Busch Claims Fifth Pole of 2004 at Phoenix

AVONDALE, Ariz. (Nov. 4, 2004) – Kyle Busch had never driven a lap at Phoenix International Raceway prior to this week, but you would never have known it by the qualifying effort he turned in on Thursday afternoon. Busch circled the one-mile facility in a time of 26.902 seconds (133.819 mph), setting a new track record on his way to claiming the pole position for Saturday’s NASCAR Busch Series event. The pole award is the fifth of the 2004 Busch Series season for Busch and his No. 5 Team Lowe’s Racing crew. Having never raced at PIR, Busch chose to gain experience by competing in the NASCAR AutoZone Elite Division, Southwest Series event at the facility. “We unloaded with an awesome car,” Busch said. “The Lowe's/Gladiator Garage Works Chevrolet was really good. I got some experience here yesterday with the Southwest Series cars. It's definitely cool to race those cars around here. Just getting the track time definitely helped us out for today. This race track is definitely a lot of fun. There's a lot of race tracks across the country that don't have the same corners at each end and this one is definitely unique in that aspect. “We were really looking forward to coming here this weekend, and with me not having any experience here, we thought about testing, but then we kind of decided that it was a long way to travel to go out for a test. I decided to make my test in the Southwest Series event.” Crew chief Lance McGrew gave much of the credit for his team’s success to his Hendrick Motorsports teammates. “I definitely got to tip my hat to Robbie (Loomis, crew chief for Jeff Gordon’s No. 24 DuPont team) and Chad (Knaus, crew chief for Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 Lowe’s team). The (No.) 24 and (No.) 48 guys came here and tested a couple weeks ago, and I read through their test notes and they had some good data to look at and we changed a lot of stuff. We wouldn't have come to the race track how we are right now. It would have definitely been a little different version of it. It made a big difference." With Busch Series championship leader Martin Truex Jr. qualifying ninth for Saturday’s event, Busch is in a position to gain some ground in the battle for the 2004 NASCAR Busch Series championship. “We just kind of look at it as we go to every race trying to do the best possible job we can, whether it's a win or top-five or a top-10. That's all we can ask for and whatever comes to us is, I guess, what we deserve, so we'll try to work the championship that way instead of just going out for wins. “Obviously, we've done the same thing for the whole year so we'll just keep doing it." The 200-mile NASCAR Busch Series event will air live on Saturday, Nov. 6 at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBC and MRN Radio affiliates.