Busch putting more focus on Cup goals

CONCORD, NC

Kyle Busch is cutting back on his NASCAR racing schedule for this season.

The driver has long been a triple-threat in the racing ranks, winning in the Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Truck series. But after Busch had already announced he will run only 15 races in the 2012 Nationwide Series, all with his Kyle Busch Motorsports organization, he made even bigger news on Monday at NASCAR's Media Tour.

Head of steam

What has Kyle Busch done in his NASCAR career so far?

He will not run any races in the Truck series this year, instead devoting more time to focus on challenging for the Sprint Cup title.

Busch missed a Sprint Cup and Nationwide race last season after he was parked by NASCAR officials following an on-track confrontation with Ron Hornaday Jr. in a Truck race. Joe Gibbs, team owner for Kyle Busch’s NASCAR Sprint Cup program, says that he did not ban Busch from competing in the Truck ranks this season. He did, however, say that he and Busch worked together and came up with a game plan.

Gibbs joked that he was surprised that Busch would be racing against the organization for the Nationwide Series owners title — and for wins week to week. Busch’s 15 races will be run in partnership with his brother, Kurt Busch.

“I probably would have argued against that, but he and (team president) J.D. (Gibbs) got together and next thing I knew, I went, ‘What?’" Gibbs said.

“I figure after something like that has been decided, I’m all for it. Hopefully he can keep his people over there, that was one of the concerns was he’s got a number of people working over there, you don’t want to see them in trouble. I think he wants to build that program and obviously J.D. and he got together and said, ‘Hey, I think this is something we can do.' I’m not going to enjoy racing against him. I probably would have been a no on that one.”

As to how he approaches the season with Busch following the driver’s penalty and the fallout from it late last year — Busch raced his final two races of the season without sponsor Mars on his car following the parking and a NASCAR penalty for his actions, Gibbs added:

“What we did with Kyle, he’s his own man, makes his own decisions. But what we tried to do was sit with him, kind of work out a plan for this year, obviously part of that is kind of reduce his schedule so he can stay focused on things. I think we kind of went through a general plan with all of us talking it over and I think we’re off to a good start with it and I think Kyle really does care about the fans, how they think about him. We’ve got a sponsor there that’s been awesome with us, we’ve been through some incidents and Mars has just stood tall through the whole thing.

“So I think we’ve got a lot of great things going there and I think we’ve kind of crafted a game plan to really stay focused on what we’re doing.”

Gibbs points out that Busch has a lot going on in his life, what with team ownership and racing, but that his focus is on NASCAR and competing and winning.

And then he offered some insight into just how their relationship works — and what he values about Kyle Busch as both a driver and a person and the impact that can have.

“I think Kyle’s got so many good sides to him, he’s bright, sharp, good sense of humor, good family guy, cares about (his wife) Sam, cares about racing, he’s passionate, gave us a bunch of wins and he’s sacrificed at times for us,” he said. “So you kind of weigh that and we’ve had some things there that we wish hadn’t happened, but I think that’s a little bit what happens sometimes with athletes. You also look at down the road: Where do you think he’s going to be? What kind of person can he be and what kind of champion can he be?”