Kyle Busch ready to challenge ‘demanding’ Martinsville with clash-confidence

Kyle Busch has had two below-average runs coming into Martinsville.


Kyle Busch ready to challenge ‘demanding’ Martinsville with clash-confidence

Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon

Two times Cup series champion Kyle Busch has established himself as one of the front runners of the 2023 title fight. Busch left Joe Gibbs Racing, ending his 15 years of service, after the end of the 2022 season. Many experts predict the veteran will struggle to return to the Chevy garage. The Rowdy quickly silenced with an impressive P2 in the unofficial season opener in the LA Coliseum.

He continued to impress in the Daytona 500 and came close to his first win before getting spun on the final lap. Busch secured his first win of 2023 at Fontan next week. He has finished inside the top 15 in five of the six races since. He also won the Truck Series race in Vegas. The last two cup races have been tough for the veteran. He finished P13 in Richmond and P32 in Bristol, where he was the defending winner.

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Going into Sunday’s race on the back, yet another P2 finish in the Truck Series with his No:51 KBM Truck, Busch is confident. He understands that the track has become a big challenge due to the next car. The value of the qualifying position and pit selection has doubled. He believes that he could secure a good finish in the toughest short track of the season, as he did in LA.

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Martinsville is a challenging short track. I think with the Next Gen race car, it’s become a bigger challenge just the fact that everybody is a lot closer…. The racing there is pretty demanding. I mean, you’re on the brakes all the time and steering all the time. You’re trying to feel that grip and not slip. You want to carry your speed as fast as you can while off the gas,” Kyle Busch said.

Running well at the Clash, I think, gives me some pretty good optimism for Martinsville. I think we’re running the lower downforce package at Martinsville, so to me, unfortunately, right now, we’re kind of at a deficit with the lower downforce package. But if we can figure that out, then I feel like what we were able to do at the Clash will resonate and give us something for Martinsville that will keep us up front,” he added when asked about the Clash performance.

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Kyle Busch explains how the Next-Gen car changed the game at Martinsville

Kyle Busch win at Fontana
Kyle Busch win at Fontana

Busch pointed out that the field has gotten closer and closer with the introduction of the 7th gen cars, making it hard to pass for drivers. The track position and aero while running behind someone also help. He revealed that with the 6th gen car, it was easy for them to pounce on the mistakes of the front runners, unlike the new cars.

Little setup differences with the old car meant an awful lot in speed and it seems like little setup differences with this car doesn’t really mean a whole lot so everybody runs the same speed no matter what so it just makes it tough to pass,” Busch said.

Track position is everything. The aero affects when you get behind guys makes it tough to move around and find grip in other grooves in order to make moves. It seemed like with the old car you could definitely follow a lot better and keep yourself closer to the guy in front of you so if he made a little, tiny mistake you could pounce on that and make a pass,” Busch added.

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