As much as he wants to, don’t expect Kurt Busch to follow up his Daytona 500 triumph with a second try at Indianapolis 500 glory -- at least not this season.

The 38-year-old received several congratulatory texts from members of the IndyCar paddock, including Mario Andretti. Busch drove for Andretti Autosport in the 2014 Indianapolis 500 but says he hasn’t reached out to team owner Michael Andretti yet.

And more to the point, Busch says any conversation with Andretti probably won’t result in an Indianapolis 500 entry. Busch drove a No. 26 Honda to sixth place in his only IndyCar Series start, and both driver and team have expressed an interest in future collaborations.

His 2014 appearance was made possible by Busch winning in March at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia, but the 2004 champion conceded that this is a much different early season victory.

"The emotions of this event, yes, it fits right in when I won in 2014 at Martinsville early in the year," Busch said. "It gives you that calm sense that I can go focus on other things and have the ability to go run the Indy 500.

"I haven’t talked to Michael. I haven’t reached out to any other team. My focus has been to settle in with Ford and get 2017 underway and to give my full focus to the Stewart-Haas race team."

That said, the Daytona 500 carries with it far more responsibilities than winning the sprint race at Martinsville.

"It will be difficult at this point, with a Daytona 500 win, and the emotions and the amount of responsibility that comes with it," Busch said. "The Ford executives called me and asked, ‘What dates do you have available to come up to Dearborn, Michigan? We want to bring our winning Ford GT drivers from Le Mans and from the Daytona 24 Hours up for a big day at Ford.’ The schedule is getting full. The month of March, we’re on that West Coast run. I think my first day that anything isn’t scheduled is April 5 or something like that, and that’s on our way out to Texas.

"It’s a busy time. I don’t know if I’ll be able to run Indy this year, but it’s really neat to have the fraternity of IndyCar drivers reach out to me and celebrate with the 41 car."

A. J. Foyt and Mario Andretti are the only drivers to have won both the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500, and no one has done it in the same year.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io