“He reminds me of Tony Stewart,” said Steve Carter, Kyle Busch’s longtime motorhome driver. “Like out in the motorhome lot, you know, he’s a lot of fun and a lot of fun to be around. But the second he enters the garage area, he flips that switch and the competitive thing goes on and all he can think about is racing and winning. And that’s what most people see of him. They don’t see how fun and laid back he can be.”

It was Friday, February 21, 2008 at 6 P.M. and California Speedway sat beneath battleship grey skies as a light rain and rain fell upon its 11-degree banks. A few minutes earlier I had finished up a lengthy interview inside Kyle Busch’s black, silver and blue Marathon Coach motorhome (which sat in Motorhome Spot #51, immediately adjacent to his brother Kurt’s motorhome) and now Steve was driving me back to my car. I had never met Kyle before, but had watched him on TV a mere five days earlier as he led 86 laps of the Daytona 500, coming up just short at the end, placing a bitterly disappointing fourth overall. In his #18 M&M’s Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, Busch had been the star of America’s Great Race and had hoped to make his debut with Team Gibbs a winning one, but it just wasn’t to be. Just 22 years old and the youngest driver to ever win a NASCAR Sprint Cup race (at 20 years and 125 days old, he won the 2005 Sony HD 500 here at California Speedway), Busch is, in the eyes of many, one of — if not thee — most naturally talented driver in the Sprint Cup garage. He’s also possesses one of the strongest personalities. With words such as “brash” and “cocky” and “arrogant” and “outspoken” often attached to his name by the media, I wasn’t sure what I was in for in meeting Kyle Busch. However, when all was said and done, I was pretty struck by the fact that he was, at least to my way of seeing things, a normal, reasonable, well spoken and fun-loving kid who was having a great time doing what he loved more than anything else in life: racing cars. I guess Steve Carter really did have it right.

Kyle, the last time we were here at California Speedway was last September and it was 112 degrees outside. Now, here we are in the February of 2008 and it’s 48 degrees and it’s raining. How do you feel about that?
Actually, it’s kind of nice and it makes it nice for everybody else, too, because you don’t have much hot weather to deal with. Everybody’s not so hot and sweaty and they feel better and it makes the field closer together for those guys who don’t like it when it’s hot, so that’s the biggest thing.

Will you be able to spend some time in your hometown of Las Vegas while you’re out here?
Yeah, after this weekend is over, we have Vegas which comes up next weekend right away, so instead of going home to North Carolina, I‘m just going to stay on here on the West Coast and go to Vegas and go play out in the sand dunes.

And hook up with friends?
I’ll go hang out with some friends. We’ll go out clubbing a little bit or go hang out or go out gambling or go bowling or something like that just to bring back some old times of hanging out.

Have you ever been in the penthouse suite of the Hard Rock Hotel that has the bowling alley in it? That place is something else…
I haven’t. I’ve heard about it. I know Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson and Dale Junior have all once rented it out and they’ve had t, but I’ve never been there, though.

Mere minutes after you climbed out of the car at the Daytona 500, the cameras were right on you. You looked pretty pissed. Did you think you had it won?
Oh yeah. You always think when you have that good of a race car, you have it. We thought it when we ran through practice with it in the testing down there in January. Even then we were pretty good. You know there won only one guy that we thought was better than us which was Jeff Gordon and we were even better than him. Our teammates were strong there at the end, as well. Tony was. Denny was, but he got caught up in some traffic and got tore up a little bit. But still, it’s frustrating when you have that good of a car and lead that many laps and run that well all ay long and in the end you just can’t find the right breaks.

The TV broadcast was able to capture you and Tony on the radios attempting to map out a strategy for the very end of the race. What happened when the race went green with two laps to go?
We were trying to figure out something. When I made that move on the last restart to go bellow Jeff Burton, he forced me down before the line and Stewart saw that so he wanted to go high because he didn’t want to get busted for gong below the line. Tony made that choice and got up to the lead and we thought he was going to have our Toyota and Joe Gibbs shot to win the race, but then the 2 and the 12 just came out of nowhere out on the backstretch and Tony didn’t see the run coming and thought I was close enough to push him, so it didn’t quite work out.

Yet your brother managed to push his teammate Ryan Newman across the finish line to victory. Did you and your brother get to speak to one another after the race?
No, if we saw each other we would have, but no. We’re going to hang out in the dunes in a couple of weeks, so we’ll talk there. But I went home and he went home and we didn’t talk this week, but we’ll see each other this weekend, I’m sure.

Stepping back a bit, how did you guys get into racing? Was your dad a racer?
How it all started was that my dad and his dad were always race fans. They were never into racing — they never raced, but they’d go down to the Daytona 500. In fact my dad was actually at the first Daytona 500 (Note: In 1959). He was down in the infield as a kid. I think he was like four years old or something like that, so we was just chilling. Later in life, my mom and dad got married and went out to Vegas for their honeymoon and liked it so much they decided that’s where they were going to move to. So when my dad moved out there he was working at a Ford dealership and a guy across the way owned a car and had a guy driving for him and decided he go put and help them out at a local short track. The guy who was driving the car decided he didn’t want to do it anymore and the guy who owned the car decided he was going to sell it, so my dad went up to him and told him, “Don’t sell it. You own it and I’ll drive it and I’ll take car of it and upkeep it.” So the guy said, ‘Here, here’s the car. Take it.’ I think he won his first race and then he won the last four races out of the year and went for the points deal and won the championship the following year and that’s kind of how it all started. My dad was 25 when he first started so he knew he wasn’t going to really make it big. He didn’t really want to make it big. He just did it as a hobby and for fun. And when my brother was old enough to start racing, he did, and when I was old enough to start, I did.

How did your brother Kurt get started?
We had a little go-kart that was hand-made. My dad built it for us when my brother was 11, which would put me at five years old. At that age m dad would drive it and I would sit in his lap and steer it. And then my brother would race it some. My brother started racing when he was 15 and half in Dwarf Cars on dirt in Pahrump, Nevada (Note: 63 miles northwest of central Las Vegas). When I started, I was 13 years old. They lowered the age limit in the legends cars, so you could run when you were 12 years or older.

As far as being brothers, how did you guys get along as kids?
We were hardcore racers, you know? We just wanted to go out there and perform at our best and luckily the success came and we won about every week, so that’s what made it easy on us to keep going and keep racing because we were successful at it. The biggest thing was that it was fun for us to do as a family and have something to do on the weekends.

With racing so much, how was your social life in High School?
I didn’t have one (laughs). We were always racing, although we never really traveled much. We always had the races in town, or if there wasn’t a race in town that weekend we’d go to like Salt Lake City or somewhere in California or Arizona, somewhere that was close that was racing. We pretty much raced every single weekend. I would just go to school and do my schoolwork. Normally, I would get my homework done when I was still in the class and stuff like that. I was pretty smart, but not the smartest. I was smart enough to get my stuff done and out of the way so that when I would get home I could just go straight in the garage and work on race cars.

So you were wrenching on them, too, huh?
Yes! This is funny. I actually had a set of coveralls. You know you have the pants and then you just pull the shirt up and zip it up. I would just home in my school clothes and put my coveralls on and just be digging in the garage. I wouldn’t even waste time to go in the house and change. I mean I was doing this when I was 9 or 10 years old.

By the age of 17 you were already competing in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and were marked as a future star. Were you aware of how quickly you were progressing in the sport?
What helped was my brother. Everybody would say, “Wow, this kid is pretty good.” Then Kurt would say, “Well, if you think I’m good, wait until you see my little brother.” So he kind of helped out a little bit in saying that. A lot of people always said that I had the drive and the fire and the desire to do it. So that’s what always kept me going. That and winning races. Winning races always was always what brought me to the next race.

At this time we’re you beginning to think: “I’m on my way and there’s no other thing I’m going to do in life but this”?
I was thinking like that when I was winning races in Legends cars. My mom was always asking me, “What are you going to do?’” I’d say, “Well. I’m racing.” She’d reply, “No you’re not racing, what are you going to do?” I’d say, “What do you want me to do?” And she’d say, “I want to you to become an orthodontist.” I was like, “I don’t think so.” I pretty much decided I wanted be a race car driver when I was 15 or 16. I knew my brother had already made his way up, so I was just going to follow him. But you never know if you’re going to make it or how far you’re going to go. You never now when it could just end one day. You never know how secure your job is unless you’re winning every single weekend. If you don’t win 36 weeks out of the year, I don’t know how good you are.

Do you still feel that sort of pressure?
I don’t think I’m as successful as I would like to be. I don’t win near enough to my standards. You know you look at these guys like Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson. Jeff won six races last year and Jimmy won 10. Jeff has been the dominant force. That’s what I want. I want to be known as a dominant force in the series. Jimmy Johnson pretty much has that label right now, so I’m working towards that. It might not be my time just yet. I’m 22 years old and will be 23 in May and I still have plenty of years ahead of me. Jimmy is like 30 or 32 years old now and it’s his time right now and he’s pretty much the king of the crop, but I think maybe sooner or later it’ll be mine.

While at Hendrick Motorsports, did you get along with Gordon and Johnson?
Yeah, we did. I never really did anything off the racetrack with them or anything. They’d always hang out together or go to New York together or they’d go to Aspen together or go overseas together and stuff, but I was never a part of any of those trips. You know, not knowing the reason for that. I guess I just didn’t quite mix in as well as Casey Mears does or Dale Junior might.

How did you feel about the Joe Gibbs Racing effort while you were negotiating with them about your future? Also, was Toyota a big variable in your consideration process in speaking wit them?
The talks of Toyota in the beginning were kind of shaky. I was asking them what they were going to do and they wouldn’t quite tell me because I wasn’t secure about going there yet, so they weren’t very open about it. But their company as a whole and showing me around and taking me through their shop and stuff, I was impressed. I knew Joe Gibbs Racing was a good fir for me.”

Did you know Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin at all before joining JGR?
I was really good friends with Denny. Denny and I hung out a little bit. Tony not so much as we had our rough spots in the past, but we’ve become better and better friends since we’ve gotten over al that stuff.

Last spring at Bristol, you won the inaugural NASCAR “Car of Tomorrow” race. Afterwards, on live national television, you remarked that the car “sucked.” Did NASCAR react negatively to that particular comment?
Well, they do in their own particular way. They’ve got their way of letting you know that they’re not very appreciative, so I’ll just leave it at that.

What do you think of the CoT now?
It is what it is. I’m not a very big fan of it, but I can whel the hell out of it, I guess.

In the past year or two, the topic of your natural talent in a race car seems to be coming up a lot. In fact it came up a lot at Daytona. Have you been hearing these things?
Yeah, I have. I heard it was the Kyle Busch 500 on TV, so I had to go back and watch it. I don’t know what it is or where it comes from, I just don’t know. I’m glad I got it whatever it is. God gifted me with what I’ve got and the talents that I have. It’s kind of funny. I’ve got the saying like what Ricky Bobby says: ‘I just want to go fast.’ So whatever I can drive and make it go faster is what I want to do. If it’s a four-wheeler and it can go faster, I’m going to make it go faster. If it can get more air, I’m going to want to see it get more air. You know I don’t care what it is. It’s just fun for me.

On ay given weekend, you race all three NASCAR classifications. Do you enjoy racing that much?
I’m doing all three classes again this weekend. I mean if you’re sitting in the motorhome and listening to the cars or the trucks going around the racetrack and you’re watching them on TV, why don’t you just be out there anyway? It’s fun for me to do and I love it. It’s a lot easier for me to be out there doing it than it is for me to be watching it and wishing I was out there.

I know you guys have to live your life in a fishbowl. Does it get tiring?
It’s very tiring. That’s the most tiring part of this whole sport: How many questions you answer the same over and over again, but different people don’t have those answers so that’s why you do it over and over again. It’s just a part of it. For me, it’s what brings the paycheck and what makes you so good in order to get out there and race the cars.

So you put up with all so you can race, right?
Exactly.

Hypothetically, if Toyota were to arrange a test for you in a Formula 1 car, would you do it?
I would do it in a heartbeat. I would drive anything that I could get my hands on. I don’t care, I’d love to drive anything. So a Formula 1 car, I think, would be pretty awesome.

There are some people who think you could race F1 if you wanted to. If the opportunity ever presented itself, would you consider it?
It would be hard to do because we’re always so busy here in running the races we run and I don’t think I could just jump over there and make a special one race deal, but I think it would be pretty cool just to get a shot out there and do it. The thing about Formula 1, too, is that the equipment isn’t as even as it is here in NASCAR. The drivers really come out here. I think it’s a lot of equipment over there. I think it’ actually more 70%/30% car than it is driver. You know you’ve got Ferrari and you’ve got McLaren and those guys have great cars. And Toyota just came in a couple of years ago and they’re just getting their feet wet. If they had a car that could run up front and win every week, then I’d race it. But just doing a test in it would be cool. It would be a good way to get my feet wet.

Can you win the 2008 Sprint Cup?
I think I’ve got a shot at winning all three championships [Craftsman, Nationwide and Sprint Series] except I’m not able to race in all three every week. Cup is priority. I think I’ve got a great team over here with Gibbs and M&M’s and Steve Addington. So I feel we’ve got a great shot at the championship.

Be in the television, print or electronic media, I’ve heard it spoken or written that you can be outspoken or brash or arrogant. In sitting here, I don’t really sense that at all…
People don’t get a good enough understanding of me. They don’t get enough time or hang out or to see who exactly who I am. I can be aggravated sometimes and kind of show it too much. You can get frustrated and I tend to show it too much, which is fine, but people write it. They don’t cut me a break when times when I’m frustrated. When I’m frustrated, it’s when I’m in the fishbowl. They don’t see me when I’m hanging out at home and just chilling with my friends, having a good time being a laid back and being an easy, cool cat. That’s where people get a bad opinion of me: From what they see on TV or what they read. I should do a better job of faking it I guess than what I do show. I guess what I show is who I am for real. I mean everybody has got their own drive and everybody has their own intensity level and stuff like that. I think I’m just up here (raises arm above head). I mean I‘m so intense and want to be so successful and want to win races every single weekend that if something doesn’t go your way or something doesn’t go right, then you’re going to be frustrated and you’re going to be mad and you’re going to want to take it out on something so I guess you take it on yourself sometimes when you’re outspoken, but for me that’s just the way it is and I guess I have to live with it.

Eric Johnson