Dustin Long

From Daytona to California, Dustin Long covers the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
Read all of his stories on PilotOnline.com's Auto Racing channel. And follow him on Twitter.

Category: NASCAR

■ 27 February 2009 | 3:50 PM

Kyle Busch: F1 is intriguing but not the right time

With this week's announcement that a group wants to have a U.S. Formula 1 team and base it in the Charlotte, N.C., area, there's been much speculation about who will be the drivers. The team wants to have American drivers for its two cars. One name that has come up in Kyle Busch.

He was asked Friday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway about his interest in F1, here's what he said:

“I have not been talked to, no. I don’t know if (Jeff) Dickerson (business manager and spotter) has or not. I toss the idea around -- it’s definitely something I wouldn’t shoot down but I don’t think it’s the right time yet in my career and where I’m at. I’m happy with where I’m at. And, obviously the focus here is to go for Nationwide and Cup wins and championships and compete for championships – try to dismantle Jimmie (Johnson) off the top of the thrown so we have to work on that. It’s something that I’d love to give a shot at one day. Toyota gave me the opportunity to go over there last fall and do a test in Fiji (Japan), but we weren’t able to get there. Hopefully one of these days maybe I’ll get a chance to drive one and see if I’m any good at it.”

Did you ever think F1 was something you could do and was it ever on your radar?

“It was never on my radar, no. Open-wheel stuff wasn’t but it’s something that I wouldn’t mind trying. I wouldn’t mind trying IndyCars and running the Indianapolis 500 or Formula 1. It’s not quite the time for me to do that yet. I’d like to – if I could win a championships here in the next two or three years then I wouldn’t mind going over there and doing that, trying it for a few years and coming back. I think I’d still be young enough that if I could win a championship by 25, go run Formula 1 for a few years, be back by 28. I still have plenty of time left to run in NASCAR. It’s just what I see but a lot of things would have to work out for that to happen and you’d have to be guaranteed a spot with a team to come back with. That’s not always possible.”

Do you think your love of racing is why you might look at driving a Formula 1 car

“It’s just trying other things -- doing something different. You kind of probably get dull sometimes and that might be why you see guys make moves from their teams. Granted Jeff (Gordon) has been at Hendrick forever and Kenseth and Biffle have been at Roush forever. It’s just a different form of racing, it’s a different auto sport. (Juan) Montoya looked to be like he was doing that. He went from CART to -- I don’t know if he went to IRL or not -- but then he was in Formula 1 for a while and then he came back and ran NASCAR. I think it’s just racers want to race different things all of the time and see what it’s like.”

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