The Comeback King: Kyle Busch, a CHAMPION

Excerpts from Kyle's Post Race Interview, Homestead-Miami: 

How does it feel to be the Champions? 

             "So far it feels amazing.  You know, I don't know that anybody could have ever dreamt of this year especially, but to have dreamt of my career path the way it's kind of gone, it's certainly amazing to have the opportunity right now to be in this position with Joe Gibbs and M&M's and Toyota and Adam Stevens.  For them all to prepare such a great race car for me tonight, to be able to go out there and perform in this format and to do what we did to end up in victory lane, and to win this championship by winning the race was something special.

            You know, I don't know if it's all completely sunk in yet.  I remember winning the XFINITY Series championship, and it took a little bit to kind of get in, and I'm sure we'll be feeling that here in a few weeks in Las Vegas.

            But you know, this night tonight is certainly really, really special, and I can't say enough about all my team guys, everyone on this whole M&M's No. 18 team, everyone that's back at the shop with Joe Gibbs Racing, for building this awesome race car and all the hard work and everything that they continue to do each year, but more importantly through this year.  To put all the Gibbs cars in the Chase and then to have us succeed all the way to the end is pretty special.

            You know, it goes back a long time, too, with my family and my friends and everyone that's worked so hard over the years to give me the chances that I've had, and for me to make the most of them and to get to this point tonight, I don't know, it's pretty cool to be in this spot."

You've had both positive and negative major life events in the last nine months.  Aside from having a sweet new trophy, how are you different as a driver and as a man than you were this time last year?

          "I don't know exactly.  I mean, it's probably more of a question for my wife maybe or Adam, but I just -- I don't know.  I guess I feel more at peace a little bit.  You know, I've always thought that I've been in this sport and been kind of -- not because of things that have been said to me but just because you feel like you're always fighting for a job.  There's always younger, better people coming up through the ranks behind you.  I was just like, you know what, if I am meant to be a race car driver and if I am meant to be champion, then I'll continue to be here for long haul.  So I'll stop focusing on worrying about my job and just let it be.  That seemed to help, but also just going through the rehab process I think just made me more mentally tough know that I can do physically and mentally, when you're doing some of those moves, you know, in therapy, when Ken wasn't with me he'd give me a list of things to do and I just had to do it.  You don't know how many times I just wanted to stop and just be like, you know what, I'm not going to do the rest today.  But I powered through it and did what I needed to do, did what I could do, but, you know, when Ken would tell me just do 10 reps of this at this weight, I was always like, I got more than that; I'm doing 12 at this weight.

            It was just something that pushed me and gave me that drive to be, I guess, the man and person I am right now."

Kyle, obviously you're pretty emotional after you took the checkered flag.  How emotional did you get, and what were you thinking during the cool-down lap?

"Yeah, there was some emotion that came through, crossing the start-finish line.  Actually coming out of Turn 4, not being crazy, but there was a tear that did go across my cheek because of the G-forces I was pulling out of Turn 4 (laughter), and I was like, are you serious?  Like wow, and then I crossed the start-finish line, and I was just so excited and yelling at my team and everything, and then it was like trying to keep it all together and it was starting to fizzle up, and fortunately just -- I really -- I don't know.

            I thought of a lot of different things in that moment, crossing the start-finish line.  I just remember thinking of everything that's gone on this year, thinking of my wife and Brexton and this race team, and then I thought of how long M&M's has been in the sport, how much it means to them, and Toyota has been in the sport.  This is a first for them. Just so many cool things of this night and winning this race and what it meant that it all was just kind of starting to come into my mind, and that's why I was singing "Vocabulary" so much earlier in the race.  I was trying to get all that out.  But it started coming again.  But through all the cool-down lap all that was still kind of going, and I didn't know what to do.

            Richard Buck was talking to me on the radion and I heard every other word he said.  I'm like, yeah, okay, whatever.  Not disrespectfully but I just didn't know what he said.  Okay, I've gotcha.  I didn't hear a word you said but I gotcha.  He told me to park over here, and I'm doing burnouts and I'm like, well, I've got to go celebrate with my team because they're right there, so I go over there.

            When I turned around and went backwards, I wanted to see the crowd and just to see what was going on with them, and I still couldn't hear anything yet.  But I just thought of giving sort of the old school victory lap.  Obviously Alan started that years, years, years ago, but I did it just so I could see everybody and have them get a good picture of a clean race car with a flag coming out the side of it like it was, and I thought that was a cool moment."