Victory Interview with Kyle Busch from NASCAR Nationwide Series at RIR

Kyle Busch went 2-for-2 at Richmond this weekend getting things started in Friday night’s Nationwide Series race when he overpowered Carl Edwards on a re-start with 22 laps to go and cruised home to take the checkered flag in the Lipton Tea 250.

Kyle Busch:
He didn’t get off of the re-start as good as I did and I faked him low and then went high and then went up to his outside and was just trying to get into the corner, trying to just get up enough along side of him there when we were racing when Keselowski caught up to us there before that lap 30 to go caution. I was trying to just get there, I couldn’t quite get enough on him to where he would have to pinch it off the corner and I could drive up enough side of him off of the corner. So fortunately there on that re-start like I said I got up enough along side of him to where he had to give me a lane and we were able to pass him and clear him.

Brad Keselowski:
I got nothing on re-starts. I got to work on that and we have to work on that with our gear and whatever. I just can’t go so I want to beat Kyle more than anything, he’s a really tough competitor but it was a good race between us and that’s fun.

For Edwards who is yet to win in 2009 it was his fourth runner-up of the year.

Carl Edwards:
I’m trying not to think about running second but I just got beat on the re-start and I just didn’t have anything for Kyle there. He got to the outside of me and got by me and we needed a long run to be able to get him back and it just didn’t work out. Still a great points day, we led a bunch of laps, had a strong car. It would be alright if Kyle wasn’t the one in front of us but we are keeping him in sight.

Speaking of Kyle, he has now won 24 Nationwide Series races, tying Tommy Houston for fifth on the all-time list.

Kyle Busch:

It’s pretty neat to be fifth I guess, we’re looking to take off Mark Martin off the top. I have a long ways to go and it would be fun to chase that and see if we can get there.

At 48 victories, Martin is the biggest winner in Nationwide Series history. Finishing third at Richmond it was Matt Kenseth.

Matt Kenseth:
Most of the night they were most all better than us and on the re-starts I seemed to struggle with my car and I think Carl was having some of the same problems for whatever reason. Going up through the gears and our cars rolling, I got past on several of them. It looked to me like the same thing just happened to him. It looked like it got passed it going up through the gears on a straight away.

Fourth across the stripe, it was Brad Keselowski with Kevin Harvick fifth. Sixth was Joey Logano. Seventh Mark Martin and eighth top finishing rookie Michael McDowell.

Michael McDowell:
Early in the race we got up forward and top 15 pretty early on and there at the end just some strategy and staying on the lead lap and staying out of the junk really gave us track position. We just didn’t really have any tires there and we had a lot of cars behind us with four tires so it was pretty tough.

Rounding up the top 10 at Richmond were Jason Keller and Jason Leffler. In the battle for the Nationwide Series driver championship, Kyle Bush has now moved onto an 82 point lead over Carl Edwards, with Leffler third minus 198.

Jason Leffler:
It’s really early. Hopefully it keeps going this way and we keep having solid top five days. We can just keep having solid top five days and gain 10 points here and loose five points there, gain 10 points here and we’ll be doing alright.

Finally Edwards sponsors Scotts had a new paint scheme for him at Richmond which he and Matt Kenseth talked about when the race was over.

Edwards:
The moisture control works, we didn’t get any rain so it was good. Matt said he liked all of my veggies on the back of my car.

Kenseth:
It is hard to take him serious without a sunflower on the back and a tomato and stuff.


A full set of the pictures taken at the Richmond International Raceway can be viewed at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationwide/sets/72157617484711265/.

The Nationwide Series will run at the Darlington Raceway in South Carolina. Look for the audio interview following the Diamond Hill Plywood 200.

And don’t forget, Nationwide’s Media Team will be Twittering from Darlington.  You can follow the Team’s whereabouts on the track at Twitter/Nationwide (http://twitter.com/Nationwide). If there is a picture of someone or something you would like to see trackside, send your request to http://twitter.com/Nationwide. The team will try its best to get the shot. Pictures will be posted at http://www.twitpic.com/photos/nationwide