Making his debut as a full-time Cup Series driver all the way back in 2001, Kurt Busch has seen a lot in NASCAR. The 2004 Cup Series champion announced his retirement just a month ago at Daytona, officially bringing to an end one of the most glittering careers in the modern era. This week, he joined NASCAR veteran Kenny Wallace and gave fans incredible insights into the beginnings of his career, his relationship with team owners, and most importantly, what he thinks about NASCAR today.
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With more than two decades at the top level of American motorsports, Busch is perhaps the best person to talk to about the direction the sport is coming from, where it is headed, and what he thinks about it.
Kurt Busch has one big issue with NASCAR presently
Speaking this week on the ‘Kenny Conversation’, Busch expressed that while he likes where NASCAR is currently placed, he feels the sport can do more with the ‘iron-fist mentality’ and decisiveness that it had in the early part of his career.
“Now what I see with NASCAR, there is the France family but there’s such a board of directors and others and all these categories and all these things going on that it’s a committee and it hurts itself sometimes. There still needs to be that one go-to like, we’re going in this direction type of person. That’s what I’d like to see with our sport.”
To make his point, Busch narrated an anecdote of visiting Bill France Jr. in 2004 right after he became the champion. The former NASCAR Executive pointed to the then Roush Racing driver, “..you’re a champion now of my sport, don’t go fu** it up,” said Busch.
Kurt Busch on how NASCAR is the American show over IndyCar
Ahead of Kyle Larson’s attempt at the Double Duty next year, Kurt Busch still remains the last driver to complete the IndyCar-Charlotte double back in 2014. Wallace also asked Busch about NASCAR’s position in the American motorsports landscape when compared to the nearest competitor, the IndyCar series.
Pointing out that NASCAR was still the top-notch show in America, Busch said, “There’s 25 teams that show up over here with a chance to win, IndyCar doesn’t have that many. Our budget is probably six times the amount of money per car as an Indy car.”
To IndyCar having around 250,000 people for the grand Indy 500 spectacle, Busch cleared, “We go and travel 36 races and we’ve got minimum 70,000 people that are at our events every week.,” laying to rest any comparison in the scale of the two series.
