There was a time when Kyle Busch was one of NASCAR’s ultimate villains. Although he’s mellowed with time, especially now that his son Brexton is making his way through go-karts and Legend cars, in Busch’s prime, every slight came with payback, sometimes years later but always with interest. The 2011 Texas Truck Series race, for instance, became the exclamation point on that legacy when Busch took out Ron Hornaday Jr., the championship favorite, driving Kevin Harvick’s No. 33 truck.
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As such, a feud that first erupted in 2004 during an Xfinity Series race in Darlington got reignited. It was when Hornaday brake-checked Busch and cost him a potential title shot.
Busch didn’t forget, and seven years later, after minor contact on Lap 14 in Texas, Busch returned the favor in style, turning Hornaday into the wall and eliminating them both. Busch had nothing to lose. He was already a full-time Cup driver, and he wasn’t chasing a Truck championship. But the fallout was definitely volcanic for Hornaday and Harvick.
Harvick, who owned Hornaday’s truck, fumed publicly, suggesting that fists might fly before cooler heads prevailed. The animosity simmered for years, fueled by the combustible mix of ego, pride, and payback that defined NASCAR’s golden rivalries at the time.
Fourteen years later, with blow-ups long cooled and careers cemented, Harvick reflected on the saga with unexpected candor. When recently asked how long it took to bury the hatchet, the 2014 Cup champion said, “I think that the edge comes off really probably faster than you think. It’s just when does it fire up again? Yeah, usually you can get over things. But with Kyle, it was always the next thing.”
Harvick continued, “It was always the next moment. It was always because we all raced in the front so much, and competed so hard, and just always wanted to beat the other so bad… There was an eight 7-8-10 year period, there where it was just head-to-head a lot. You were head-to-head a lot, but that’s what drove both companies… That’s what both drove both of us to be better.”
Busch and Harvick, polar opposites in temperament yet kindred in competitive fire, spent a decade pushing each other’s limits. Harvick even admitted that Hornaday probably carried that bitterness longer than he did, and “probably might still hold on to some of that.”
Still, Harvick didn’t shy away from giving credit where it was due. To him, the clashes and chaos were the heartbeat of true rivalry. That’s what great competition is all about, he said, a fitting epitaph for one of NASCAR’s fiercest eras, when grudges were settled not on social media, but in the banks and bare metal of race day.
