Cars racing at 200 mph on oval tracks are always flirting with disaster, and in a sport as unforgiving as NASCAR, no driver gets through unscathed. Wrecks come with the territory — some derail a weekend, others sideline a driver for months. But in Kyle Busch’s case, one of the worst crashes of his career became the turning point that fueled a championship run.
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During a recent appearance on GOLF’s Subpar podcast with Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz, Busch revisited the terrifying crash that sidelined him for the first 11 Cup races of the 2015 season. Just one day before the Daytona 500, Busch ran the Xfinity Series season opener. What followed would change the trajectory of his year.
Racing up front, Busch was swept into a multi-car wreck. His car skidded across the infield and slammed into a section of concrete wall not yet outfitted with a SAFER barrier.
“I spun into the infield, and there’s an inside retaining wall, and I hit that at 90 miles an hour, 90 Gs, and I broke my left foot and broke my right leg in that crash. And so, that one hurt. That one didn’t feel very good,” Busch recalled.
The crash left him with a compound fracture of the right leg and a broken left foot. He climbed from the wrecked car on his own before being transported to a nearby hospital. At impact, Busch knew something was seriously wrong.
“As soon as the wreck happened, as soon as I hit, I knew instantly my right leg broke. I could feel it. It was just a sharp pain,” he said.
True to form, Busch came back swinging. He returned to competition and won an Xfinity Series race at Michigan. Then came a streak of seven straight top-five finishes, including four wins. On the Cup side, he collected five victories after returning, capping off the year by taking the checkered flag at Homestead-Miami and winning the 2015 Cup championship.
In a sport where fortunes flip in a heartbeat, Busch transformed a brutal crash into one of NASCAR’s greatest comebacks.
