No Week Off for Busy Kyle Busch

CONCORD, N.C. (July 24, 2006) – While his fellow NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series competitors enjoy a break in the action with a much needed week off, 21-year-old Kyle Busch has a busy seven days ahead of him. Busch will kick it off with groomsman duties in his brother’s wedding in Virginia Beach, Va., before catching a flight to St. Louis for Saturday’s NASCAR Busch Series race at Gateway International Raceway. Then, on Sunday, he plans to wrap up his hectic week with even more racing -- the Oxford 250 Super Late Model event in Oxford, Maine. But even with the crazy schedule, Busch, if nothing else, is a racer and has managed to stay focused on Gateway, where he qualified fourth and finished fifth in his only career start there in May 2004. The race marked the sixth in a string of 10 straight top-10 finishes that vaulted him to the top of the championship standings in his rookie season in the Busch Series. “Gateway is a difficult track,” said Busch, who will drive a No. 5 Lowe’s/Spectracide Chevrolet on Saturday. “Turns one and two are much different from three and four, and the straightaways are very long. Overall, I think we should be OK. We were good at Loudon (N.H.), which is pretty similar to Gateway.” Busch also knows that his crew chief, Chad Walter, has selected a solid car for the weekend -- Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 345, which finished ninth at Richmond, Va., in May. But in a part of the country that has recently made headlines for its dangerously high temperatures, keeping cool -- literally -- is what the team is concerned with. “The heat is pretty bad in St. Louis,” said Busch, an authority on the subject having grown up in the desert climate of Las Vegas. “It’s going to be really hard on the guys working on the cars throughout both days. The drivers, we race at night, but it’s still not going to cool down. It’s definitely not easy on us in those cars. “We’ll have to make do with what it is and try to stay cool. I definitely want to make sure I’m hydrated for the whole weekend. The best way to manage the heat is to drink a lot of Gatorade and get a good cooling system in the car and in your helmet. That’s all you can do.” Like most of his NEXTEL Cup competitors, Busch could have easily opted for a less hectic season, but he understands the importance of the Busch Series in his maturation as a driver and for the development opportunities it offers crew members. “The Busch Series is a proving ground in NASCAR,” Busch said. “For me, the Busch Series is a great learning and training tool. There are different things you can do in this series to get yourself ready, as well as team members ready, for the next step, which is NEXTEL Cup.”