Kyle Busch: Hate losing more than I enjoy winning | Forward Progress

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0:50Each Thursday, we're sharing stories of our most watched athletes, celebrities, and leaders. We hope these problem-solving narratives inspire you to tackle obstacles in your own life. This week, Kyle Busch.

1:07I'm reading these stories about you, and the media has destroyed you over the years. I picked the most biting quote, and this is from 2011, and it goes, the Bush brothers put on a sad downward spiral of a display reminiscent of two three-year-olds fighting over who will get the last cupcake. Flipping out, flipping off, tearing a transcript in a reporter's face, wrecking people under caution. Kyle Busch should be parked for this race and maybe the rest of the season. Being benched, sponsors withdrawing, and then showing all the regret of someone who'd accidentally stepped on a daffodil. Looking back on that now, what do you think about that period?

1:49Um, yeah, I don't know. You can have any excuse you want. It happened, right? So there's no excuse that it didn't happen. Why did it happen? I don't know. I mean, I look at it right now with my son Brexton, who's five years old, and we're trying to teach him how to lose better. Like, he absolutely hates to lose. Like, just a couple weeks ago, he finished second in a race, and he was crying, like hysterically crying that he didn't win. Your wife, Sam, was interviewing you for something, and you made the comment to her, you're like, I mean, he kind of gets really upset when he loses, and I didn't teach him to lose that way, it's just hereditary.

2:30It's hereditary, we have a problem, hereditary, right? It's a blending of my dad's tenacity and his attitude. My mom is the social butterfly, she's like the life of the party. you know we watched racing all the time and there's a guy Dale Earnhardt Sr. that was the intimidator on TV and the way he drove the way he talked the way he acted you know and then the influences of movies in racing Days of Thunder came out in the early 90s and NASCAR just seemed to blossom after that and to this day still my little brother his nickname Rowdy it came from Rowdy Burns, a character on Days of Thunder, and he races in his spare time with the number 51 on his car.

3:19We give so much to what we do and the sport and racing cars and who we are that a lot of our emotion in failure comes out in an entirely wrong fashion. The quote about me crashing a guy under caution was, I had felt wronged by this particular guy over and over and over again. And so I was like flat out, I'm done. I'm sick and tired of it. I am going to destroy you right now. And I did it. And that's what happened, you know. And that same guy cost me a shot at a championship in the Bush Series back in 2004. But nobody remembers that. But I do, you know. So am I vindicated for doing that? No, but.

4:06I sometimes see blinders on him. And that he's so driven to go get that checkered flag. that then reminds me of my dad. On when he went to the racetrack, we were there to win. We weren't there to make friends. To what extent for you was there a turning point or a wake-up call or at minimum some sort of understanding of the extent to which you could take it without causing problems for yourself? I think the biggest thing is I've had to learn how to, and this is crazy and this is probably a bad thing, but honestly I've had to learn how to um care less really yeah like it's not about learning how to lose better to me it's about learning how to care less about losing which there's a fine line there because it can bleed over to caring less about racing in general honestly I feel like I'm to a point now where if I go any farther then I might as well just be done I read in a story that you basically have a guy that needs to be paid back folder and a guy that's been good to me folder.

5:16Elaborate on that. well so when you have guys that that race you well race you clean they always treat you with respect on the racetrack that goes that goes both ways you know that's mutual uh and there's that folder of guys and then there's the other folder of guys where whenever they get to you they run into you they door slam you they knock you out of the way they basically just whatever right and so you want to do the same thing back to them this episode is brought to you by athletic brewing company. No matter how you do game day, on the couch, in the crowd, or manning the snack table, Athletic Brewing fits right in.

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6:41I'm just going to be in this. I don't think there's a race car driver out there that doesn't have those two folders. How would you describe his personality to somebody who's never met him before? Well, it depends. I think, like, if you're at the racetrack and it's right before the race, you get, you know, race day Kyle. He's focused, he's driven, he's not listening to you at all because in his head he's running through every scenario. How can you tell when he's not listening to you? Oh, his eyes, just like blank. or I'll say something, he's like, what? Did you hear anything I said the last five minutes?

7:16He's like, no, not listening. So now, I mean, this far into it, I just know I'm not even going to ask you anything important on race day. But in the beginning, I was a little bit annoyed, but now I'm like, I get it. But then if you get him at home, I mean, he's easygoing, he's fun, he's carefree, he's funny. I mean, I think, you know, now with Brexton, there's a whole new side. And watching him be a dad is amazing. You said, I'm pretty much my own worst critic, which is kind of bad to be. How so? I hate losing more than I enjoy winning. And even in a win, there's things that I look back on on wins and I'm like, that could have been better.

7:57So like to me, maybe it's because I'm too much of a perfectionist and I can always look at the negatives to everything instead of the positives to things. Do you think that's bad though? It's turned me into this. Right, I mean I was going to say. I don't think it's a bad thing, it's just a way of figuring out how to control all of that, harness all of that, use all of that to your advantage. And I've gotten a little bit better and a little bit smarter of that over the years, but definitely in my younger years I was not as charismatic. That's it for now, but if you're hungry for more in-depth interviews, head over to youtube.com slash Graham Bensinger.

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