BRISTOL, Tenn. – With 20 overall wins in the top three NASCAR series, Kyle Busch is the unquestioned master of Bristol Motor Speedway.
Believe it or not, it took awhile for Busch to adapt to the half-mile concrete-coated BMS thrill ride.
For example, there was his Bristol initiation during an Xfinity Series test session for Hendrick Motorsports.
“I remember I needed about 27 laps before I thought I was going to knock the wall down with all the optimism and pumped up feelings I had about coming here. But after that it’s been pretty fun,” said Busch during a Friday afternoon press conference at BMS. “We’ve had some challenging times here, but also I’ve had some good times here.”
Among his six Cup wins at Bristol, Busch recorded Cup, Xfinity and truck series sweeps in 2010 and again last year. In fact, Busch led a total of 451 laps last August at BMS.
“What’s the highlight for me here, you can’t dismiss the sweeps” Busch said. “The first one was really, really awesome and really, really special. And last fall was great too.”
After winning the Cup race at Texas last weekend in his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, Busch grabbed the pole for Sunday’s Food City 500 at BMS by posting a lap of 14.895 seconds at 128.822 mph.
“It’s always a good chance to get to a race track coming off a win,” Busch said. “Coming to Bristol, one of our best places after last weekend – is certainly a positive.
“But you have to understand that this is a completely different track with completely different circumstances. We’re going to do everything we can to try to back that up and win again. We’ll see what happens.”
The circumstances today will include a prediction of heavy rain, the impact of the Bristol Bite track compound, and issues with the right tire.
“Definitely there’s a difference with the new right side tire,” Busch said. “It could be the substance that feels different, but it might be the right side tire that’s different. There’s something that’s just not a familiar feeling.”
Engineers, crew chiefs and drivers have all been guessing this weekend as to when the top side of the track will become conducive to racing.
“It just depends on how quick guys want to come off the bottom and start burning in the top,” Busch said. “It gets kind of gnarly in practice because your car will just take off towards the wall when you get in the rubber so you don’t want to do that and tear up a perfectly good race car.
“Kyle Larson is the guy that will know because he’s going to do it first. We’ll wait and watch that [No.] 42 [car].”
Larson qualified in the No. 6 spot.
David Ragan executed the fastest practice lap Saturday at 127.487 while Kyle Busch posted the best average over 10 consecutive laps at 125.483.
Due to the forecast of heavy rain, the start time for the Food City 500 was moved up an hour to 1 p.m.