Kyle Busch on expectations for Jeff Gordon: 'He could surprise us all'
It's always a good feeling for a driver when they come back to a race track where they are the defending winner.
That's the case for Kyle Busch this weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
"It's pretty cool," said Busch. "I get a good chance to come out here and hopefully have an opportunity to defend our Brickyard 400 victory of last year and look forward to being able to do that again in the Skittles colors and hopefully take Toyota to Victory Lane here for the second time."
On Friday in the IMS media center, the defending Crown Royal 400 at the Brickyard winner received rings for his Sprint Cup and XFINITY Series victories after sweeping both races last season at Indy.
Competing in both events this weekend, Busch would love to kiss the bricks again.
"Last year's win here was huge. It was a big relief," said Busch. "It felt good to finally get one of the big three sort of out of the way and being able to win the Brickyard 400 was awesome. I'd love to be able to -- now that you taste it once, you know you want to be able to do it again, but there's a lot of other guys out there that certainly want to be able to do it as well and again my teammates all are really strong."
"None of them have won the Brickyard 400 yet, so I'm sure that they're going to be just as hungry as I am to repeat and it's going to be fun to see, but really right now I probably look at it as there's 12 maybe 15 guys that legitimately have a good chance of winning here on Sunday."
One of those guys Busch is referring to would love to win at Indy for a record sixth time -- Jeff Gordon.
When asked if Gordon, subbing for Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, could win on Sunday, Busch definitely didn't rule out the possibility.
"He could surprise us all," Busch said. "He could win, but realistically I feel like top 10 for sure. I feel like he's -- he could be pretty good enough to just kind of jump back in and be ready to finish to top 10 right away. I feel like top five is probably what's expected maybe, but getting a win, that's high expectations."
Busch, who missed a good portion of the 2015 season after a serious leg injury, also knows all too well what Earnhardt is going through right now, as he is forced to watch from the sidelines.
"Well, I certainly don't want to put any words in Dale (Earnhardt) Jr.'s mouth about what he's feeling right now, but for myself it was hard for me to handle," Busch said. "You definitely don't want to see someone else driving your race car, but on the other hand you want to help as much as you can."
"I don't know when his (Earnhardt's) return will be, but I suspect it will be sooner than 11 weeks," added Busch. "I just hope that he's doing the best that he can do and obviously I heard a little bit of news of what he said earlier (Friday), so that's good and hope he's back sooner than later."
Busch's weekend hasn't been all glamorus, getting off to a rocky start in Friday's first practice session after making contact with Patrick Carpentier going into Turn 2, causing him to spin. Fortunately, Busch was able to avoid hitting the wall and received minimal damage from contact with Carpentier.
If Busch wants to win at the Brickyard for the second time, he'll have to be nearly flawless as the competition will be tough.
"We've had good speed in our race cars," Busch said. "Joe Gibbs Racing has been really fast, so there's a good opportunity for any of our teammates to win. It's just a matter of being able to put all the pieces together for our car and make sure the No. 18 is as fast as we can make it."
