A revamped driver lineup at Chip Ganassi Racing finds veteran Kurt Busch joining the fold to join Kyle Larson for the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season.
Busch takes the wheel of the CGR No. 1 ride formerly held by Jamie McMurray. Busch spent four seasons at Stewart-Haas Racing and now migrates to CGR looking to add to his career Cup win total of 30 victories.
“Everybody that’s in this sport of NASCAR wants to win,” Busch said of joining CGR. “They want to work hard and they want to have fun while they’re doing it. I’ve been up here plenty of days. I show-up early and surprise the crew guys and jump in the pit stop car and kind of put them out of rhythm and just see how they react to it. But the overall shop atmosphere, I think here, is very hungry.
“At SHR we had a fantastic year last year with all the wins. That changes people’s demeanor sometimes like oh yeah, we know what we’re doing. Where I think this group here is that much more eager and they’re hungrier and they want to do more. That’s what I feel as I walk through the shop.”
Busch teams up with Larson who endured a competitive 2018 but was shutout of Victory Lane after winning four times the previous season. Larson believes Busch’s veteran presence will be beneficial to the organization and is looking forward to his overall contributions.
“I think he understands the car a lot and he obviously raced for the quickest team last year, so I think he hopefully can bring some knowledge from that,” Larson said. “He’s pretty involved, so I think it’s good to have somebody like that at our shop. And he’ll push everybody in the shop and myself just to be better.
Larson will again be paired with crew chief Chad Johnston in the Ganassi No. 42 Chevrolet. Johnston is looking at last year as something to build on and believes even with going winless there is a foundation in place to improve in 2019.
“Last year, obviously we didn’t get a win, but consistency is a big part of it,” Johnston said of a year that included six second place finishes. “It’s a bit disappointing, but you can’t be disappointed with second either when you’re going against stout driver and teams and with all the money everybody is spending.
“We do really well with what we have; with a small, two-car team I feel we do really well against other two-car teams and those big for-car teams.”
Audio: NASCAR Live 2019 Season Preview
Busch has Matt McCall calling the shots for his team. His experience as a short track racer is something Busch thinks will be helpful in the duo finding success working together in the coming season.
“Yes, this is great,” Busch said. “It’s like a brother I’ve never had before where they’re a racer and somebody that’s worked on the car.
“And then with all of the changing technology, you’ve got to have all the different backgrounds it seems like, to be able to adapt; but also, our learning curve will be less, at this point because of all the racing experience we have together.”
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