“The All-Star Race is a 100-yard dash. The 600 is a marathon.” This is Kurt Busch’s take on the eight-day, 470-lap, 705-mile long haul stint that the drivers and teams of the NASCAR Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series make the week leading up to and into Memorial Day Weekend in Charlotte.

Coming off of Saturday Night’s fifth-place finish in the 70-lap Monster Energy All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the driver of the No. 41 Hass Automation/Monster Energy Ford Fusion is aiming for a repeat of his win at the Coca-Cola 600 in 2010.

Currently 15th in the Cup series point standings, Busch and the Tony Gibson-commanded team will hope to use the Charlotte marathon to get the outfit closer to critical mass as spring turns into the NASCAR dog days of summer.

Q: When you guys motored up to the green flag to start the final 10-lap segment on Saturday night, did you feel like you had a shot at the win?

KURT BUSCH: “I think the key to winning that [All-Star] race is being able to restart in the top four on the final restart. We were lining up seventh, but I thought we were going to have more restarts. I mean, once they threw the green, none of us bumped into each other, none of us wrecked. When you put 10 of the best surgeons in the same room, nobody is going to make a mistake, so it becomes difficult when you got the top 10 guys not really interested in bumping into each other or wanting to take each other out purposely.”

Q: You won the Coca-Cola 600 back in 2010. Are you fan of Charlotte Motor Speedway and the longest race of the season?

KB: “Yeah, I won the All-Star and the 600 [in 2010]. We swept both races that year. It was basically the same car and the same setup, and the thing was just money with the downforce levels and tire combinations that we had at that time. The key to winning was the car’s ability to carve through Turns 3 and 4 and really carry the speed hard through that end of the racetrack. Everybody is pretty equal at Charlotte in 1 and 2, but the cream rises to the top if you’re going to be good in Turns 3 and 4.”

Q: Do the cars from 2010 and 2017 feel radically different around Charlotte?

KB: “Yeah, the way the cars settle on the bump stops and the way the tires flex and move, but downforce levels were a lot higher then so the car was pushed down into the track a lot easier. Each year we come back to a lot of these places that continue to take more and more downforce away, and then it changes the way to where you really have to balance things out. I mean, we used to have to use rear sway bars and now NASCAR has eliminated those, and that was one of the tools I used to win that race a few years back. Now, I no longer have that.”

Q: What do you think about the four 100-miles stages you guys will run on Sunday, and about stage racing in general?

KB: “I think its great excitement for the fans. It gives you a guaranteed caution flag that’s going to come out and you know when you look at TV, it used to be a bit intimidating. With the Bristol race, you’d look at it and go, “Oh man, the race just started and its lap 30 of 500. Oh my gosh…”. Now, you can look at it and go, “Alright, we’re on lap 30 of a 100-lap segment.” If you’re a fan, it can be like, “I can go get a Monster, I can go hit the restroom, I can go grab a hot dog with the kids and not miss any racing action.”

“I think that’s what it’s intended to do because then you can get more TV time to sell commercial space. As a driver, you don’t get into those big long rhythms anymore. That’s what I used to love: Dialing-in my car for the extreme long runs. But that’s okay. The racing has changed and everything is a shorter run and you have to be ready for it.

Q: Did the Goodyear soft tires make a profound difference?

KB: “Yeah, it was cool to run them. I was just hoping for maybe more of a difference. But they definitely spoke to me within the car. When I loaded them up into the corners, I could feel all four tires better and gripping. I wanted more speed out of them and more drop-off, but they just seemed to pick up a little bit of speed and then they didn’t drop off as much as I had hoped.

Q: Your season started with the amazing win at the Daytona 500, and then things seemed to settle a little bit for the No. 41 outfit …

KB: “Yeah, I definitely want more; I’d definitely like to be leading laps; we haven’t led a lot of laps this year. We know we can do a better job on the pit stops. And the way we went through a few Ford transitional issues that I didn’t think we were going to go through, was tough. We were dealing with overheating the alternator a couple of races in a row, which led to charging systems and battery issues, so we had a couple funky races. You miss the setup a little bit here and there and it’s going to be tough to overcome.

“Also, there has been a lot more front downforce with the Ford, so we’re just trying to get our rears back and planted underneath us right now. It would be like riding a motorcycle with a really soft front tire and a really hard tire.”

Q: Fernando Alonso is running the Indianapolis 500. You’ve had some experience with an Indy 500 one-off; what do you think?

KB: “Man, it’s great to see somebody from outside IndyCar, like I was back in 2014, [going] to challenge the Indy 500 and to challenge the best open-wheel racers in the U.S. I think it’s great for Alonso. McLaren Honda is struggling over there in the F1 world, and Alonso is 36-years-old. It’s kind of funny, because I was 36 when I raced it, and you want to achieve more in racing when you’re at that age and when you know that you can do more, so I think that team, watching the way that McLaren program was going, was wanting to give Alonso a good run here, and they found a good opportunity to team up with Andretti over in the IndyCar paddock.

“And he’s going to do a good job. I mean, the guy is a [two-time] Formula 1 world champion, and I just can’t wait to watch the race to see how he does in traffic and with all the different pit stop sequences and different rules. Little things jump up and bite you when you’re in a different and foreign situation, but he’s the best guy in the world to try to challenge this. It’s going to be fun to watch.”

Q: Would you want to go back and run the Indy 500 again one day?

KB: I would try it possibly one more time. I wanted to run all 1100 miles in one day, but yet it’s so difficult because the Indy time takes away from my regular position in the Monster Energy Cup series. I don’t want to sacrifice any time with my team unless we’re winning every race every weekend in the Monster Cup. Maybe it’s something I do when I’m done full-time Cup racing, because that way I can give it my full attention.

Q: Slowly looking forward to the Chase, is it still pretty much a free for all as far as who can win on any given Cup weekend?

KB: Yeah, I think we’ve seen enough now to where we know exactly what direction we need to head, because Charlotte is always the time to reevaluate the first third of the year. Now we go into the next two-thirds, which are a lot of the summer months and races that aren’t part of the Chase, so this is when you see the experimenting going on; guys really reaching around to find that package. Then, the final third of the season is for the Playoffs and for the championship.

“I think we’ve done a good job to baseline ourselves with Ford to look around at different personnel that we need to upgrade, as well as review everything in that much more detail for the next step of the season. I’m digging it, and I know we can do better and that we want more. And you know, to have Monster Energy as the entitlement sponsor of the series… I love the added pressure, but also the added fandom that Monster has brought to the 41 car. You can genuinely feel that the fans and all the guys and kids are pulling for you because they want to see that claw run up front.”