Behind the Hauler Talk with Kyle Busch, #5 Kellogg’s Chevy: Atlanta Motor Speedway:
WHAT’S THE SITUATION BETWEEN YOU AND TONY STEWART RIGHT NOW?
“I called him this week. We talked a little bit on the phone. It was a good conversation. A civil one. We just both talked about what I aggravated him with last week at Las Vegas and we both decided to elect on moving along and coming here to Atlanta and seeing how we can race out the rest of the year.”
WELL, WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM?
“It’s like he said. It wasn’t quite 80 laps to go. It was more like 65. But I was holding him up a little bit. I was trying to preserve my race car and my position on the race track for the last pit stop. A lot of these guys say you don’t race until after the last pit stop, but you’d rather come into the pits third for the last pit stop and have a chance to get out leading than come in eighth and only be able to get out third. So I was trying to preserve my position a little bit and try to get a better spot for my guys to have an easier job on pit road.”
DID TONY STEWART GIVE YOU ANY ADVICE THAT WAS HELPFUL?
“Oh, just trying to discuss how to race and how you race the race track. You’ll see this weekend that this place definitely won’t be anywhere near what Las Vegas was. At this place, you’ve got so many different grooves. You can run all over this place. The race track is old and aged. You have to race the race track here. It’s worse than Darlington almost. It’s a pretty bad place where you’re not going to see a whole lot of side-by-side and bumper-tagging.”
DOES TONY STEWART UNDERSTAND WHERE YOU’RE COMING FROM?
“He did and he didn’t. He had a sense of yeah, okay that makes sense. But still, I don’t care. He’s in his race car trying to run his race and I’m in my race car trying to run my race. Sometimes, conflicts connect and you have that.”
DID YOU COME AROUND TO HIS WAY OF THINKING OR DO YOU STILL BELIEVE THAT YOU WERE IN THE RIGHT?
“There are a bunch of different scenerios. If you look at a 400 lap say at Dover, you’re going to let people go for probably 300 laps or so and then in the last 100, you’re not because you’ve got to plan yourself for your last pit stop. And then you’ve got to get out of the last pit stop and race to the end. It’s different situations everywhere you go. I saw his point, but I also saw my point as well.”
DO YOU THINK YOU DID ANYTHING WRONG?
“To answer your question in the fullest extent, I didn’t do anything wrong. I was just racing my own race; racing my own race car.”
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH TONY STEWART RIGHT NOW..ON THE TRACK?
“On the track? Probably not very good. But as far as off the race track, once he takes his helmet off, he’s a completely different person. You’re able to talk to him and be receptive of him. It’s good to be able to have that relationship off the race track, I guess.”(in part from the GM Racing PR)(3-17-2006)
