November 7th, 2011 
Journo Since the implementation of NASCAR’s more lenient on-track policing policy began last season we’ve been waiting for this moment. Waiting for NASCAR to give some definition to, “we’ll know it when we see it.”
While I don’t think we got a whole lot of clarity with the penalty this weekend, I can’t say I’m surprised that was the moment. Count me among the legions who didn’t expect NASCAR to act as strongly as they did, but again I wasn’t surprised.
Kyle Busch was out of his mind Friday night – out of his mind like seldom few I’ve ever seen on a race track. He not only wrecked Ron Hornaday’s repairable truck, he wrecked his own even more repairable truck all because he was upset Hornaday got loose and forced him up the track. The championship contender was apparently supposed to back down for Busch. It was mind-boggling.
And then NASCAR’s decision was not. Busch has repeatedly been involved in incidents this year. Most notably with Kevin Harvick and subsequently with Richard Childress. He, if you’ll remember, also had that 126 mph speeding ticket during the summer.
If this had been the first incident you may not have seen NASCAR act with as much gusto. But it wasn’t. This behavior has become all too frequent for Busch.
I’m hopeful this will be a moment of clarity for the driver. An opportunity for him to realize that maturity and temperance are important steps in becoming the great racecar driver he’s capable of becoming.
But I don’t blame NASCAR. In fact, I applaud them. This was a long time coming. It was unfortunate for Busch’s sponsors and increasingly I feel bad that Joe Gibbs and Joe Gibbs Racing are forced to make excuses for behavior I know they don’t find acceptable.
Kyle Busch got exactly what Kyle Busch deserved – and we’ll see if more is coming on Tuesday.
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Great post. I can not say I am surprised with either NASCARs reactions or Buschs complete loss of control. He is his brother all over again and the similarities are amazing. How can we ever forget the foolishness of Kurt during his last year at Rousch? Not to mention his off track exploits in Arizona when he expected to be let off of driving drunk then proceeded to verbally assault the arresting officer when he was not.
I fault the parents of these two. While they may have been supportive and loving parents during their up and coming years, they clearly never instilled a since of sportsmanship and maturity. As a father of 3 boys, I make sure they understand nothing is free and without consequence, something I believe Mr. and Mrs. Busch have failed to do. They have done a great disservice to them both and that lack of parenting may very well keep Kyle from ever winning the cup.
One more thing: the comparisons of Kyle to Dale Sr are laughable. While they may be some similarities on the track, Dale was an truly good man that worked hard and appreciated what he had both on and off the track. Kyle is a spoiled punk kid that has no respect for what he has be given and thinks he deserves more at the expense of everyone else.
Beyond what NASCAR, Gibbs, or Mars choses to do to Kyle..I am wondering what the owner of Busch’s truck will do? Will Kyle be parked, fined, or let go? I think the actions of the truck owner will speak volumes as to how serious Kyle is taking his predicament !
Why is it that JGR are “FORCED to make excuses for behavior they don’t find acceptable”.
If I do something that my employer doesn’t find acceptable they aren’t going to make excuses for me they are going to excuse me from being employed.
Oh yeah, that’s right. Kyle Busch is so great and important that the standards that they rest of us have to live up to don’t apply to him. How silly of me to think differently.
Chuckle…funny how NASCAR “knew it when they saw it” was also a “Ron Hornaday would clean Kyle’s clock if he sued him and it goes in front of a jury” moment…
If I’m Gibbs, I fire Kyle. He has demonstrated repeatedly that he does not have, and never will have, the mental makeup to become a Cup champion in this era. 20-30 years ago he could probably do it, but not in this day and age when the mental game is what gets you there.
He’s too emotionally unstable and if Gibbs can’t coach him thru it and marriage didn’t help him, it ain’t gonna happen. And now that he’s sunk to gravely jeopardizing sponsorships, the guy is toxic and has become an economic liability.
I’m sure this probably sounds crazy to most out there, but if I’m Gibbs I’d talk to M&Ms about Reutiman. Number one, he’s a guy that probably responds very well to what Gibbs is best at: coaching. Number two, he’s shown he can drive a fast car up front. Number three, he’s available. Number four, his persona fits M&Ms image. Give him a one year deal to see if he cuts it in Gibbs equipment and responds to the world class coaching, and if not, ditch him.
IMHO what forced NASCAR to send KB to time out was the angle of attack at which Hornaday’s truck struck the Texas wall. That scared NASCAR silly, it did me at the time.
Let me back up 10 years to explain. I am a firm believer that Earnhardt’s DIS wreck was fatal only because of Dale’s previous injuries, seat position, gear preference and the perfect angle of attack, but not so much the speed of impact. That was ultimately a racing incident “under green” conditions.
Fast forward to Friday night. An “under yellow” malicious attack from KB on RH resulted in an eerily similar path of impact. In a nutshell “road rage” pure and simple.
If NASCAR were to allow this repeat offender to continue to intentionally and ultimately negatively alter another drivers health and well being they could be liable…whether the drivers are independent contractors, or not. BTW I am sure KB did not intend to injure Ron’s physical body and merely rough up his truck. But as we all know, no one driver “intends” to create a fatal outcome…it just happens.
Two years ago, Cousin Carl just got plain lucky BK wasn’t killed or injured at Atl. Simple as that!
Here we go again.. Nascar making rules up as they go along. And this why the mainstream media, the sports media and the general sports fan will NEVER take Nascar seriously. First they let their major league stars play in their minor leagues. Can you imagine if Derek Jeter were allowed to compete with local triple A team when he wasn’t on the field for the Yankees? Then to top if off, when the major leaguer has a run in with one of the minor leaguers he is suspended from the major league event?? Had this been Edwards or Hamlin, or god forbid ol Jr boy himself the outcome would have been totally different and everybody knows it including Mike Helton and the rest of Nascar. But because it was the guy everybody loves to hate it made it an easy call and more disturbingly, a popular call for Nascar. Its this kind of rules making on the fly behavior that makes me ashamed to admit to new people I meet that I’m a Nascar fan. Its that same look people get when they say they like wrestling.
@Lydia – Kyle owns his truck so nothing there.
@MS I’m with ya on Reuti. Kyle is a liability to any sponsor but maybe Kleenex and Duct Tape.
I keep trying to be a Kyle Busch fan – the kid is so talented that his career could be one of the great ones in NASCAR. But then he screws it all up. I doubt Gibbs fires him, but I think the timing is perfect: he’s out of championship contention, guaranteed to finish no worse than 12th, so park him for the rest of the year.
Lydia… Busch owns his truck… why would he fine/ park himself. The only fine he will give himself is a destroyed truck and possibly loss of sponsorship.
He’s being punished unfairly based on past precedent. Everyone seems to have quickly forgotten last year when Carl Edwards sat in the garage for half a race to have his car fixed, only to deliberately wreck Brad K when he came back on the track. That was FAR worse than what Kyle did.. because Edwards had time to sit and think about his actions before taking them. It wasn’t a poor decision in the heat of the moment, it was a premeditated and PLANNED action, and all he got for it was probation. The argument that what Kyle did was worse because it happened under yellow is a load of bull.
And comparisons to Dale Sr. ARE justified…. they’re very similar on and off track. Dale was no saint off track. He wasn’t a very good father, and he was known for having the same aggressive driving style in his street car. I loved Dale Sr, but the man had his flaws too.
MS….Reutiman? Seriously? A dish rag has more personality. And Helton should have drawn the line a week before in Martinsville. We all know that Vickers was out of his mind and should’ve been set down for a week. But the aggression was allowed to continue every week under the guise of letting boys be boys.
I’m a KyBu fan, and still am, but it’s difficult right now. I don’t think anything could have more humiliating to him than to have to sit on the pit box and watch McDowell go backwards in his car.
JGR needs to fire him, period. If Joe Gibbs had any integrity at all, he would do so. But, i’m sure he’ll do the same thing that he did when he was in the NFL: make excuses for his athletes and let them play after a slap on the wrist. How many slaps does it take, Joe? I’m sure if Mars threatened to pull their sponsorship, we’d see Joe fire him real quick!
IF Kyle Busch gets canned by Coach & J.D. over this incident Shub’s future opportunities with front-line Cup teams will be limited. Let’s remember: 1) He broke a driver development contract with Roush to sign with Hendrick. 2) He was fired by Hendrick to make room for Dale Jr. 3) Richard Childress got so mad at him for his truck race antics that he tried to beat Kyle up in Kansas.
Considering that these three mega-teams control nearly all of the competitive engine inventory in Cup (except Penske/Dodge), a team signing Kyle might not have the horsepower and/or reliability he is used to.
I’m also wondering about the status of the Gibbs/KBM contract for next year with Dollar General. Supposedly, part of the deal was sponsorship for the KBM truck team. Does Dollar General pull all or part of this barely-ink-dry sponsor contract?
KB probably thinks he is too good to be replaced. Sit him down for the rest of the season and the first race of next. Now you have his attention.
@Lydia, Kyles truck team is owned by Kyle, I dont see him firing himself. haha
Anyways, I dont know if you guys payed attention, while intervened yesterday, JG was asked if kyle would continue driving the 18 car, he did not give a vote of confidence. He basically said we have to make Mars happy.
Could be interesting.
If Busch did get the boot, I see no reason why he couldnt buy a seat at Roush, Stewart Haas, or, build his own team like Tony did. Kyles career will survive this.
I have been reading many articles this AM and this one makes the most sense. Joe Gibbs is between a rock and a hard place, might be time to cut his losses. If I might speculate for a moment, it Ron had been on the outside of Kryle under the same circumstances, the outcome probably would most likely been the same except Kryle would have said that Ron should have given him more room to get around the slower vehicle which they both saw. Lets see, can anyone say double standard.
lydia, kyle owns kyles truck so i dont think he’ll be getting chastised on that front.
@grumpiestoldman said:
“A dish rag has more personality (than Reutiman).”
The same could be said for the M&M cartoon characters they use in their ad copy. All the more reason Reutiman is a good fit for them.
@Rick said:
“KB probably thinks he is too good to be replaced. Sit him down for the rest of the season and the first race of next. Now you have his attention.”
That would just provide more cases like Sunday for him to say “See what I mean? I told you so.” And while true that there are very few any better at raw driving ability, at the end of the day its a business.
So IMO Kyle needs to be fired for making himself into a toxic asset. Kyle needs to be fired for demonstrating repeatedly that he doesn’t have the mental makeup to win a championship in this era.
If he’s a cash cow like Jr he’s earned his keep. Or if he’s a legit title contender like the 17 he’s earned his keep. The problem is that now that he’s made himself toxic with sponsors and proven yet again what his mental makeup is, he’s neither at this point. He is useless if all he can do is win some purse money. What is the motive to keep him??
Gotta say, I’ve lost all respect for him (and I did have some, because I thought a lot of the stuff he did was immature but funny. Bowing to the crowd while being booed, etc. All in good fun).
And he took the spotlight away from Tony Stewart’s historic and amazing run.
Screw you, Kyle. Go back to third grade.
you know reading all the articles about Kyle there are alot of opinions. Some say it was no different when Dale Sr would wreck people. Well i have been around racing a long time and have seen alot of “Pay back” but never saw anyone drive into another driver and push him until he wrecked like that. Kyle said he is there to win races and it does not matter if Ron was running for a Championship, right lets all remember this when Kyle is in that situation. I heard fans were mad at NASCAR, maybe you should point a little of that frustration towards Kyle. These drivers, ALL of them get mad and react. What I saw from KB was a racing incident that once over he hesitated, ran after Ron and did not just hit him and drive on but floored it locked to his bumper and drove him into the wall. Wall not a fence as some so much want to call it. At speeds that could be dangerous. Ron’s title on the line was a shame but what Kyle did and the way he did it the safety aspect was the real crime. Lastly I heard why take him out of Nationwide and Cup for a Truck race issue. Well how much money will it take to get his attention? seems that is not a motivator so what is the next best thing, sit him down for the remaining weekend races with Cup being the largest impact. Remember they parked Harvick at Martinsville a few years back so not really a new punishment. This is Kyles fault, not NASCAR.
RE: The comments about Kyle never finding a ride if JGR fires him. No way. He’s too talented, one of the major teams would pick him up in an instant and say “we’ll change him”. Happens in every sport.
How many pricks in other sports are cut from a team because of their antics just to be picked up immediately by another team.
Also, remember in sports there’s the “he’s an asshole but he’s OUR asshole.” Dennis Rodman was HATED by Bulls fans when he was in Detroit. When he came over for the 3 Bulls championships, he was beloved in Chicago.
He is a druggie, displays all the actions of a drug addict !!!!!!
I think all the people who keep comparing this to Edwards need to think about it for a minute. What Carl did was wrong and I’m a Carl Edwards fan, but there are differences here. Kyle Busch has been given the “get out of jail free card” before. He really should have been suspended for his off track incident. Remember the speeding ticket that cost him his North Carolina driver’s licence? When I used to drive on the Nascar weekly racing series we were told, lose that street car licence and lose the Nascar licence. I think that rule should certainly apply at the highest levels. Kyle Busch has time and time again shown disrespect for everyone in the garage, including his own team. I also truly believe the recent death of Dan Weldon played into Nascar’s decision. Even if they don’t want to say it. And as mentioned by another comment, Kevin Harvick was given the same treatment so it isn’t something new. Busch thought he was bigger than Nascar. They showed him he was not!!
@Chistopher F: “The comments about Kyle never finding a ride if JGR fires him. No way. He’s too talented, one of the major teams would pick him up in an instant and say “we’ll change him”. Happens in every sport.”
Yep, you have a great point!
But I just had this thought – If Shrub had simply waited until the restart to dump Hornaday, all of this fuss would have been confined to the small (but loyal) crowd and TV audience that watched the Texas truck race. Shrub would have run (and probably won) his Busch race on Saturday and run way better in the M&Ms car than 33rd on Sunday.
The boy to needs to pay better attention to the timing of his paybacks!
talk about over reacting – no not NASCAR but the fans – fire him? NI had it right there were no hard rules simply a ‘when it happens…’. Kyle (finally) crossed the line: much like nearly every single child did/does. And he was given a wake-up call.
Kevin Harvick was on a similar path several years ago and was parked for the weekend (Martinsville ?). Since, his recklessness has been greatly reduced. I suspect a similar outcome to Kyle.
BTW i love when Directv has either Busch on its driver station especially when the car is not working well – great entertainment.
@ Christopher F. Maybe Bulls fans hated Rodman and then didn’t because he won championships. Key words, WON championships. KyB hasn’t won any championships at his day job.
KyB is toxic and a PR nightmare now. I give him credit for being an incredible driver. What a waste of talent if he isn’t the whole package, a sponsors dream. I wrote to M&M’s asking why they want someone like him representing their brand. I haven’t heard back yet. Guessing they are wading through thousands of emails like mine. I hope they find another team so I can start eating M&Ms again. Yeah, I’m one of those fans who doesn’t like a driver and will not buy/use their product. I told that to M&Ms too.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
PS to Doug in KY. Busch’s parents faked KyB’s birth certificate so he could be old enough to race at the Bullring in LV. They/he got caught. There you go.
Doug from KY, that was an excellent, well-written post. Thank you for taking the time.
Saying up front, I’m not a Kyle fan… what was it that ‘crossed the line’, especially in light of what we’ve seen elsewhere this year?
Paying a guy back under caution and with nobody else in the immediate vicinity? Seen it plenty before Friday night and without any suspension.
Wrecking a guy running for a championship? Since when do those guys get the kid gloves treatment?
Payback for something that wasn’t (that) intentional or malicious? Seen it plenty of times before Friday, again with no penalty.
Payback which is worse than the initial damage? Again, seen it plenty of times.
So what was it about this particular incident? That it was deliberate? That the initial crime was so relatively insignificant? That he didn’t just bang into Hornaday but rather kept his foot on the gas? That it happened to a championship contender? Or simply that it was Kyle Busch?
I know NASCAR wants to have its cake and eat it too (‘have at it boys’ to goose the ratings and be able to dictatorially suspend a driver for crossing a poorly painted line) but they lose credibility with me with their constant winging it.
@Christopher F. said:
RE: The comments about Kyle never finding a ride if JGR fires him. No way. He’s too talented, one of the major teams would pick him up in an instant and say “we’ll change him”.
Who is going to sponsor him if MARS bails?? No $ no ride nowhere.
Lets look at the facts: Kyle made himself toxic not just for being mentally unstable on the track, he’s also made himself toxic by becoming the proud owner of what is probably the single biggest collapse in NASCAR championship history. This was his best shot ever going into the Chase and yet look at him now.
What sponsor wants to sign a guy with those gems hanging around his neck???
Kyle won the first COT race. He got out of the car & told the reporter that the COT sucks. He got his walking papers from Mr Hendricks not long after. I don’t know why Gibbs puts up with him. I think he’s a liability. He’s really fast, but he can be easily goaded into driving like an idiot. He has moments of brilliance, but he can string enough of those moments together.
Did you not read your own post about Reutimann:
http://www.thenascarinsiders.com/2010/10/03/david-reutimann-and-the-art-of-overreaction/
@markh – I reread the post on Reutimann, and I fail to see your point. The NIs seem to be consistent in both posts, the payback was an overreaction to a ‘racing deal’.
I feel Kyle got what he deserved, but I also agree with Kevin about Kyle being goaded into driving like an idiot.If you look back, either Harvick or one of his drivers started every one of these incidents and Kyle was stupid enough to take the bait and always over react. I know this last time Hornaday didn’t do it on purpose, but at the same time why was a championship contender going 3 wide driving over his ass on lap 18? If he didn’t do that were not even talking about this today. I can see how Kyle can get sucked in. I would have got Hornaday too, but not like Kyle did. If I were NASCAR I would also sit down with Harvick and let him know he’s being watched too, because he loves to stir the shit and especially toy with Kyle.
@JT,
“@Chistopher F: “The comments about Kyle never finding a ride if JGR fires him. No way. He’s too talented, one of the major teams would pick him up in an instant and say “we’ll change him”. Happens in every sport.””
There are NO MAJOR TEAMS LEFT if JGR drops him! Roush already has said he will/has passed on him (been there, done that with a Busch). Hendrick let him go. Childers put him in a headlock and played the drums on his noggin’. If JGR drops him, who’s left? Penske? Probably at wits end with the elder Busch! Redbull? Closing maybe. Petty? doubtful. Waltrip? Joke of a team. Ganassi/DEI? Talk about a pay cut. Furniture Row? Petree? Not exactly a major team!
Was it not a few years ago that Tony the tiger was driving like Kyle. How come Tony St is a darling when a few years he was a bad guy. Did not Tony have too go to anger manage classes. Maybe you like maybe you do not but the kid started a truck team right before Daytona and rocked. Maybe he is a smart car owner that knows when too turn it up and when not but he is not taking any crap from anyone on the track. I am a Horniday fan but Ron run him up the track….If I was in Kyles place I would have done the same thing place a bumper on him and let him know I did not like what you did too me. So I do not finish the race and neither do you. Like Kyle or not If I every hit the lottery for a ton of money and I could hire one driver too drive me it would be Kyle. If anyone out there is more driving his ass off you tell me who. He gives it everything he has and does not like loosing and that is the driver I am rooting for. He drives the wheels of the car and that is who I would want too drive for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
If I were Joe Gibbs, I would dump the toxic kid and immediately go to work trying to acquire the ‘rights’ to either Trevor Bayne (unsponsored for next year so far)or David Ragan (also without a sponsor for next year). Kyle B has had his chance(s) and he has blown it time and time again. He lost any hopes of gaining me as a fan when he smashed the guitar at Nashville. What a continuing embarassment! Coach, take him out of the game!