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Busch will be behind the wheel of the No. 51 Toyota in the Sam’s Town 400 at Texas Motor Speedway on Friday night. Saturday, he’ll race the No. 32 Toyota for Braun Racing in the Nationwide Series at Nashville Superspeedway for the Federated Auto Parts 300. By Sunday morning he’ll arrive back at Pocono Raceway in time to hop into his No. 18 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Pocono 500 for the Cup Series.
“It’s just in your blood. You’re either a racer or you’re not,” Jeff Dickerson said. “If they line up some cars, put people in the grandstands and give out a trophy, then someone is going to get their picture taken with a pretty girl. It doesn’t matter if it’s Friday, Saturday or Sunday - we want to get a trophy, and we want a picture taken with a pretty girl.”
For Busch, it’s about both his love of racing and a loyalty to truck team owner Billy Ballew.
“It’s not about merchandise sales, or fan club members or Q-ratings - he’s not jaded enough to think of things like that yet,” Dickerson said of the 23-year-old phenom. “It’s just about winning races. Every driver says it, but I don’t think every fan believes them. With Kyle there is no doubt.
“Love him or hate him, every person in that grandstand knows that Kyle is there for one reason, and it’s to win that race.”
“I want to keep Billy up front, and no one else can do it,” Busch said. “I think it’s cool that as long as he’s been in the sport, he’s finally got a chance to win a championship and I want to help him keep that alive.”
“He’s been around so long, and he’s never had a full-time driver capable of winning him a championship,” Busch said. “I’d like to be the one to do it for him.”
Dickerson said. “As good a road racer as Kyle is, I expect to be in Victory Lane by the end of the day.”
And in the end, that’s the only place Busch really wants to be.
“I don’t have a family of my own that I have to focus on or be with all the time, and racing is what’s in my blood,” Busch said.
“I want to race every day, all day, every minute,” Busch said. “I want to be in a car, by myself, because that’s where I am happiest.”
Busch will transition between three circuits, three types of cars, and three different race teams. He will sacrifice Truck and Nationwide track time to not miss any Cup practice at Pocono. Cup team owner, Joe Gibbs, has expressed no concerns with Busch’s triple.
“It’s fun for the fans to see me as crazy or as stupid as I might be, trying to run all these,” Busch said. “They get the excitement of seeing whether or not I’ll succeed or fail.”
His biggest concern, he said, is putting up with a television crew that will be sticking cameras in his face and grabbing sound bites at every turn.
“That’s kind of going to be probably the most draining thing,” Busch said, “just toting them around with us.”
“Normally I’m pretty good at sleeping on planes,” Busch said. “I look forward to getting a couple naps on there back and forth.”
“As far as me getting drained physically or anything like that, I don’t feel like that’s a possibility,” he said. “Hopefully, there is enough off-time during the week to where I can rest up. I’m a guy always on the go.”
“I am a little jealous,” Edwards said. “That sounds like a lot of fun. That’s very neat. … It is not really that difficult. It is mostly just fun.”
