Kurt Busch will be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame next January. He’s definitely deserving of it, having won the 2004 NASCAR Cup championship and 34 Cup races before his career was cut short due to a serious concussion. Busch had a lot of great moments in his NASCAR career, and some not so great moments, including several run-ins with reporters.
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There’s one instance that he particularly regrets, a hot mic incident with TV reporter Jamie Little that still bothers Busch today. He relayed this in a recent episode of the SpakeUp Podcast with Shannon Spake.
It was in 2011 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Busch’s car did not pass pre-race inspection. He was heading across the track, from Turn 1 to Turn 4 (where tech inspection was located) and Little intercepted him, asking if he was willing to talk.
Busch and Little are good friends and both are from Las Vegas. But Busch was in no mood to talk that day and, unfortunately, his verbiage was picked up live.
“I don’t know that (my car didn’t pass tech), I’m doing driver intros, I’m doing a lap around in the truck, taking a couple pictures by the pit box with our fans, with our sponsors,” Busch said. “And I go out to find my car on the grid and it’s not there. I’m like, ‘Where’s my f***ing car?’
“So the cameras are coming at me and I’m like, ‘Oh I know they’re coming to me and I’m going to just beeline to go find my car… It’s like a couple minutes and the National Anthem’s going to play. I’m like, ‘Not right now, Jamie, I’ve got to go find my f***ing car.’”
Little responded by asking, “Are you okay with asking a question?” To which Busch promptly said, “Why the f*** do you think I’d be okay? I’ve got to go get in my car. NASCAR told me I’ve got to get in my car.”
That moment opened Pandora’s Box, in a way, with a number of officials on other teams giving their take on what just happened. Billy O’Shea, spotter for Kevin Harvick, said, “Keep an eye on the 22 (Busch). He’s in full meltdown mode.”
Jeff Dickerson (now co-owner of Spire Motorsports, but back then the spotter for Jeff Gordon) went, “22 just went ape-s**t. I guess he went crazy sometime here in the last few minutes.” Kevin Hamlin, spotter for Clint Bowyer, said, “Hey Clint, word is the driver of the 22 had a slight meltdown in driver intros today.”
“I wasn’t really cussing at Jamie, I was just trying to find my f***ing car,” Busch said.
Busch had run-ins with other media
Busch had several other run-ins ranging from Dr. Jerry Punch to Marty Smith from ESPN during his career. But he also had some good situations, even though they sometimes eventually led to a bad situation, such as with Bob Pockrass (formerly of Sporting News, and now with FOX Sports).
“Those things happen,” Busch said. “But at the end of the day, if I could do one thing over, because everyone says they wouldn’t change anything, but maybe it would have been to go out to dinner with different media members and go have a beer and to chill.
“Like I ran into Bob Pockrass one time at the airport. We were going into an off week, I was going to the Bahamas and he was going to London and we had a beer and we chit-chatted.
“Then it was like two months later when he was asking me something about Justin Allgaier at Dover and I’m like, ‘Bob, if I wasn’t on (NASCAR) probation right now, I’d just kick your a**.’ But it was kind of like a friendship moment. He definitely got under my skin in that moment but it was like, ‘Oh boy, I did it again.’”
