LAS VEGAS (AP) - Someday in the future, Kyle Busch would love to emulate his older brother’s attempt to run the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 in the same day.
He just doesn’t think he should do the double until he’s got a NASCAR series championship in his trophy case.
“I’ve thought about doing that for years,” Kyle Busch said Friday at his hometown Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “I’ve always said that I wouldn’t do it until I’ve gotten a Cup championship, which obviously Kurt has (but) I don’t have. I’ve always put it on the back-burner and not really worried about it, but I think it’s good. I hope he has fun with it. Hope he don’t get too wore out.”
He understands the challenges faced May 25 by Kurt Busch, who won his series championship in 2004. The double requires about 580 miles of plane travel in between several hours of grueling driving in IndyCar’s biggest event and NASCAR’s longest race.
Although the double is tantalizing for many drivers, nobody has attempted to run both races since Robby Gordon in 2004. Tony Stewart, ostensibly Kurt Busch’s boss at Stewart-Haas Racing, is the only driver to finish all 1,100 miles back in 2001.
Kyle Busch understands exactly why Kurt Busch wants to try it - and it’s not just to say he did it.
“It’s just the fact of giving it a shot and seeing if you can’t roll sevens and win the thing,” Kyle Busch said. “It’s the fun. It’s the challenge of a different car on a different race track, and trying to go after one of the biggest races in the country.”
Kyle Busch isn’t expecting a hometown boost when he returns to his native city for NASCAR’s third race of the season at the north end of The Strip. He said Las Vegas is “not necessarily a racing town at all, really,” despite the Busch brothers’ emergence from the area along with Brendan Gaughan and promising Nationwide rookie Dylan Kwasniewski.
Busch and his family don’t live in Vegas now. He believes the large majority of the NASCAR crowd is made up of out-of-town vacationers.
Kyle also thinks the locals might not have fond memories of the Busch family.
“When I was coming up through the ranks, I won a lot and probably won too much and didn’t make very many friends,” Busch said. “So I’m not so sure that I … have very many pulling for me anyways, because I kicked their butt too much.”
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