at SHR, and for us on the 41 car it really defined what we need to do the next couple of months,” Busch said. “… We just have to go back and define what we did at Chicago last year, what we did at New Hampshire the first race this year, Dover the first race this year … just go into more detail.”
Looking beyond Richmond, Busch said it would be “business as usual” once the 10-race playoff gets underway.
“As we move through like Kansas, Charlotte, that’s when you see how things play out,” he said. “You hope you have good runs there, that way you’re not relying on Talladega to get a solid finish. If you have to go into Talladega and get a top 10, that’s the worst possible scenario … but Kyle (Busch) was able to do it last year and he went on to win the championship.”
Charlotte Motor Speedway will host the only night race in this year’s Chase, the Bank of America 500 scheduled for Oct. 28.
Likewise, zMAX will host the National Hot Rod Association’s Carolina Nationals Sept. 16-18. It is the opening round of the drag racing series’ Countdown to the Championship.
Wednesday, Busch joined Top Fuel driver Brittany Force, winner of this year’s Four Wide Nationals at zMAX. After a friendly battle on the drag strip in a pair of street-legal Chevrolet Camaros, the pair headed over to CMS where Busch took Force for a ride-along on the 1.5-mile track.
“Charlotte … all the facilities (here) are first-class,” Busch said. “The big oval, the drag strip, the dirt track, you name it. … It’s a pride factor when you race here in Charlotte. When you get a win … you know you’ve done something special.”