Focused On Chase, Busch Calls Ganassi "A Potential Opportunity"

Kurt Busch said today that he remains focused on making the 2013 Chase with Furniture Row Racing, despite this week’s announcement that Juan Pablo Montoya will not return to the No. 42 Target Chevrolet at Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates next season.

“It hasn’t changed anything,” said Busch, who currently ranks 11^th in championship points, just two markers from the Top-10. “I’m good friends with Felix Sabates and I know Chip real well and the whole gang; Max Jones (and) Steve Lauletta. They came up with the decision (to part company with Montoya) not based off any of the talks that I’ve had with them.

“But it is a potential opportunity, that’s for sure.”

Busch said that while he is investigating options for 2014 and beyond, his current ride remains his primary concern.

“The focus is making the chase,” he stressed. “We have four weeks to go and we’re in great position. It’s been neat to feel the energy from the team. We spent a week in Colorado meeting with Denver media, and they’ve adopted us as like a fifth sports entity for that town. They talk Broncos, they talk Rockies, and now they’re talking us. So, it’s cool to have talks with Furniture Row about what we can do in 2014 and beyond.

“The Ganassi thing came up and other phone calls have happened,” he admitted. “But nothing’s going to change. We’re just still really focused on the Chase and what we can do in these next four weeks together.”

He said Michigan International Speedway has been an inconsistent track for him in the past, either “real good or real bad. If you go by the law of averages, I hope this time around is pretty good. We’ve had some speed in practice; we just haven’t translated that into the race conditions. We hope we can parallel what we did at Pocono a couple weeks ago, which was to improve and find more comfort in the car.”

He said the next four weeks on the Sprint Cup schedule feature tracks that have been good to him in the past, giving him confidence in his ability to make a solid push for the Chase.

“I’m really looking forward to Bristol, of course,” said Busch. “I’ve won three times at Atlanta and we did really well (at Richmond) in the spring. I look at this one as the toughest out of the next four weeks. If we get through this, then I think we’ve got a really good shot at things.

“It’s all about what you’ve done lately,” he said, “and I haven’t been to Victory Lane in a long while. It’s good to have good tracks coming up. You always want your strong tracks to be when you need them.”