Kaitlyn Vincie is a NASCAR broadcaster who works for Fox Sports. She was recently on an episode of Samantha Busch’s Certified Oversharer podcast. Vincie and Samantha have been longtime friends, and they discussed a range of topics in their hour-long conversation. A key part of it was the fear that Vincie used to have of Kyle Busch, Samantha’s husband.
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The two-time Cup Series champion used to be one of the hot-headed drivers on the grid back in the day. It was his relentless and aggressive attitude that earned him the nickname Rowdy. Vincie admitted that it was one of her most profound fears to interview him back when she was a young NASCAR reporter.
She said, “He [Kyle Busch] is an intense individual… I told him this actually that I would rather interview a serial killer than him when he’s mad. ‘Cause like God, he used to scare the s**t out of me. When I was first starting out, he was so scary.
“They’d be like, ‘You got to go get Kyle.’ I’m like, ‘No! Someone else do it. I don’t want to do it.’ Anytime I got that pull from the producer, sometimes I’d be like, ‘He’s not down here anymore,’ which was a lie.”
Busch was the kind of person who never took nonsense from anybody. Lame questions were sent flying off the bat. Vincie quickly understood this and learned how to handle him. She continued to detail that he was fine with his answers and temper as long as the right questions were put in front of him, and that she always managed to do it somehow.
She also empathized and acknowledged that having a microphone in front of your face after a race, particularly when it has gone sideways, can be pretty annoying. “So, I’m not blaming him for having the scary side,” Vincie concluded.
There have been several instances in the past where Busch has lost his cool speaking to reporters. He dismissed a reporter’s question tensely after finishing second in the 2017 Coca-Cola 600 with, “Nothing surprises me anymore. Congratulations,” and walked off after dropping the mic.
At Las Vegas in 2019, he gave terse, dismissive answers and appeared visibly agitated in response to being asked repetitive questions. In 2021, he used an ableist slur (the R-word) in a post-race interview, later apologized for it, and was required by NASCAR to complete sensitivity training.
In light of such examples, it is only fair that Vincie had feared approaching him with questions. However, fortunately for the media, Busch is now far from the person he used to be.
