Kyle Busch Says He Can’t Make His Cars Go Any Faster

Kyle Busch hasn’t had the finishes he hoped for so far this year. His ninth-place run at Bristol last week was just his first top 10 of the entire season, and he’s averaging a 15th-place finish.

That’s not the Busch people expected to see after previous crew chief Steve Addington was dumped in favor of former Nationwide crew chief Dave Rogers.

So even though he’s 10th in points, it makes people wonder: What gives?

“I’m only as good as my equipment will let me go,” Busch said Friday morning at Martinsville Speedway. “Everyone’s been asking me why I haven’t been running good: Is it my head? Is it because I’m running a truck team? Is it this, is it that? I’m driving my butt off every single week – I can only go as fast as my car will let me go.”

But if the cars aren’t fast enough, that begs another question: Is it Addington? There’s already some who believe Busch and Joe Gibbs Racing may have made a mistake by letting Addington go – particularly in light of the crew chief’s fast start with Busch’s older brother, Kurt (one win, three top-10s, seventh in points).

Busch was asked if it was tough to see Addington succeed – and win – while the No. 18 team’s performance was lackluster by its own standards.

“It’s not tough at all – I’m happy for him,” Busch said. “I knew he was a good crew chief, I just didn’t feel like we had enough leadership skills around the team that would keep us championship-caliber year after year.

“Dave’s done a real good job pushing everybody harder and keeping everybody on the same page and making sure we try to elevate to the next level. Our on-track performance maybe hasn’t been as good as we would have liked, but I feel like the team’s a lot closer together and gelling a lot better.”

Busch said he looks at the learning curve for Juan Pablo Montoya’s crew chief Brian Pattie. In that instance, the crew chief was excellent in the Nationwide Series (as Rogers was) and was brought up to Sprint Cup.

“[Pattie] was decent out of the box [in Cup], but it really took him about a year to learn this car,” Busch said. “And once he learned this car, you look at Juan and he’s top of the [speed] sheets every week.

“I hope it doesn’t take that long with Dave – I don’t feel like we have that time. I feel like Dave’s a smart enough crew chief where we’ll get going pretty good.”

As for where the No. 18 team goes from here? Busch said he looks at being in the top 12 at this point as a bonus.

“I’m actually surprised we’re as high in points as we are with the finishes that we’ve had,” he said, “but that’s a good surprise because all you do is build consistency. You run well and you run top-14, top-15 every week and you’ll be there.”