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MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES: POCONO 400

June 3, 2018

Long Pond, Pennsylvania

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Kyle Busch, who finished third in today's race, driver of the No.18 M&M's Red, White and Blue Toyota. Why don't you take us through that final stop and restart there.
KYLE BUSCH: Might as well go before that. Shoot, we're here. Just real unfortunate there that once we all thought we had that caution that brought us all down pit road for what we thought was the final stop of the day, we got tires, we beat everybody off pit road and was in control of the restart and then in control of the race when we were leading there, and all of a sudden about 10, 11 laps into that run, there was a caution in Turn 1 for what looked to me to be a shoe booty. Somebody took their booty off, I guess, and chucked it out their window. That was kind of weird that we saw a caution for that, but safety comes first, so that just kind of derailed our strategy, if you will, and we lost this race last year on not pitting in that situation and getting beat by tires, and so we pitted this year for tires and got beat by those that didn't pit.
Just really a crazy situation there with how all that kind of transpired and went down, but we fought hard for the finish and tried to get the most out of what we could there and just couldn't pass.
THE MODERATOR: We're also joined by Kyle Larson, who finished second today. He's the driver of the No.42 DC Solar Chevrolet. Take us through that run there at the end.
KYLE LARSON: We weren't quite as fast as what I thought we'd be after practice. I ran probably sixth or seventh all day long and finished second. Was happy about that because I felt like obviously we were at a little bit of a disadvantage on tires there, but the track position overcame that. But I felt like if I didn't have a good restart on any one of those, I would have fell back outside the top 5 from those guys on fresher tires. Happy we finished second but needed a lot more to kind of compete with the three guys that ran up front all day.

Q. Kyle Busch, I saw one of your crew members yesterday wearing the "pure talent" shirts. Did you design that? I wonder if they'll be sold at all. I know it was back from the Charlotte truck race last month.
KYLE BUSCH: Those were just made by the pit crew as kind of a gag, as kind of a joke, but hopefully they didn't steal too much of the thunder because we were working on a shirt that said that in order to sell for charity reasons, so hopefully we can get that going on and not take away from my team guys' designs that they already had made.

Q. Larson, could you just talk about the progression of the 42 team? Just seems like Chevrolet has been trying to catch up all season with the Camaro. How was the car today compared to the Toyotas?
KYLE LARSON: I felt like my car today was kind of as good as it's been all year. I feel like the Hendrick guys have definitely gotten better, as well as RCR guys. But I feel like I've kind of just been a step behind the 18, the 78 and the 4.
I definitely felt like the 4 had the most power down the straightaways today, the little bit I was in front of him there at the end. I felt like even when I get a good exit off of 3, he would close on me a lot, compared to the 18 and the 78 a little bit, but the 4 was definitely really fast.
But we've got to just continue to work hard and, yeah, try and get our cars a little bit better.

Q. For both of you, were you surprised by the difference that the clean air made as opposed to the tires? Not pitting and pitting seemed to make way more of a difference last year as opposed to this year?
KYLE LARSON: No, I mean, clean air is always super important here. He and the 4 were way better than I was at the end, but I was just able to kind of stay just low enough on exit I felt like to keep them tight behind me, so yeah, clean air is just important everywhere, but especially I feel like when you get to these fast tracks that are pretty flat.
KYLE BUSCH: Yeah, it was a little disappointing that the tires didn't mean anything more than they did there at the end with guys that had 10, 11 laps on their tires and they were able to still outrun us and beat us for us having fresher rubber. Clean air was king.

Q. Kyle, I know obviously you were at the go‑kart track last night, but then right after that you and Denny ran into someone who was out of gas. Can you kind of go through that story and explain what happened? Any good karma now that you end up P2?
KYLE LARSON: Yeah, a little good karma probably. Yeah, that was fun at S&S Speedway there, a little slick track. That place was a lot of fun. But yeah, as soon as we left, like a quarter mile up the road, kind of gets windy and it was dark and we were following this minivan that had started slowing down in front of us, so we stopped just to see what was wrong, if they needed help, and they were out of fuel, so all we did was really just turn around and go get a fuel jug from the go‑kart track, cruise up and put a couple gallons in their car and sent them on their way and led them to a nearby gas station. Yeah, it was cool to help out. They had a little daughter, so we just wanted to make sure that they were safe because it was a very‑‑ I think they called that corner dead man's corner, so yeah, we didn't want to leave them stranded there.

Q. Larson, just how do you feel going into Michigan next week where you've been so good, and how do you evaluate what your season has been so far this year?
KYLE LARSON: Yeah, I hadn't really thought about Michigan yet. But yeah, I'm excited to go there off of three wins in a row. Yeah, you know, for whatever reason, we've been fast there. We actually weren't that fast the last one we had, but we were able to have some good restarts at the end.
Hopefully we can go and have our car as competitive as it was the first two times and try and get a fourth win.

Q. Both you guys, it seemed like the inside line on a restart you were dead in the water. Even if you're running in second place, how tough was it to restart on the inside line? Why was it so bad? And should NASCAR address that at a track like this if it's so bad on one line versus the other?
KYLE BUSCH: Third is the inside line, isn't it? That's typical. You know, when you're on the outside, the leader typically chooses the outside for the launch and to get going, and so he can control the guy on his inside and not get in a bad aero spot so that just makes that lane accelerate just that instant sooner, and that momentum just kind of rolls. But I thought Larson and I had a pretty good run there on that final restart where I pushed him back up to the back of the 78, and he didn't hit him enough in order to get him up the track a little farther so I could squeak on under there and have a three‑wide battle and probably a whole bunch of fire and flames and parts on the outside of the racetrack in Turn 2, but maybe next time.
KYLE LARSON: I tried.

Q. How likely do you think it is that the four guys that finished top 4 are likely to be like the championship racers at Homestead in November?
KYLE LARSON: I'm good with it. Let's do it. I don't know, I think three out of the four have definitely been the best. I think‑‑ I would say me. I mean, I'm the only one that doesn't have a win in the front four. But yeah, I mean, the 2, the 12‑‑ yeah, I don't know. I think that three of those guys are definitely head over heels better than the rest of us, but I think from fourth to sixth or seventh best car, it's pretty close.

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