Kyle Busch isn’t worried about the unknowns this weekend in the Bank of America Roval 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Busch’s win last week at Richmond Raceway advanced him to Round 2 of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. Sunday is the final race to determine who moves on to the next round and four drivers will be eliminated. But Busch along with Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick – once he starts the race – don’t have any of that pressure.
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“It certainly means a huge relief,” Busch said of not worrying about advancing while navigating the unknowns at the new 17-turns road circuit. “It also would have been a relief even if we would not have won that race but still been ahead by 60 or whatever points of the guys who were on the cutoff. We would have been fine, as well. We could have gone into the Roval and raced our way however we wanted to race.
“Either way you look at it, if you were a guy who was in the bottom, if we would have had trouble in the first playoff race more than we did, and if we would have had trouble again at Richmond and been kind of at the cutoff line, then obviously it would make for a very, very stressful week and a stressful Roval. But, right now, it feels pretty good.”
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Busch did do some testing at the new track last summer so has at least some experience around the 2.28-mile course. But now with the pressure of the playoffs off thanks to his seventh win of the season last week at Richmond, Busch will approach Sunday’s Charlotte race much differently.
“I think so. You want to win,” he explained. “I think you can drive it differently because you can go force the issue sometimes and try to get a win or get a good finish versus just kind of having to be stressed about it the whole day and on your toes about it the whole day and worrisome.”
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There is definitely incentive for Busch to put an eighth win on the board in Charlotte. In addition to accumulating additional Playoff points to use as the championship schedule rolls on there is also personal pride at stake. Busch is tied with David Pearson and Mark Martin with four Cup Series road-course wins apiece. Number five would tie tie Darrell Waltrip, Tim Richmond and Dan Gurney on the road-course win list.
And he can do so virtually worry-free.
“We were fortunate to get the win at Richmond last weekend, but you also don’t want to put yourself in a bad spot, either,” Busch said.
“Just happy we got a win and we can approach this weekend solely on doing what we need to do to win the race on Sunday and not worry about points.”
