Saturday Charlotte Notebook
Payback from Brad Keselowski wouldn’t surprise Kyle Busch
Oct. 12, 2013
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
CONCORD,
N.C.—After knocking Brad Keselowski’s Ford into the fence in last
Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Kansas Speedway, Kyle Busch
said he wouldn’t be shocked
if Keselowski retaliates in an upcoming NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event.
“Probably,
for Brad being who Brad is, I guess I should be worried, because he’s
stupid enough to do something,” Busch told Mike Bagley and Pete Pistone
Friday on SiriusXM
NASCAR Radio’s “The Morning Drive.”
Busch
can’t forget the race at Watkins Glen in August 2012. With Busch in the
lead, contact from Keselowski’s Ford sent Busch’s No. 18 Toyota spinning
two laps left. Subsequently,
Busch narrowly missed qualifying for the Chase.
“In all
reality, to myself, I guess I have more respect for drivers than that,”
Busch said. “I got wrecked last year at Watkins Glen. He could have
given me an inch, and we
could have made it through that corner and not been spun out at Watkins
Glen.
“And,
yeah, I probably could have gave Brad an inch at Kansas, but when you’re
raced as hard as you are, and you get side-drafted and doored down the
front straightaway, all
those things go out the window, and you start losing respect for that
person, and the next time you get to them, you just don’t care. That’s
essentially what happened.
Busch has no regrets, but he indicated that payback from Keselowski might escalate the rivalry.
“I had
an opportunity (at Kansas),” he said. “I could have lifted when I got
tight. I just drove through the ‘tight.’ But, all in all, if he pays it
back, he pays it back.
That’ll just bring on a heck of a lot more fireworks.”
WADDELL WILSON HONORED
Before
Saturday night’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, crew
chief and engine builder Waddell Wilson received the 2013 Smokey Yunick
Award in recognition of
his achievements in NASCAR racing.
Established
in 1997 by legendary car owner and mechanic Henry “Smokey” Yunick, four
years before his death, the annual award recognizes an individual who
has risen from humble
beginnings to make a major impact on the motorsports industry.
Wilson’s
engines propelled drivers to more than 100 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
victories, but the win he remembers most fondly was Buddy Baker’s
triumph in the 1980 Daytona 500.
“The
engine Baker won the Daytona 500 with, I remember building that engine
five times—and working week after week on that body and the rolling
resistance,” Wilson said. “That
was probably the most perfect race car I was ever involved with.
“Back
then, we didn’t have all the templates they have today. There were areas
you could work in. I studied everything I could about that race car…
Everybody always said it
was the engine. Yeah, it had a lot of horsepower, but that wasn’t the
only thing about that race car.”
GOOD NEWS FOR KENTUCKY
Quaker
State has extended its title sponsorship of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
race at Kentucky Speedway, Rusty Barron, vice president of marketing
for the Quaker State brand
announced Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
That
takes the Quaker State 400 entitlement through 2018. Quaker State has
sponsored the race since Kentucky Speedway was added to the NASCAR
Sprint Cup schedule in 2011.
“We felt it was time to take advantage of what we’ve seen there for the last three years,” Barron said.
Barron
indicated the proximity of numerous large television markets, the
location of the speedway within a critical mass of Quaker State
customers and the track’s status as
a new NASCAR venue all contributed to the company’s decision to extend
the sponsorship.
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