Yahoo Autos “I did wear my emotions on my sleeve”: Kurt Busch reflects on an extraordinary NASCAR career
When Kurt Busch crashed during qualifying at Pocono last summer, nobody – Busch included – knew that we’d just seen one of modern NASCAR’s best drivers and biggest personalities behind the wheel for the last time.
Just over one year on, Busch recently confirmed that the ongoing effects of the concussion he sustained in that crash had led him to the decision to retire from Cup Series racing, closing the book on a 23-year career that yielded 34 wins from 776 starts at NASCAR’s top level, the 2004 Cup Series championship, victories in all of three of NASCAR’s national series, and a range of cameos including the Indianapolis 500 (where he earned 2004’s Rookie of the Year honors), the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the NHRA.
RACER writer Eric Johnson witnessed much of Busch’s career first-hand, and in the days after Busch’s retirement became official, the pair sat down to talk about the journey he’s taken.
Q: Now that you’ve announced your retirement and a little bit of time has gone by, how do you feel?
KURT BUSCH: I feel really good. It’s been a nice run. I’ve been very blessed and privileged to have been able to run for over two decades at the top of the NASCAR Cup Series. I’ve met all the different people, the teams, the sponsors, and have won the races and wrecked some cars and have developed teams. That’s all been part of the process. But again, it’s so much of a thankfulness to the opportunity that I had, because there’s so many other kids that are just as good as I am that didn’t get this opportunity. That’s where I feel blessed with this chance. It was a good run and I don’t think there’s anything that I could have done any better or different. Looking back on it all, I would not change a thing.
Q: When you’ve been walking around at the recent races, have drivers or fans or industry people come up to you and started hitting you with anecdotes and memories and various other things that you may have collected along the way?
KB: It’s been incredible. The older drivers, crew chiefs, legends, guys like Jeff Gordon or Tony Stewart, or a friend of mine named Matt Kenseth, have all come up and spoken with me. Chief chiefs like Jimmy Fennig, Pat Tryson or even my pal Matt McCall, who’s still out there digging hard right now, have all spoken with me. And then there is of my favorites, Billy Scott, who’s currently leading our team at 23XI Racing, who has checked in with me. Those moments and those stories and those feelings and those bro hugs and the respect of what’s gone on over the years have been so amazing to me.
And there is also to my sponsors, team owners and different guys down the different garage areas and paddocks that I’ve been have all talked with me. In fact, if I go to the IndyCar race in Nashville, I can’t walk with three feet and not bump into somebody that I know. This is so cool to have this opportunity now. It is so cool to be able to take a step back and still be active with the sport with Monster Energy and with Toyota and doing different things with the manufacturers. I’ve just been going down the memory lane with everything.
Q: What does your dad Tom make of all of this? He’s the guy who took you out to Pahrump Speedway in Las Vegas 30 years ago.
KB: My dad is ultimately the number one factor that helps Kyle and I make it in all motorsports. The versatility, the working and the discipline was always there. We worked on the cars. When we would wreck them, we’d have to fix them and then you would learn to race differently because it was counterproductive to moving forward. We were always able to sell off some of the cars and jump up to the next division. Then we would buy the old cars back once we made it to the sort of Cup Series.
It’s all come full circle for my dad. But ultimately, it’s his work ethic along, with my mom being there with all of us. Grandma was also always there. We had great volunteers that loved to help our race teams because what Kyle and I were out there racing they knew we had a shot to win every single time we showed a track. And that’s what led to a lot of Kyle and I being able to move up is all the men and women that helped us at volunteering back in Las Vegas.
Busch made his Cup debut at Dover in 2000, but his breakout season came in 2002, when he took Roush’s No.97 Ford to four wins. And with increasing success came increasing media attention. Nigel Kinrade/Motorsport Images
Q: A really significant thing your dad taught both you and Kyle was adaptability, wasn’t it?
KB: It was. And it was simple because he would make us work on the car first and then you would understand it when you would drive it on the second opportunity. And there’d be nights where I’d be in Dwarf car, I’d be in a Legends car and in an IMCA Modified, all on the same night and in three divisions. I’d qualify up front and I’d run in the Trophy Dash. My dad would literally be bringing one car out to victory lane after the Trophy Dash, and I’d be jumping in next car and go out there and be ripping around. And so it was really cool back in 1996, I was able to win the Dwarf Car, Legend Car and Hobby Stock Championship at Las Vegas Speedway Park. I won all three divisions in one year. And I’m just a 16-year-old kid is out there just grabbing gears and going.
But it was all because my dad’s work ethic and what he taught us to do to preserve a car and to race it smart and to not get in wrecks and not use the equipment and to be smart with racecraft. It was the same thing in Cup. You know, you’re adapting to short tracks, intermediates road courses and superspeedways.
Then to jump on the scene and win a bunch of races in my second year in Cup, that’s when it finally slowed down and settled in for me because I had to go learn all those new racetracks, as well. And then with the 2003 IROC championship, that’s when I felt like I was on my way.
Q: IROC was some of the best racing ever.
KB: It’s a riot, you know? It was so much fun with the IndyCar guys, the drag racing guys and the World of Outlaw guys and the other stock car guys. Of course, the stock our guys had the advantage with IROC, but it was just so cool. The camaraderie and that fraternity of guys. Me and Scott Dixon; we were probably almost teenagers when we’re running against each other way back. And now look at him. He’s a top dog and legend of all of IndyCar.
Q: When you were a young guy at out of there doing Dwarf races and bouncing around in and out of different pieces of racing machinery, when did you know how good you were? And did you know how good you were?
KB: It’s always tough to brag or to feel that moment of, ‘Oh, I got this.’ When we started to travel, me and my dad would race against each other and our competitors, and I started to hear when our trailer pulled up, ‘Oh, the Buschs are here. We’re all racing for third.’ That was a cool moment. You know, I was a teenager and I really didn’t know and digest it all in that way.
The moment where I felt like I needed to figure out life was when I was flunking out of college. My mom wanted me to go to school and get a degree and racing would just be a hobby. When I was flunking out of college I came back and won my first ever Late Model race in Las Vegas in the April of 1997. That moment in victory lane I went, ‘This is what I want to do with life. This is where I want to go.’ And I just got done leaving college and I wrote down on everybody’s markerboard on their dorm rooms ‘2004 Winston Cup Champion’ as I left, and that was back in 1997! So it was a seven year plan that I manifested. Number four is my lucky number. It’s my birthday. I just love that number four. That’s the first thing that came to my mind when I wrote on those boards. I was kind of like ‘peace out’ to everybody.
Q: Did you have the confidence that you could make it in Cup?
KB: I did. Once I got there, I did. My first race in the Trucks, I finished second in Daytona. I almost won my first Truck Series race. I finished 18th In my first race at Dover in a Cup car. And I remember being the fastest in practice my rookie year at Rockingham in the November of 2000. Well of course I’m burning up tires, but I was like, ‘I have the speed. I just got to sort this out.’
Q: Can you talk about Jack Roush? .I’m thinking he was probably one of the most influential people early on in your NASCAR career..
KB: First, I believe each of the team owners I raced for had equal influence on me. There were five years or six years at Roush. Five or six years at Penske. There was one year with James Finch. There was one year with Barney Visser. Five or six years with Tony Stewart and Gene Haas. I had three years at Chip Ganassi. And then now, one year cut short with Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan. Every single one of them has made an impact on my life. Every single crew chief, I can text them right now and say thank you and they would text back we’d all go to dinner and have a beer. It’s really a unique sequence of events for me.
Q: When you raced for James Vincent and Barney Visser, how were those races for you? Can you talk about that period of your career?
KB: Yeah, that’s when I was digging deep, for sure. I would dig deep every week. But that one was a spiritual journey. The way I started with Finch was because I basically said to Richard Petty Motorsports that I wasn’t going to accept their contract. And I was going to take myself on this journey to reset and to put the fun back at racing and work my way up. Man, we almost won Sonoma with Finch… We won some Xfinity races together. And then with Barney Visser, we should have won three or four races. We just had oddball stuff pop up here or there. We had so much speed and we just didn’t quite capitalize on all of the categories, but that catapulted the team at the end of the day. All those guys worked on those cars and they knew they can do it. We just had to get all the puzzle pieces to fit together the right way. It was so, so much fun.
Busch was “digging deep” for a couple of years after he left Penske, but for all the challenges, there were also highlights – like this near-win at Sonoma with Phoenix Racing in 2012. Motorsport Images
Q: There certainly more than a few significant ups and downs during your career. Can you talk about some of that?
KB: Yeah, I think there’s a few moments that, whether it’s rehashing it or opening up the truth… I mean everybody has versions of truth on some of this stuff. It could be maybe one version versus another person’s version, right?
But as far as my departure from Roush Racing, I had already signed with Penske. And you know, there wasn’t a big traffic issue out in Phoenix in 2005. It was my attitude that led to the traffic issue. That’s something that I’ve always had in the back of my mind; my attitude at Penske when we had issues two years in a row from the team. I mean, we were messing up pit stops, or we’d run out of there would be a part failure. I didn’t handle those emotions very well, and so that’s why I put myself on that journey with Visser and with Finch. Those were moments, those were the fun times where you make mistakes and screw up and it’s fun. I’d admit to it.
Then the next thing you know we are celebrating in victory lane at Daytona. It was a dream situation to win Daytona in that race in 2017. So I feel like my career kind of looks like the Golden Gate Bridge. That’s the way I I’ve explained it to a lot of people. It’s like where you have the cables going up to the to the first bulkhead and then the cables come down and they go back up to the second bulkhead and then you get over to Sausalito and you have your cables on the way out. And that’s kind of my 22 years at the top NASCAR level.
Q: All along the way you were kind of a polarizing guy. Some fans loved you and some fans hated you. You wore your heart on your sleeve, didn’t you?
KB: Yes, and that’s the best description. I did wear my emotions on my sleeve and I just went out there. I have those facial expressions of this was right and that was all part of it. Now there’s some guys that are a bit more stoic and some guys a bit more reserved, but for me as a blue collar kid out of Vegas, to have had this opportunity and to make it and then to have my brother make it and basically double all of my statistics… We are now the two winningest brothers in NASCAR history. That’s something that I’m very proud of.
Q: The Busch brothers surpassing the Allison brothers for NASCAR Cup wins had to have meant something huge to both of you guys.
KB: It was big. You don’t expect it to happen. You just go about your business and work. And that’s what they did. And they had a tough road, too. It wasn’t given to them, right. There are plenty of stories I’ve heard where they were just living on peaches. Driving from one track to the next in the Southeast to kind of just get to the next place to pay the bills. Those are different times in NASCAR, of course, but it’s just so cool that we’ve developed a relationship with the Allisons through all this.
Q: Can you talk about some of your rivals? You were the last guy left in the Cup field that raced with Dale Earnhardt Sr. What was he like?
KC: I would say Dale Senior was the Intimidator. 100% He lit me up after I wrecked his son Dale Jr. at Rockingham one year. He would just race me to the bone, and 18th place at Homestead at the very next race. I was like, “Your race car is way faster. Just go ahead.” I literally had to pull over on the back straightaway and let him go by. And then he’s back up and try to mess with me again.
He was fun. I wish we could have hashed all that out. Dale Jr. and I did over time. We’d talk about things. Guys like Jimmy Spencer, where he wrecked me about three or four different times and I never spun him out, and yet fans all stick on that he was my biggest rival. It’s like, ‘He’s got two wins and I have 34…’ Jimmy and I had to kind of bury the hatchet. On some days with guys like Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick, there was the big rub of the elbows, but nothing big. I think Jimmie Johnson and I had a couple of run-ins during his five Cup championships in a row.
Q: How about Tony Stewart?
KB: Yep, and then there is Tony Stewart. We battled against each other in the Car of Tomorrow. That’s what sparked our rivalry. We both hated the car and then each other for a while. And then over time, now I’m racing for the guy. We’re racing together. And so that helps us have that bond.
I feel like there has been good and there has been bad. I mean, even my little brother, we didn’t talk for a while after an All-Star race in 2007. What’s amazing to me is that we have four finishes of first-second. And I have almost 800 starts, he’s got over 600 starts. There’s only four finishes of us one and two. And I’ve got two wins. He’s got two wins. We’re 50/50 And so that’s a good sibling rivalry.
Q: What does Kyle make of your retirement?
KB: Kyle’s been very supportive and understands age is a tough thing to battle and the amount of time that I’ve been racing since I was 16 years old. Now it’s basically like Kyle saying, “Hey, now we’ve got [Kyle’s son] Brexton. Be an uncle and take care of Brexton.”
Of course, that’s the next step for the Busch family, to have Kyle continue to grow and blossom at RCR and to create opportunities for Brexton to be able to go wherever he wants to go and what he thinks he wants to challenge himself with. And that’s where I can be another set of eyes and hands to help him out.
Many sibling rivalries don’t survive beyond the dinner table at Thanksgiving, but the Busch brothers maintained theirs for nearly two decades – and they’re still talking to each other. (Top image, Las Vegas 2005 by Robert LeSieur; bottom image, Atlanta 2022, Motorsport Images)
Q: How did you feel about the fans all along the way? There was a bit of good and bad with that, too.
KB: Early on, with the fans, it was it was tougher, and everything just seemed to kind of smooth out and find its rhythm through the middle part of my career and driving the iconic Miller Light car after Rusty Wallace retired. There was the transitioning from a couple teams like Phoenix Racing and Furniture Row Racing. There was Stewart-Haas. It just all seemed to have good ups and downs, and it’s been incredible because I think fans have really seen the true character of me on social media, versus what a writer for Autoweek might post, or another writer that that I might have flipped the middle finger to back in the younger part of my career. If I had 800 starts, and I messed up 10 of those, those 10 races don’t need to be the final story. There’s the 790 that we can all enjoy.
Q: Who were a few of your rivals that you really enjoyed racing against?
KB: Juan Pablo Montoya was one of my favorites with his background and his prowess with the road course races. Marcos Ambrose was also a great guy to race against. The international flair and the times I ran Indy and the times I raced in NHRA, I really enjoyed the racing against those guys. In NASCAR, it was my teammates that you had to respect, but also want to make sure you finish ahead of just to keep your job. Guys like Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth, Ryan Newman, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Larson and all those were top teammates of mine that I respected so much, but also want to make sure that I kicked their tail each week.
Q: Was there ever a guy that you enjoyed beating more than anybody else?
KB: Kyle Busch.
Q: How were you guys with each other along the way?
KB: Yeah, it’s had its ebbs and flows. There’s been a great moments. There have been a tough moments. There’s been blaming. There’s been misunderstandings. And at the end of the day though, age has conquered us both and there’s the respect for how all of this unfolded, and I’m so proud of Kyle for being a great dad, great husband, and handling all the things he is with Braxton and Samantha and running Kyle Busch Motorsports. He’s doing a ton more in the motorsports world than I ever would have thought that we could have achieved. He did it and so I’m very proud of him.
Q: Are you okay with how it’s all ended?
KB: I’m very happy. I have enjoyed the ride. Very blessed and privileged to have this opportunity. Just again, my dad, my mom and Kyle, myself and our family, we were digging hard out of Vegas. This has all been a dream come true.
