Justin Allgaier Distances Himself From Kyle Busch’s Guitar-Smashing Nashville Legacy, Details ‘Devastating’ Impact

Justin Allgaier would rather play a guitar than smash it. He still recalls when Kyle Busch won a NASCAR Xfinity race at Nashville Superspeedway in 2009, and then channeling any number of guitarists in rock bands of the ‘80s, celebrated by smashing the custom made Gibson Les Paul guitar in victory lane.

Busch thought the incident was cute. Allgaier did not.

“So I lived that whole Kyle Busch smashing it,” Allgaier said on this week’s episode of the Stacking Pennies podcast with Corey LaJoie.

“I was lucky enough to be fairly close with Sam Bass (the late artist who created the one-of-a-kind guitar that had been valued at around $25,000), and the devastation that he went through during that was wild.

“I mean all the heart and soul (Bass) put into all the paintings back in the day, and he’s like, ‘Man, I would have thought it was really cool. I would have come up with like a dummy guitar if I knew (Busch) was going to smash it.’

“He’s like, ‘Little did I know he was going to smash that one.’ He spent 100 hours painting it. There is no way I’m ever smashing a Nashville guitar.”

Indeed, Allgaier has two guitars in his house that mark his Xfinity Series wins at Nashville. He would have had a third guitar but finished runner-up in the 2021 race there (finishing second by one second to Busch). There was no guitar smashing by Busch in that race.

“It actually works out really good,” Allgaier said of the two guitars he won at Nashville. “My oldest daughter, Harper, her favorite color is green and (other daughter) Willow, her favorite color is pink and purple. So now I have a green one and a purple one. I’m like this is perfect. So I know which one’s going to which room, just like I planned it.”

And both guitars are completely intact, no smashing for Allgaier.

Post Edited By: Srijan Mandal

Justin Allgaier Kyle Busch Nashville Superspeedway

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Jerry Bonkowski

Jerry Bonkowski is a veteran sportswriter who has worked full-time for many of the top media outlets in the world, including USA Today (15 years), ESPN.com (4+ years), Yahoo Sports (4 1/2 years), NBCSports.com (8 years) and others. He has covered virtually every major professional and collegiate sport there is, including the Chicago Bulls' six NBA championships (including heavy focus on Michael Jordan), the Chicago Bears Super Bowl XX-winning season, the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs World Series championships, two of the Chicago Blackhawks' NHL titles, Tiger Woods' PGA Tour debut, as well as many years of beat coverage of the NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA for USA Today. But Jerry's most notable achievement has been covering motorsports, most notably NASCAR, IndyCar, NHRA drag racing and Formula One. He has had a passion for racing since he started going to watch drag races at the old U.S. 30 Dragstrip (otherwise known as "Where the Great Ones Run!") in Hobart, Indiana. Jerry has covered countless NASCAR, IndyCar and NHRA races and championship battles over the years. He's also the author of a book, "Trading Paint: 101 Great NASCAR Debates", published in 2010 (and he's hoping to soon get started on another book). Away from sports, Jerry was a fully sworn part-time police officer for 20 years, enjoys reading and music (especially "hair bands" from the 1980s and 1990s), as well as playing music on his electric keyboard, driving (fast, of course!), spending time with Cyndee his wife of nearly 40 years, the couple's three adult children and three grandchildren (with more to come!), and his three dogs -- including two German Shepherds and an Olde English Bulldog who thinks he's a German Shepherd.. Jerry still gets the same excitement of seeing his byline today as he did when he started in journalism as a 15-year-old high school student. He is looking forward to writing hundreds, if not thousands, of stories in the future for TheSportsRush.com, as well as interacting with readers.

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