Kyle Busch: Racing, Fatherhood, and the Drive to Win

25:43Do you remember what you put down when they had you calculate? No. Like$123 ,000. So, I mean, it just goes to show that, you know, if you can, you know, overcome the doubters. You must have had like a summer task to have a job or something over the summer. I don't remember that one. I do remember there was another time in science class. I did this science project. And I built different models, different car models with different types of glue. And then I would set weights on top of them for how well the glue worked and whether or not the cars would fall apart with different weights on them and time it and all that sort of stuff.

26:24So I was a geek in the car regard. While I think your mom enforced this more, how would your parents use racing as kind of a reward or incentive?

26:38You know, what's fortunate for me, I guess, is I was never in bad situations growing up. So when I was in school, I went to school. And, yeah, there were occasional times I'd get in trouble at school or whatever for different things. but I'd get certain things taken away from me, I guess. But once it came time to win it, I was racing. You know, the rules were you have to be an A or B student and no Cs or else you can't race. And so I never got a C until my final year of school. Okay, what happened? So I'm going racing all over the place and we come home Sundays late at night, whatever, and I'm tired, you know, and this is before the days of, I hate coffee.

27:24I can't drink coffee. I hate the taste or the smell, right? So this is the day before energy drinks are really popular, so I don't even know what the hell they are. So I get up in the morning, and I don't even remember driving to school half the time and getting to school, but then I'd get there, and first period was a computer class. Well, in computer class, sometimes they would turn the lights off. Dude, as soon as the lights went off, my lights went off. I was out, so I would sleep through first period a lot. So that was the first C I got. It's fair. I know, it's fair, yeah, I know. In what ways did your dad help you?

27:57In what regard? Racing. My dad was a huge influence just in the car realm. His dad was a car guy, he was a car guy. He loved cars, he worked on cars, he was a car dealership mechanic for years. Then he got out of it and wanted to be his own boss, so he sold tools as a Mac tool distributor, driving around the town and going to other automobile shops and stuff and selling tools. So we always had cars in the garage. You know, my dad built a 1932 Coupe when I was five years old, less than five. I might have been, Kurt might have been seven or eight, I guess, and he was massaging on it. There's pictures of us working on this car.

28:38And so we also owned a 1946 sedan over the years. And so we always had cars. And that was really important to your dad that both of you worked on cars, right? Correct. Yeah, it was. And he wanted to see if we showed interest in it, right? And so my dad one time went to the local racetrack. And he just went out there to go watch. And one of the guys actually in his dealership that he was working at at the time, I think this is like 73 or 74, he um the guy was the guy owned a car and he had a guy driving it for him and they weren't all that great and so then the guy was going to sell the car and get rid of it and stop racing and my dad was like well hold on a second wait wait wait let me take the car let me work on it let me race it and let's see what we can do well he won three of the last five races of the year in the thing and then they rebuilt it over the winter time they went out the next year they destroyed everybody won the most races won the championship then they sold that car got a better car like another division up and did the same thing went out there won a ton of races again like and then the track closed for a few years while another track was rebuilt um which is now the bull ring in las vegas that's where i raced and grew up racing the first track was called craig road speedway um but so my dad essentially became a an amateur racer and during all this time it's i think back to it and i'm like man i think my dad missed out on an opportunity to move the family to north carolina and try his hand in figuring out how to go race nascar but i don't think he ever had the aspirations to do that?

30:28I'm not sure to this day, really. You could ask him, I guess. But he just, they stayed in Vegas. He raced in Vegas. He was one of the winningest drivers in Vegas. And when Kurt was old enough to get his start, he sold his big car and bought two smaller cars for the same price. It was a level down in racing. They were cheaper, but you could get two for the price of the one big one. And so that's when Kurt got his start. And so they raced together for a few years. And then when I was old enough to get my start, then I got in and I got my dad's hand-me-down and Kurt had his car. So then him and I were racing for a little bit, but that's when Kurt's career took off and he raced more out of town when I first got my start.

31:15Then, so I was racing a little bit by myself and my dad would occasionally drop back in and race a little bit because he got in a bad accident in November, October, November of 97. There was a 30 car legends car field and the slowest guy on the racetrack. My brother was leading. My brother lapped him. And then I think, I can't remember if my dad was running second or third in the race, but then the guy wanted to follow the fast guy, so he got up and wanted to move up and follow a fast guy. Well, my dad was on his outside, and so he turned up, and it flipped my dad over on his roof, and he slid head-on into the retaining wall where the track exit was.

32:03So it was basically like a head-on wall, and while he was upside down, it broke his neck. So he was sidelined after that. So I got my start, the Salt Lake City race, I think it was August, September of 98. Okay. That was the first track that we could find that would allow someone under 16 to race. And because our local track, you had to be 16, so I couldn't race. I was only 13 at the time. How did it affect you when news came out about falsifying a birth certificate? I kind of felt, kind of felt cool. Oh, did it? so long. Okay. How long did you get away with it? I got away with it for two and a half years.

32:46Okay. So I was 13. You were supposed to be 14 to start racing. So I started at 13 and we made the birth certificate, right? So I started at 13 and I made it all the way to 15. So I'm running cars that you're supposed to be 16 years old to run and I'm 15. And I ran these cars for half a season. I think it was somewhere around July timeframe, June or July. And we're racing at the dirt track at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. And it's a dirt modified. And I'm driving this guy's car. It wasn't even, it wasn't even our car, my dad's car. It was somebody else's car. And I'm running third. I think I was running third in the race and I'm racing against this guy and he's blocking me and um anyways i felt like he was running me dirty so i spun him out coming to the checkered so i finished i finished second or third whatever it was and um he wanted to fight after the race was over how old was he oh he's in his 30s 40s so i'm in the tech area because when you finish in the top five you have to go to tech so i pull over in the tech area and i'm sitting there and my steering wheel's stuck on the column it's like that's an old rusted car They race on dirt.

34:02It's a really a turd. But anyways, I run second with it. So it couldn't have been that bad. Anyway, the steering wheel is stuck on. So this guy comes over and he is just ripping my ass through the window and just chewing on me. Right. And then he like, I, I think I take my helmet off and like, he's yelling at me, like, get out of the car. I want, like he wants to fight, like whatever. And so I take my helmet off and he just stops and he's like, oh my god he's just a kid like he says that like right there like it just shell shock so um one of the guys that raced with us he was on my team he was a bigger guy so he got there in time and was like pulling him away and stuff but so that so the next day the guy calls um the las vegas sports reporter and says hey this kid's name's kyle bush can you look up his records how old is he?

34:58Because the next week he wants to kick my ass, right? So he wants to know if I'm 18, if he can beat me up. So the guy's like, oh, well, he's only 15. And he's like, wait, what? He's only 15 and you're supposed to be 16 to run these cars. So that's how I got caught. Although I think you had a pretty thick skin anyways, because I've read some story where a Vegas nightclub owner who was racing, you were competing against, and he was quoted as saying, you threatened to like kick his one race. And so I'm like, man, for like a kid to be competing against the big guys, you've got a healthy degree of confidence anyways.

35:33I remember there being moments of there was another kid in Vegas who I raced against, and he and I, we didn't get along, and his dad, and they would then start to team up together, the two of them against me in races. And my dad wasn't, he couldn't run at that point. This is like 2000, so he kind of got out of it by then. And so it was just me out there getting teamed up on. But we went through a lot of different battles. The first and last race, you and Kurt competed against one another in go-karts. Yeah, there was only one. So the first was the last. Right. Yeah. What do you remember from that?

36:09So we were, we always grew up with one go-kart. Matter of fact, we still have both go-karts today, but we only grew up with one at the time. And it was just this yard cart. My dad made it or bought it, and it had a five-horsepower motor on it. It's a one-wheel drive, just something to learn on. And that's how Kurt and I both learned what to do, how to drive, make laps. So we would always just be at the neighborhood parking lot. We went to the bank, and we're in the parking lot, and we'd time each other. That's how we would determine how we were running was just lap times. Yeah. Well, then we go to a swap meet and I like it was like like a cartoon, like there's something over there.

36:52And it's like, oh, like there was another go cart there. And I'm like, yes, we need that. Like it looked really similar, about the same. So we bought it. I think it was only like 100 bucks or something. So we bought it and then we got a motor for it. We put a motor on it. and Kurt and I were going to go out and we're going to run around and race against each other with our go-karts, right? Their open wheel, though, is a problem. So you climb a wheel and like you can flip over or whatever. We can injure each other. So we were racing each other clean, like just having fun, like back and forth a little bit.

37:24Well, then dad gives the one to go signal, like, hey, one more lap. And the race is on now, you know? It's like, oh, I've got to win. Of course he gives the one to go and Kurt's leading, right? So we go through one and two and Kurt slides up a little bit off of turn two and I got a run on him and I'm on his inside down the back straightaway and we turn off into turn three. And I'm like right here just on the inside of him and he chops me to get to the bottom. And I climb over his tire and as I climb over his tire and it launches the front of my car up and over the back of his car, it knocks the carburetor off his engine.

38:01And so his car like stalls out, dies out, whatever. And I make it back to the finish line. So I won. And that was it. That was the last time we ever ran two. Your dad just wasn't going to have it after that. No, he wasn't too impressed. So he wasn't too thrilled with that. I can't remember. Man, we had to be probably 10 and 16 at that time. Your dad said your motivation was always catch up, keep up, and then eventually pass whatever Kurt had done. For sure. Yeah, I always wanted to be doing what my brother was doing. So if my brother is six and a half years older than me, he's 16, he gets his license, he's driving around town.

38:43Well, I want to have my license and I want to be driving around town. He's going to RC car races and going out of state and running these big national events with his buddies with RC cars. Well, I want to be doing that because I'm racing RC cars too. Why can't I go? But, yeah, there was those types of moments where there's that sibling rivalry, right? And, I mean, we always had that rivalry no matter what. Well, in what ways did the sibling rivalry used to exist and what about now? So it used to exist where I would really lean on him a lot for just watching him and seeing what he's doing and wanting to outdo and be better than what he was doing.

39:22You know, if he was racing cars at 15, 16, and I started at 13, well, he won, I think he won a championship his second year of racing. I won my championship my first year of racing at a younger age. There was one other instance where we're at the Bullring in Las Vegas, and Kurt and I, I'm just getting started. This is my first year. It's 1998, and it might have been 99. Yeah, 98, I finished the year just a few races and then the start of the next year. So it's 1999.

39:59And we run a couple races against each other where he's really good, right? He's older than me. So he wins. Like, he beats me by a straightaway. So then the next time he beats me by half a straightaway. So then the next time he beats me, I'm right on his bumper. Well, my dad and I, we knew we were going to be racing for national points that year. So we come to a Friday night race. it was told to Kurt, like, hey, you need to let your brother win. Like, he has to win tonight, right? So we battle it out, the whole race, whatever, and we come to the finish line, and we're like neck and neck. And I finished, literally, I finished three inches behind him.

40:39And so I was livid. Like, I saw red, nothing but red. So we go home that night, and we work on the cars. We get everything prepared because there's a Saturday night race as well. And I tell myself in my head, I'm like, I'm going to go out there tonight. I'm going to set a new track record. Hold my beer. Watch this, boys. Right? So lo and behold, I qualify on the pole, new track record. I start last in the trophy because they invert the top six cars for the trophy dash. So I start last. Kurt starts second to last. So I win the trophy dash. And then they do the same thing for the main event. I think we lined up sixth and fifth again for the feature.

41:20And when they dropped the green flag for the feature, I ran. And I went right up to the front, got the lead, and took off. Like, never checked up. So when Kurt made his way through traffic a little bit easier than I did, he got to second, and then it was time for him to come chase me down. Well, I had about a straightaway lead on him at that point, and we finished the race. This is a 25-lap race. We finished the race. I finished the race with a straightaway lead on him. And so I was pumped up, excited, like, hell yeah, I just beat Kurt. Like, I'm somebody now, right? So we, like, I did it for real.

41:58Like, he didn't just let me win. Like, I kicked his butt. So we pull over. We go to the tech area for post-race tech. And I'll never forget it. We pull into tech. and my dad is the maddest he's ever been in his entire life. Why? And he rips my brother and my ass to the ground because, so this is Tom, those were his cars, those were his engines and Kurt and I just ran the death out of them and third place, like I was here, Kurt was a straightaway back. Third place was a half a lap down. So there was like, so my dad was pissed because we just outran his equipment. Like we overran his equipment in that race.

42:50And so he was like, if you two ever do that again, we're done. We're not doing this anymore. You guys go out there, you race each other with respect and, and you dice it up a little bit. You don't need to run away from the field like that. Like all this sort of stuff, you know, because we didn't have a whole lot of money. We bought engines for our cars from the junkyard from motorcycles that laid on their side and were crashed. You know, we didn't go to the engine guy and buy a$30 ,000 motor. You know, so that's just the way we were and the way we were raised. So I think Kurt and I might have run one or two more races together after that in Legends cars.

43:26That's it. Kurt asked me to bring up Kentucky 2019. Of course he did. Well, he said he believes you gave him space because he's your brother. And he asked me to, he said, bring that up to him and see what he says. Yeah, no, so we were racing 2019 Kentucky. I hadn't won in a while. The last race I won that year was back in March or April. I can't remember. But so we're racing Kentucky and it comes down to the end and it's a battle for the win. I was running second in the race. I think Kurt was running fourth in the race. There was a late race restart, and I got the lead on the restart. Kurt made it three wide to go around the guy that was in first, actually.

44:12He passed the guy that was in first. And so Kurt and I are now side by side racing each other for the last two laps of the race. And there was two times. Once, getting into turn three, coming to the white flag, when you watch the film, I was clear. Like, I could have drove up the racetrack and pulled in front of him and been clear. but my spotter never called me clear because there's not a good concise view of the from where he's standing to where we're racing that he can see that I'm clear so he didn't call me clear and I looked in the mirror and I'm like I think I'm clear but I didn't pull up and then the exact same thing the next lap I timed it out to where I could get a bigger gap to pull up and get in and same thing happened he didn't call me clear again and I was like I I knew I was clear I should have pulled up and I didn't, but Kurt was right there on my outside and we raced off of turn four and we banged doors a little bit and we raced to the finish and he won.

45:06Um, but yeah, I mean, there were a couple of different situations or circumstances, you know, I could have won that one, but, um, you know, just racing with my brother and racing, racing with him, not knowing that I was clear by enough and it being him, yeah, I gave him room. But if it was somebody else, one of my arch enemies or something like that, I would have pulled up in front of him no matter if I was clear or not. No, you would. Yeah. All right, how about when times when, because of the rivalry between the two of you, stuff wasn't going as well. Take me to that, I believe it was a Christmas dinner.

45:43You guys aren't talking and give a little context as to what led up to it. Well, let's talk about the issue was the All-Star Race 2007 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Comes to the final segment. We're both running in the top five. And I think Kevin Harvick, he took the lead. Jeff Burton was running second. Kurt had a run on Jeff Burton at a turn four. So he's on his inside. And I'm running fourth. And I got a big run through turns three and four. And I'm closing on these two guys who are stuck side by side. When you're stuck side by side, the air on both cars are slowing each other down, right? It's drag.

46:19So the guy that's back here with these two cars side by side, they're now punching a bigger hole in the air, so I got no drag. So I'm way faster. So I come up behind these two, and there is just enough room for me to fit my car underneath Kurt to make it three wide down the front stretch. Little wobble, little wobble, and he's out of control. And he says there wasn't enough room there, which fact of the matter was I got there, so there was enough room there. But he clears Jeff Burton by the second dog leg, and normally you're supposed to like wow out to the wall for inch for corner entry for your line to run a better line high entry low center just like i teach my son well kurt didn't go high entry he stayed low middle and tight on my door so when there's no air between the cars for the inside car there's no side force so there's nothing holding him from spinning out in the turn So as I entered the turn, we actually touched.

47:18Now you can say he came down. Somebody else could say I came up, whatever. We touched, and it spun me out, and it crashed the both of us. So he wrecked me. He finally admitted it just two years ago. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so he finally admitted it. Okay, that's not even what he said yesterday. Finally admitted it on my 200th win party. I called him out on it, and he admitted it. He finally wrecked me. That's what he says? Yeah. I'm like, all I wanted you to do is admit that you wrecked me. like you know but um so it was after that i was pissed i i saw red and um then he made some snark comment on tv about how he's not going to eat any more kellogg's for a while which was my sponsor at the time and so that made me more mad and so then we just we never talked and the whole rest of the year like even at driver intros like we know where we're each at all the time we never spoke to one another.

48:11And then, uh, I mean, that'd be brutal at the time, right? I mean, it is, I mean, your brother who you aren't talking to. Uh, I don't care. I didn't care. You didn't. Hell no. I didn't care. If he wasn't my brother, I wouldn't have cared. Uh, that's how I felt. Yeah. Um, but so grandma knows all this. So like I go visit grandma, he goes and visits grandma, Like, Grandma never gets to see the either of us together. And so she was upset about it. And there was this, hey, Dad basically was like, Grandma wants us to all have, I don't remember if it was Thanksgiving or Christmas together. So you guys need to kiss and make up and figure out how, you know, we can do this.

48:56So I think we still had Christmas together, but I still don't think we said but hi to each other. And how did it get repaired? It just took time. Yeah. You know, it just took time for us to kind of both get over it. Honestly, I think it was like the following year, end of year, was when it about came to where we would be on talking terms. So it was a while. Each of your personalities, colorful to say the least. Full disclosure, like I knew coming into this interview about as much about NASCAR as you probably do about curling. But I'm reading these stories about you, and the media has destroyed you over the years.

49:39I 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, like, what do you think about that period? Um, yeah, I don't know.

50:17You 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.

50:54It's just hereditary. It's hereditary. We have a problem. Hereditary, right? But so I don't think, and that goes back to my dad, you know, not the exact situation. But like I remember one of the times where I crashed a Legends car. And I remember coming back to the pits after the car was crashed. And he knew it wasn't my fault. like the oil filter came loose and I got in the wall, but I could just see in his face like the devastation of like a crashed car. So I'm like, man, don't ever finish second with this guy. Like we better just always win, you know? And so I don't know that we, it wasn't that we were ever not taught how to finish second, but I don't know.

51:41We just, we 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 gonna 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...

52:28To 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 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. And I think that's where a few other people that I've worked with or whatever over the course of the years, they move on and go different things because I don't know if they sense that or if they feel that or if they know that or whatever.

53:21But honestly, I feel like I'm to a point now where if I go any farther, then I might as well just be done. K-pop Demon Hunters, Haja Boys Breakfast Meal and Huntrix Meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi? It's not a battle. So glad the Saja boys could take breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day. It is an honor to share. No, it's our honor. It is our larger honor. No, really. Stop. You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. And participate in McDonald's while supplies last.

54:00Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha frappuccino drink? Or a sweet vanilla? Smooth caramel, maybe. Or white chocolate mocha. Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. You talked about the guy you wrecked out. You said, 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. Elaborate on that. Well, so when you have guys that race you well, race you clean, They always treat you with respect on the racetrack. That goes both ways.

54:40You know, that's mutual. 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. Hey!

54:58Hey! Hey! I don't think there's a race car driver out there that doesn't have those two folders. 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. That could have been better. The car didn't do this here. Like this was wrong. The pit crew dropped the lug nut on that stop, whatever it might be, you know what I mean? So 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.

55:39Do 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. What do you think about win racing? Winning? How do I pass the next guy in front of me? Like what I can do to win? I mean, there's been races where we're running 12th or 14th or 8th or something like that. And there's absolutely no shot to win.

56:20So that's why I liked Adam is we fought the same way. It's like, dude, we're just sitting here struggling like can we fix this thing so we'll come down on a pit stop and we'll sit in the pit box and we'll make adjustments to it whatever we can do to it we'll pull packer put packer in um we'll take rounds out of the rear window for for wedge adjustments we'll put spring rubbers in we'll do shot clicks we'll do whatever it takes in order to change the characteristics of the car to go out there and run better and that that happened the race that I had with Kyle Larson at Chicagoland Speedway where he and I banged each other up on the last lap.

56:55He ran me down. I still wasn't as fast as the fast guys, but I was able to make my car fast enough to have a shot to win. The finish of that race, Kyle Larson runs me down from a ways back, but we went from a 12th place car to a shot at winning a race. And so I was like, we've come this far. I'm not giving this thing up. And so he tries to pull a slide job on me, like throw it off into the corner and slide up in front of me, but he's not clear. I get back to his outside. Well, you can watch the film. You can see his hands. He turns right to hit me, to knock me in the wall. So it knocks me in the wall, slows me down.

57:32So now he's back to my inside and I have to come down and try to side draft him. And then he clears me getting into three, but I drive it off into three and I just run right in the back of him and knock him out of the way into a spin. and I'd go on to win the race, you know? So there's that A, never give up attitude, but B, you know, you can come from fixing a car that should have run 12th to winning at any given point. Two, I think, seemingly seminal moments from your career that I want to touch on. One, the separation with Hendrick, and two, the 2015 crash. First, Hendrick, Rick Hendrick's been quoted as saying that he was just under the assumption that you were unhappy and he probably should have taken a deep breath and had another conversation with you.

58:22To what extent do you think if communication was better at the end, the outcome might have been different? I don't know. The fact that lies in the Hendrick story was I had really good communication with Ricky Hendrick, who was Rick's son, who was a bit more my age. I think he was maybe seven, eight years older than I was. Well, he was unfortunately killed in a tragic plane accident in 2004. So I kind of felt like I lost my... I'm 18, right? So going and talking to Rick Hendrick, who's, I don't know, 48, 50, whatever how old he was, is not quite my guy. He's not quite my jam. And you kind of already felt like odd man out there, right?

59:09Or just didn't quite fit in anyways? Kind of, yeah. So Jimmy's winning a lot, Jeff Gordon's winning a lot, and I wasn't winning a lot. I only won one race a year. So there just was something not clicking with me, with the team, with whatever it was. And also the 2007 incident at the All-Star race, my outbursts and acting out a few times was ultimately the demise of the relationship. Oh, really? Yeah. I mean, I had to sit down with Jeff Gordon for an hour. I went to his office one day. He called me in. We sat down. I laid my... And Jeff Gordon, your childhood idol. Exactly. and he wanted to hear for me he wanted to hear my side of like so i spilled my guts right about everything you know and so i would say that that conversation came off more if it was 51 to 49 percent like 51 kyle's unhappy here however it came off to him well that was the message delivered to Rick, right?

1:00:14So that's why Rick said what Rick said. But it could have been fixed. Like it wasn't a relationship to terminate, but it ended up happening. Rick called me. He was like, hey, we're going to have to go in a different direction for next year. You're not going to be our guy. Like, you know, you can go look for other opportunities. So I was like, okay. What do you remember thinking at the time? I thought my career was over because I was getting and released by the number one team in the sport. So who the hell else is gonna wanna take a chance on a firestorm of emotions of Kyle Busch, I guess? But you had to pretty quickly realize that wasn't the case because when I was talking to Coach Gibbs the other day, he was saying they were pretty heavily recruiting you and they were concerned you'd go somewhere else.

1:01:05But you actually, I believe, took less money to go to JGR. Why? So I get released from Hendrick and I have the opportunity to go on the race shop tour. So Dale Jr. is on his way out. That's who was replacing me at Hendrick. They already knew that. I knew he was coming, but it was a toss up between if I was going to stay or if they were going to hire Casey Mears and bring Casey Mears on, which Casey Mears is really good friends with Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson. So he fit their mold better than I did. So I was kind of odd man out. So all that comes into play on the termination. But anyways, so I did my race shop tour, and I went and visited with eight different teams and started to get a better feel for, hey, okay, I'm actually wanted, my services are wanted for me to be a race car driver for any of these teams.

1:01:53So, okay, I'm going to take a step back, chill out, not think that, you know, my livelihood and my life and my job is on the line every single week, every time I get behind the wheel. Like, it's like, just chill out. Like, let things play out a little bit more. And you said that's advice you would have wished your younger self had. For sure. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, things turned out not so bad. I certainly wish I would have had some of that advice earlier on. So I went to Gibbs, talked with him. You know, Joe was like, you're this fireball of emotions type kid, and you're kind of in trouble a lot.

1:02:34Like, why should we hire you? And I was like, hey, fact of the matter is you probably shouldn't. Oh, really? And I was like, you know, I've made a lot of mistakes and I feel like I haven't quite had the support system behind me that I need in order to be able to learn from some of the mistakes and to harness my emotions a little bit better. and I told Joe, I was like, I think you, for who you are and the people that you've worked with and helped in the NFL, running backs or defensive guys or whoever, right, like they all come in and they're the same thing, right? Like they want to – if you're an NFL guy and you're any good at it, you pretty much want to rip that guy's head off.

1:03:19You know what I mean? So I think Joe has a pretty good sense of being able to harness that. And they had Tony Stewart. And they had Tony Stewart, exactly. Exactly. So I was just getting to that. So I felt like Joe was the best place for me to go to. And he called me every day. Like wanting me like, hey, where are we at, man? Are we getting close? Like, is everything OK? Are you coming over here? Like, are we got you? Are we signed up yet? Like every day he called me. Same thing. That meant something to you. Well, it meant something to me, but it also meant something to me where, A, he's reaching out.

1:03:51So he runs the ship, right? Like he's calling me. And I didn't quite have that with Rick over there. I didn't hear from him a whole lot. But even still, when I was hired, I heard from Joe a bit more. And I had raced with his son, Coy, in the truck series before. So he and I were kind of friends, like we knew each other. JD, same thing. He ran a couple truck races, but I think he was Xfinity. But him and I were about, I think him and I were about 10 years apart in age. So we were pretty close relative. So he and I had a good relationship. So then I had a good relationship with Joe also from the beginning who kind of became like that grandfather type guy.

1:04:34And the rest is history. Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about injuries in a moment that crashed. But, you know, I did an episode of David with Dale Jr. a while ago, and he told me he thinks he had 20 to 25 concussions, the large majority of which NASCAR would have known nothing about. What about you? I don't know that I've ever had one. I've taken some really hard hits, but I've never been dizzy. I've never come out, knock on wood, I've never come out where I feel loopy. or I've had like little headaches, like little headaches you wouldn't even take an aspirin for after a crash, you know. But nothing to where, like even they've gone through the new concussion protocols and stuff like that where we have some things that we have to do in the care center after a crash today in today's world.

1:05:29And I've been able to go through those things just fine, like never had a problem. Your 2015 crash, take me through what you remember starting with moments before the actual crash? I mean, I remember the whole thing. So we brought the media in at JGR, and I went through the whole story in front of everybody. So I was awake the whole time. And so from the start, it's the Xfinity Series race at Daytona. I've never won the February race in Xfinity or Cup. This is the Daytona 500. So I want to win the February race, right? And I'm right behind my teammate, Eric Jones, and he and I are working together well and he's actually one of the kids that I brought up through the Toyota system to go race.

1:06:12So I want to help him get to the front but also I want to get myself to the front in case I can race it out with him for the win. And we're coming into the trial and I see this hole start to open up through the middle and so I start getting to Eric's rear bumper right off the end of the trial and I want to start pushing him. Like I want to get the bump started early in order to push him off into the middle, into turn one. and as I bump him, it sets him sideways. And I did it too soon, but it turned him sideways. And when he corrected the spin, it whipped him back around this way. So I had to shoot for the middle.

1:06:49And as his car is coming across this way, it never touches my car. But the air off the nose of his car and the side air off of my car hits my left rear quarter panel and and just spins me like there's not a lot of grip at Daytona anyways when you're not loaded in the turns because your tires are are really light and so the air just turned my car sideways and pointed me towards the infield and off I went and all I kept thinking was like it's gonna like I needed to get the car to turn like I needed to get the car to rudder, right? Like it's just turn the wheels all the way right and get the thing to swing back this way.

1:07:31I wanted it to swing back that way like Eric's did to miss the inside wall. Well, it never turned. Like no matter how much I turned the wheel, no matter how much brake pressure I used, it just kept sliding in this real light state, like just barely tires on the ground slide. And finally, about, I don't know, about 60 % of the weight of the wall, I conceded and was like, I'm going to wreck. This is going to hurt. And so as I'm sliding, then I pushed the brake as hard as I could to lock the tires down to cut some speed out as much as I could anyway. Well, there was a little bit of grass before the wall and there was no safer barrier on this inside wall.

1:08:11It was just a hard concrete wall, which they've put safer barriers around all the outside walls, but they didn't get to the inside wall where this was yet. And they came out immediately after that saying they were going to do it regardless of cost. So anyways, I kept telling myself as I'm sliding, I'm like, pull your feet back. This is going to hurt. Pull your legs back. Pull your legs back. And so because I was going to hit head on. And so when I when I hit the grass, that was that was the time where I was telling myself, I'm like, OK, close your eyes and pull your legs back when you hit the grass, because there's nothing else you're going to be able to slow down once you hit the grass.

1:08:45It's just going to launch you up and you're going to be in the air. Right. So, anyway, hit the grass, I close up, I tense up, I get my arms tight, my body tight, my head down, and I didn't pull my legs back. I forgot. So, I hit the wall at 90 miles an hour, which was 90 G's. A horrific crash for Kyle Busch. I mean, he hit that wall head on. And the force of impact with the engine and everything in front of me coming backwards and me coming out of the seat going forwards, my foot was close enough to the gas. It wasn't on the gas, but it was close enough to the gas that everything came back 14 inches and I came out of the seat about 8 inches.

1:09:32So the gas pedal, there's a throttle stop on the bottom of it. Well, it smacked the gas pedal, which smacked my leg, which broke my leg instantly. Like I felt it snap. And then, um, my foot was still on the brake. So while my foot was still on a brake under impact and everything going on, my foot broke. I had a mid foot, uh, break. And so when the car, and while I was coming out of the seat, like I remember the air just rushing out of me, like, it's like getting punched in the gut really hard. Like every ounce of air gets knocked out of you. And so finally, when the car comes to a rest and comes to a stop you're sitting there because sometimes you don't know if you're done getting hit or if somebody else is going to slide into you or what and you kind of like open your eyes just a little bit like check your surroundings like okay i'm down here by myself nobody else is around me oh damn it there's a fire you know there's just a little fire coming out of the the carburetor area the air box and so i was like all right fire means you got to get out so i dropped the window net and I felt my leg just like kind of dangling there.

1:10:38So I'm like, well, I'm going to have to pull myself with my arms and use my left leg. So I push with my left foot on the brake to like start pulling myself up and out. And my left foot just was like, boom, sharp pain. And I was like, oh, it's broke. Yep. Okay. All right. Well, just pull yourself out then, you know? So So I just pulled myself with my arms as best I could and used my heel of my left foot to push and got myself to the door. And that's when the safety workers got there. And I was yelling at one of the guys like, hey, my legs are broke. I need you to lift me out. My legs are broke.

1:11:15I need you to lift me out. So he got another guy waved over. And so the two of them were able to grab me and let me down to the ground. And then one of them was holding my leg up while we waited for the ambulance to get there. What are you thinking when you're at the hospital? So the right leg didn't really hurt. I was like, oh, okay, not bad. You're just in your body's in shock, right? And you have a compound fracture. Double compound fracture. Which is like, you know, Alex Smith or Joe Theismann connected to Coach Gibbs with the Redskins had. So that's like to say it didn't hurt. Yeah, so my left foot hurt actually worse than my right leg did.

1:11:53And it was kind of weird. But so the getting, yeah, so I got laid on the stretcher and then got put in the ambulance and driven to the hospital. And every stop and go, every speed up and slow down with the ambulance was just excruciating pain in the right leg. Because now I can feel it going back and forth like, you know, it's supposed to be here, but it's just like intertwining and mixing. And I was just like, oh, this is bad. So the lady, the paramedic, she injected me with some meds, and that didn't really do a whole lot until I got to the hospital, and they got me into the room and stuff. Were you concerned your career might be over?

1:12:34I was, for sure, at one of the particular moments after the crash, being in the hospital. First of it, I was like, I wonder if I can still race tomorrow. And then I was like, there's no chance I'm going to race tomorrow. So then I was like, damn, I wonder if I'm ever going to race again. And I'm like, man, maybe my career's over. and you just never know. Your wife was also pregnant at the time. What was your lowest point through that whole process of recovering? Well, as I'm laying in the hospital before surgery, I'm wondering where the hell Samantha is because I knew she was pregnant. So I'm like, you guys have to go find Samantha.

1:13:12Just let her back here. Let her know I'm okay, that I'm alive. As long as you tell her I'm alive, she'll be fine. Because she had no idea because she didn't see me get out of the car, which I didn't know that, but she didn't see me get out of the car, get in the ambulance, and get transported straight to the hospital. So I was like, just get her, just tell her I'm fine. So they brought her back, so she was good. So go through surgery, everything's fine. Came back to Charlotte, went through foot surgery, everything's fine. Get back to the house, and you watch the first weekend's race go by that you're not in.

1:13:46Then you watch the next weekend's race go by that you're not in. And it's kind of wearing on you a little bit like, damn, this, you know, you're, that you're not out there, that you're not racing, that you're not doing what you love. And, you know, that there was a point where I was like, I'm going to make it back. I'm going to be fine. But you still have that, those low moments, you know, like it's just you and your wife and your little dog and you're sitting there watching TV. and all of a sudden you just start bust out in tears, you know? Really? Oh, yeah. And you just... Why? I don't know.

1:14:26I mean, it was just like I would cry or she would cry or we would both cry. Just like you miss it so much. Like the passion that you have for doing what you love to do and being a race car driver and racing is, I don't think, something that you can let die easy. Like it's not going to be a fire that you just put out, right? Even you talking about it right now brings a little bit of a twinkle to your eye. Yeah. So those moments, you know, and those moments, like those low moments, I think they strengthened myself, though, too, because once you snap out of that low, you're like, f*** it, where's the therapist?

1:15:08Let's go. You know what I mean? So it was a whole wave of emotions that were just weird. Sonoma, take me through that race, because that's the one that at Laucous, Joe Gibbs, your brother, everybody brought up is kind of almost more significant than the championship. Yeah, so coming back from injury, being able to get back in the car was at Charlotte Motor Speedway for the all-star race. I said it in the hospital to Joe Gibbs and everybody. I was like, I'm going to be back for the all-star race. It's a non-points race. We can get in. If I can't make it or if I can't do it, I can just get out. It doesn't matter.

1:15:45And so they were all like, yeah, right, whatever, kid, you're you're high on drugs right now. So you'll be fine tomorrow. But lo and behold, I did it. And we made it for that. The other the other point to make it back by then was because I wanted to make sure that I could stand and be in the hospital for Samantha for our son's delivery for Brexton. You want to be in a wheelchair. I didn't want to be in a wheelchair. I didn't want to be sitting off to the side, stacked over in the corner. You know, I wanted to make sure that I was I was there for her and by her side. and so I raced on the 16th.

1:16:16Brexton was born on the 18th and the next race at Charlotte Motor Speedway was the longest race of the year, points race. I fell out of the seat with like 25 to go. Like I was just smoked and I hit the wall with like 10 to go and lost like four or five spots in the finish but I think we finished 11th or something like that. So it went all right and then the next week back at Dover, I was running third, having a good race and I was trying to pass a lap car and we got together and we crashed. Then we go the next week, we go to Michigan and, um, there's rain in the area where rain on and off and getting rain delays and stuff like that.

1:16:55We get back going and we're, we're racing. I think I was running fourth. I was in the top five and downpour happens right as we're all coming out of turn four and I slip and get loose and overcorrect and stuff it in the fence. And so I was, after that race, I was like, okay, you have to stop forcing it so hard. Like I was wanting to force this movie star type return where I won so early after coming back and it's a miracle and, or I'm the best there ever was or whatever. So I was like, stop being a dumbass. Like just, I mean, you ended up getting it anyway. I was like, just calm your senses. But having that talk with myself brings us to Sonoma.

1:17:40So I'm like, we're going to Sonoma. I don't even know if I can make the race like through the whole event because of the braking and all that with your, with my foot and stuff. My leg was fine. I didn't feel anything wrong with my leg, but my left foot, I still had all the plates and the screws in it. So it's still swollen. Like every time I work out or every time I'm in the car or I'm doing things with the brake, like it hurts, right? So we go through practice at Sonoma and I get out of the car and my foot is swollen in my race shoe. And I'm like, there is no way I'm going to make the race on Sunday.

1:18:14Like it's never going to happen. Like I can't do it. So we didn't have a backup driver, but so I was like, I'm going to have to do it. Like I got no choice. I mean, I could come in with, it's an 80 lap race or 90 lap race. I could come in with 30 to go and just stop if I wanted, but that wasn't going to be cool for the guys and everybody. So we start the race, and I don't even remember where we qualified. I don't think it was good, but we start the race, and we're running terrible. We're teens, 20s. We're somewhere in there, not very good, and we get down towards the end. I'm clicking off a couple more spots.

1:18:50I think we got up to maybe 14th, and there's a caution with like 10 laps to go, so there's going to be a restart with like eight, seven or eight laps to go. So the crew chief's like, well, we could stay out and we can restart in the top six on old tires. We had only run like eight laps on our tires, which eight laps on a road course is a long time though. So, or he was like, or we could come in and pit and get tires and try to pass those that stay out. So I was, I always like to be on offense. So I'm like, I'm coming in, give me my tires. Like, we'll see what happens. Right. So we come off pit road and I think we were, I think we were ninth, eighth or ninth.

1:19:29Like there was six guys that stayed out. Maybe we were 11th. I don't remember, but there was a few guys that stayed out and Kurt came off first and I came off second off of pit road. And I'm like, well, hell my guys, we just had a really good pit stop. Like I picked up four or five spots. So I'm like, I'm in position here. Like I could, if all these guys are really as going to be as slow as I think they're going to be. I think we can, we have a shot. But I was like, don't force anything. Don't get ahead of yourself. Like, remember what just happened last week, you know? So we take the restart and I slice my way through a couple of them.

1:20:02And then I get on the braking zone and I pass a couple more. And so in the middle of the race, when I was running back in the teens and the twenties, my foot was killing me. Right. But now that we get to restarting with fresh tires about 10th, I'm like my I don't remember my foot hurting you know so I was just powering through the last I think it was a eight lap run to the finish and passing the guy here there wherever so finally Jimmy Johnson's leading the race and Jimmy Johnson's are let's see he's a six-time champion by then he's the sports greatest driver like all this stuff I'm like damn it I gotta pass Jimmy Johnson oh this is gonna this this ain't gonna be good right and I'm thinking too I'm like well Kurt's not far back.

1:20:47You know, Kurt's coming. And Kurt was one of the best cars that day. So I knew as soon as I got to Jimmy, like I could not waste time passing him. I was like, I have to get him wherever I, wherever I catch him, I have to get him. So we come out of turn two and you exit left and then you have to set back up to the right in order to set up for a left-hand turn. And so it's a short straightaway and nobody ever really passes there. It's rare for a pass to happened there. Well, I got a good run. I'm on fresh tires. So I got a good run on the exit and I get out to his outside while he comes over to set up for the turn.

1:21:19And I told myself, I'm just throw it in there. So I just threw it in there and he backed out and he gave it to me and I was able to take the lead. And from there, I just, I ran like hell, like legend car race, 1999, Kurt behind me, run like hell. And so I did the best I could. And literally in the last corner, if, if Kurt would of dive-bombed me. He probably could have thrown it off in there and hit me, but he threw it off in there and got to my bumper and stayed close, but didn't hit me, and I won that one, and I remember after taking the checker flag, my foot felt like it was going to fall off.

1:21:55I mean, it hurts so bad, and then we come around. I do the celebratory burnouts, and I get out of the car, and I'm just like shaking because I was just like, oh my God, we did it. Like, you know, the whole crew comes out and we celebrate on the racetrack. And then I blew the tires out while doing a burnout. So I try to drive it back and limp it back to the, to the pit area just before where you pull into victory lane and there's a hill. It wouldn't make it up the hill. It just sat there and spun the tires. So I got out of the car there and was like, I'm leaving. And I literally, I, as soon as I got out of the car, I sat down, I took my shoes off.

1:22:32My foot was so big. It was so tight in my shoe. I just, I had to take my shoe off and just go to victory lane barefoot. And that was, that was it. We won. Although I know the 2019 championship, you might have been able to enjoy it more. Explain the satisfaction of winning the 2015 one. So we go through the, so when we win that Sonoma race in 2015, that to me was like, weight lifted off my shoulders. I can breathe again. Like, okay, we're good. We're fine. I have to make it into top 30 in points. I already scored to win. You only have to have a win, and you have to be top 30 in points. So I'm like, okay, now we just need to focus on points racing, make sure we don't give up points, don't screw anything up, and get top 30.

1:23:15Well, we go on a streak where we won three in a row. And then one of those races was winning the Brickyard 400. And I look back in history, how many drivers have won the Brickyard 400, have won the championship in the same season. And it was like almost half. And I was like, I'm going to be that guy. I was like, I told Samantha after we won the Brickyard, I was like, we're going to win the championship this year. This is ours. Like, we're going to do it. That was August. So we went through the rest of the year. We didn't win a race ever after the Brickyard. I think we didn't win again until we got to the final championship race at Homestead.

1:23:53And in making it through all of those rounds of the playoffs and getting to Homestead, there's fans out there there's historians of our sport that may or may not say that i should never have been eligible for the championship because i didn't run a full-time season because when you're back in the heyday of nascar you have to run the whole year to get points every single race to to win a championship right well i missed 11 races and jgr kind of had to campaign to get you i i don't think we had to campaign anything i think when i came back nascar was like yeah if you make it top 30 in points and get a win, we'll give you a medical waiver.

1:24:25So I got a waiver. So we're in. So we make it through all the playoff rounds and we get to the final race at Homestead and the media is all asking about, you know, how's it feel to be here, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I'm playing with house money. I got nothing to lose. All I have is a championship to gain and I got nothing to lose because I shouldn't even be here. Right. Everybody said I should have taken the rest of the year off. I shouldn't have even been eligible, even though I did come back for the championship to be in the playoffs, anything. So I went into, I went into Homestead with no pressure, Nothing.

1:24:52Like, I was like, no big deal. We'll just run this race. It's another race. We'll do what we need to do. Halfway through that race, I got the lead. Harvick was dominating. And then the nighttime came, because we start day. We end night at that race. And the nighttime came, and my car came to life, and his kind of died. And I got in front of him on a pit strategy, on a pit cycle. And so I'm leading, and I'm like, damn, what this can be? You know? Like, holy crap. So I already set myself up for the end of the race. I'm like, I know there's going to be a caution at the end of the race. NASCAR is going to throw a caution in the last 20 laps, and you're going to have to come in and get tires, and then you're going to have to have a short run to finish.

1:25:35Lo and behold, there's that caution. Comes out with about 14 to go. We come down pit road. Now the pressure is on the pit crew, so the pit crew has to do their job. So I'm like, just do your job, please. My pit crew has always been the best pit crew on pit road. all my guys, guys that I've had, JGR's done a great job. I've always, not always, but more years than not, I've had the number one pit crew. This is no different year, right? So we come down pit road. They gave me a great stop. Flawless. Everything's fine. We roll off pit road. There's one guy that stays out. Brad Keselowski. He's my arch nemesis.

1:26:06Can't stand the guy. Hate the guy. He hates me. So I'm like, why the hell did he stay out? I'm like, this, this screws everything, right? No, it doesn't. So I thought Brad would take the top. Being the leader of the race, he has control of what lane, top or bottom, he wants to choose for the restart. He chooses the bottom. And I'm like, that's weird. The top's the preferred. Like, why wouldn't he take the preferred? So he gave me the preferred. And then that set up, Kevin Harvick came off pit rode third, which now he's fourth in the running order, so he's behind me. The guy in third wasn't a guy that we were racing for the championship.

1:26:45He was just another guy in the race. I don't even know who it was. So I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, well, hell, however good of a restart I get, Kevin's going to get. So if I mess it up, all I got to do is make sure I block Kevin. You can't pass till the start finish line anyway, so I could check him up a little bit or whatever. So I'm like, okay, fine. So we come to the restart zone. I know he's on old tires, Brad is, so he's not going to get a great restart, so he's going to be slow to accelerate. So I already tell myself, okay, be slow to accelerate so you don't jump him, so you don't get black flagged, right?

1:27:19So he starts to fire, and then I fire, and I get a good restart, and my acceleration's good, and I'm racing Brad down a straightaway, and I'm getting into turn one, and I'm about clear, and I'm looking in my mirror, and Kevin's a car length back, like he's not even on me. and I'm like okay well damn so I held it wide open through the first turn on the restart to get ahead of Brad I got ahead of Brad I think uh Kevin came off a turn two he was second so now I'm like okay well it's a race between Kevin and I so here we go just raced out the last seven eight laps whatever it was but each lap I would inch away like I was just driving away from Kevin who was the fastest guy all year long had the most wins on the season and we won the championship and I remember going through turns three and four and as I was coming out of four like there's a tear drop that rolls down my eyes.

1:28:09Tonight he earns his first cup title. Besides my son being born and that emotional time laying in the hospital bed with Samantha in our living room it was like wow this just I don't know that I've never felt anything like that before. It was crazy. I mean it way bigger than any win way bigger than anything I've ever accomplished, obviously, just being able to win that championship. So that was amazing. Because it was all that hard work finally paying off. It wasn't just all the hard work. It was a lifetime worth of effort. And not just me, but thinking back to my dad and my grandma who took me to baseball games and racing practices and all kinds of stuff.

1:28:54So all that stuff kind of flashes through your mind. And during all the celebration, there's such a hurry because you're pulled here, you're pulled there, you're here, you're there, you're everywhere. And there's all these people that want to say something to you and congratulate you and talk to you. And, you know, your six-month-old son's there, your wife's there, your brother comes by, your mom and dad's there. But you don't remember a word anybody says because it's just a flash, right? So it was just crazy how quick it was. Three topics I want to touch on in the remaining moments. I'm just going to jump around a little bit.

1:29:27Sam Bundle Joy Foundation and Toyota. First, Samantha, how did you guys meet in the first place? Yeah, so Samantha and I met 2007 at the Brickyard racetrack, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and I was going and giving rides for Chevrolet for just like track rides in the car, the street car that we were racing um trying to sell cars right yeah and samantha was a promo model for chevrolet that day wearing the same black polo i was and um so i saw her from a distance just looking and um i asked my pr lady to go over and ask her like hey would you like to go for a ride around the track and so she was like okay sure you know whatever it'll take me out of the heat at least for a couple minutes because it's always like 95 degrees in July and humid and Indy.

1:30:24Okay question would you have had the confidence to walk up to her yourself? No no no hell no no that's why I sent the PR lady but I had the excuse that I was working yeah so she comes over she gets in the front seat we go for a ride around the track we're just talking like BS and she's like oh you got a way better gig today than I got like you're actually getting to drive the people around the track and she had no idea who i was right so i thought that was pretty funny so um give finish up my rides that i had to do and then when i'm walking out um i asked my pr lady i says hey go over there and ask her for her number see if you can get her number and so uh she did and and um she was like wait why the the boy wants my number like what what's the deal whatever why can't he come get it himself right and um so anyways she she gave it to me i got it and then um uh i think i called her later because there was really no no social media there was no twitter instagram there was really no texting like that was back in the day with the little nokias right uh you aren't sliding into her dm i wasn't flying into no dm so i had to call her later and just be like hey what's going on you know how's it going this is kyle from the track and she goes oh my girlfriends and I, blah, blah, blah.

1:31:36We're going out tonight. You should come and hang out with us. There's going to be a few other guys that we were working with today that are going to be out there, whatever. And I'm like, oh, I'm busy tomorrow. I can't, I can't make that. Like we'll, we'll find some other time, you know? And she was like, well, the hell with you then. So long story short, we talked on the phone and, and emailed each other for three months before she would come and see me. because later that night her friends told her who I was. They were like, that's so-and-so. And they were like, wait, what? Let's Google it. So then they Googled me.

1:32:13They looked me up online. And so anyway, so she was like, oh, I'm not going to go play with some professional athlete, whatever. Like, see if anything happens first. So we spent three months talking. Purdue grad, psych major, right? Yeah, she's in school. I'm racing, so I'm busy every weekend. She's in school, so she's doing her thing at Purdue. and so we just talked on the phone finally she agreed to come to another race and took her out on a date and whatever and and I don't know I guess I put on enough charm where the rest is history what made you realize she was the one um just how she was raised and how nice she always was and how uh chill she was in in crazy situations um she always kind of had like I would get mad at certain things and she would kind of shine a different light on it and give me a different perspective.

1:33:04So I appreciated that. And just her, her person, like just who she is. Yeah. How'd you propose? So we, so the motor home that I had at that time when we started dating and she was staying with me on the motor home was a bachelor pad. You know, it was all cool and tricked out and lights and things and whatever. And you put a lot of work into that thing. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't very warm and inviting for a real stay-at-home girlfriend type. So anyways, we went off and we built a motorhome together. I let her pick out some things. I always do the outside. She does the inside. And so we designed it together.

1:33:45And so our first night on our brand new motorhome, kind of like buying a brand new house, being in our brand new home together, I proposed to her there in that motor home. How did the idea for the Bundle of Joy Foundation come about? Well, so I've had a foundation since 2007 or 2008, 2007. And we did a lot of work with children's homes and places where, they're not orphanages, but they're unfortunate living situations for children that get taken away from their parents for different circumstances or whatever. And they live in these homes for a little while, and then they'll go back to their real home if their parents get straightened out or whatever.

1:34:32So we did a lot of stuff with that for a few years, well, since 2007 until 2015. And so in 2015, when we had our son Brexton, we had to go through IVF. Samantha and I weren't able to naturally conceive our son, so we had to go through IVF to have him. And so we, boom, thought when we went through. And by the way, credit to you guys for being public about that. Thanks. Yeah. So when we, she was public the whole way about it. We were, and we heard a lot of people not talking about it. And there was not this stipulation built around it or this stigma, but not a lot of people would voice their infertility problems, right?

1:35:16So there was that, A, raise awareness for that, but B, we figured out how expensive it all was. Like it's$25 ,000 for point A to point B for one round of IVF, and you might not be successful at it. So we wanted to help the financial burden on other couples that couldn't afford to do that. Like they walk in the clinic, they get that number told to them, and they're like, well, we just walk right out of here and don't ever come back. So we give the opportunity for people to fill out a form and everything in order to submit to us, and we go through it with the doctors, we go through it with the financial counselors, and we go through it with everybody at the clinic, and we come up with the best, most reasonable, and best chance cases possible, and we give them donations, opportunity for them to go through IVF.

1:36:01How hard is that process narrowing down? Oh, it's terribly hard. It's crazy. It's crazy hard. It's one of the most gut-wrenching things that you do during the year, and we do it. I mean, you want to help people, but unfortunately you have to read these horrific stories. I mean, this guy was working in the military, and he got exposed to nuclear something or other, right? So it killed off all of his sperm. So he can't conceive. And then he had to go through chemo. Like he had cancer, cancerous tissue, so he had to go through chemo. So you're hearing all these stories of people that what they go through and why they can't have children.

1:36:50And then the U.S., like he's a military guy, right? Well, the U.S. government only grants like$3 ,000 or$4 ,000 for IVF. That doesn't even get you started. That doesn't even buy the medications. So they don't even take care of their own military members to be able to go out and have their own children through IVF. after they fought for our country and were diagnosed through unfortunate situations of fighting for our country, they now had to go through cancer treatments and don't have sperm. So it's stuff like that that you have to read through. And so another guy had cancer and went through chemo.

1:37:24They were able to go in and retrieve some semen from him to be able to go with his wife's egg, but then his cancer came back, and so I think he was at the birth, but like right after the birth of their child, he passed away. So it's like those, like all kinds of different situations. Teachers, we help teachers, we help firefighters, we help anyone. It's just those are different job characteristics that we've been able to work with. Different people in the racing industry as well, too, go through it as well. What impressed you about Samantha deciding to publicly share the challenges? I mean, I don't know.

1:38:12You'd have to ask her exactly. But to me, it's like our lives are so broadcast anyways. Like, this is what's crazy. When you go to some of these media sit-downs and stuff, the media people, they think they're kind of like funny questions, but they're your security questions to your Apple account. You know what I mean? They're like, hey, what's your first car? That's my security question on my Apple account, man. Like, okay, now I have to get rid of that security question. You know, so they think it's kind of cool or funny to ask some of these questions or like, where did you and your wife meet?

1:38:46That's a security question. You know what I mean? Well, now people know that. Exactly. Yeah. So now, hey, I better get LifeLock again. So anyways, our lives are out there so much anyways that it's like, what can you hide? You can't hide anything. So we just put it out there, you know, our whole journey and everything. One moment I want to bring up. Thanksgiving 2018, you just announced, you know, second pregnancy, going to have a little girl. You know, I think Samantha had worked out in the morning, was playing with Brexton. What happened from there? So yeah, that day, so Samantha wakes up, eats breakfast, works out, and then she was playing with Brexton.

1:39:33I don't remember what I was doing but they were up in his playroom classroom area and

1:39:45she felt this urge to go use the restroom and so when she stood up she felt it on her leg and so she reached down and there was blood there and so instantly she was like trying to hide it from Brexton, but Brexton saw it and was like, mommy, what's wrong? And so she was like, nothing, nothing, nothing. I'm fine. I think I just cut my finger. Go get your dad. So Brexton comes running downstairs, grabs me. So I go up there and I see her and she's crying. Like she instantly already, the, she was Kyle instantly in that moment, like thinking the negative of it's gone. Like we just, she lost the baby.

1:40:26She miscarried, right so i was trying to be positive one like we switched roles i was trying to be positive one like it's okay it's all right let's just call the doctor we got to call the doctor right away so she called the doctor gave her all of her symptoms and told her and she was like you need to come in right now so we rushed down to um to the clinic and um you know more bleeding obviously more more things that that's samantha's got going on and um they go in and they they take a blood work test in order to test their levels. They go in with ultrasound and try to see what they see. And they didn't, it was so early that there wasn't, you couldn't really define what is or isn't the embryo growing, I think, essentially, because they said, they didn't classify it as a miscarriage right there.

1:41:19They basically said it's, there was a, there's a terminology for it, but it was like a, a fake miscarriage somehow. And it could turn into real or it could just be fake. So they didn't know yet. But when the test results, when the lab results came back of her levels, it indicated her levels dropped. So it was miscarriage. I know this was the least of your concerns at the time, but how gut wrenching was it then for the two of you days later to go to to the NASCAR awards. Well, so she got blood work done, and then we had to fly to Vegas, and we're in Vegas just the whole time we're awaiting the results because they don't come back hourly.

1:42:01They come back after a day or two. So the results come back, and she's in the room getting ready for the banquet, getting her makeup on, getting her dress on, and all that sort of stuff, and she got the call. I was out doing media, so I was doing different things that you do beforehand of the banquet. So I was out doing all that and then came back to the room and, and she was trying to hold it in. She saw me and then started crying. You know, she hadn't cried until I got there. Um, so she, she cried it out for a few minutes, but then had to, she had to put her face back on. You know what I mean?

1:42:40Like she had to put her makeup back on and she had to get ready to go and walk out the door. Cause we literally had to be on the red carpet in like 25 minutes. and then you guys don't want to say anything to anybody and everybody's congratulating everybody's congratulating us as we're walking down the red carpet saying oh great and so she's like thanks yeah it's really awesome whatever you know and so we didn't want to take anything away from you know the champion that night and the celebration and of all of that and so we just had to hold it in the whole time and and then um i don't remember if it was the next day she put out a video or if It was a couple days later, but.

1:43:16And it's, I mean, first, so interesting hearing you talk about that because I feel like, especially from a men's perspective, men are less aware of, you know, all of that. And what did, you know, going through that teach you about fertility, including your own? Well, when we went through egg retrieval and the embryo cycle and all that sort of stuff, and we got eight embryos, five boys, three girls, and then I was like, Samantha's a healthy woman. She's fine. She just has problems with the egg doing what it needs to do. Her ovaries putting the egg where it needs to go for all of that. Like so many people.

1:43:59Right. So when we make it in a dish and you put it back in her, it's going to be fine. Like it's going to attach. It's going to be fine. It's going to work. everything's gonna be great right no big deal well it worked for the first one Brexton was fine I was exactly right the doctor even asked us he goes you want to put one in or two in because sometimes one doesn't exactly work and I'm like have you seen her size like there ain't no way she's carrying two like we're just doing one it's gonna work it's gonna be fine well it worked so you think you kind of take it for granted you're like ah it's gonna be fine again she's healthy she's good no problem boom put another one in right it didn't work and then the third one didn't work and then the fourth one in a surrogate who had the best looking uterus to the doctors didn't work.

1:44:39And you guys posted about that recently on social. What was that experience like? Well, it took us four different women we went through before we found the current lady that we're with. So every time we've gone through a new implant, like a new embryo going into, whether it be Samantha or a surrogate, it's been a year. It takes a year every time. and so um it's crazy but i mean it's just trying to work through all the scenarios you know when you get a surrogate you've a you got to find the person you're comfortable with b they can't back out c you got to get through all the legal stuff you know and it's it's just thing after thing after thing and every time it's like you you kind of are we've never said let's quit we're going to be done doing this.

1:45:32We're always just like, geez, what is next? You know, like how hard does this have to be? So that's, that's what's most gut wrenching about it. What are next steps? So next, next steps right now is we feel as though there, we have no more girl embryos. So we need to make new girl embryos. So we have to start back at square one and go through the egg retrieval process with Samantha. And so to do that, we felt like there might have been something wrong with the first batch of embryos at our current clinic. So we just wanted a second opinion. So we went to the second clinic and we're talking with them and they have different processes about how they go through things and how they do their IVF cycle for a woman.

1:46:19And so we're like, okay, well, let's try it their way. And they've been pretty successful of getting women that are much older than Samantha and in way worse health shape than Samantha pregnant. So we feel pretty good about that. I would imagine even if you have the strongest relationship ever, experiences like this can be trying. To somebody who's watching, who's going through a similar situation with their partner, What do you do to keep the relationship strong amid all of that? You know, Samantha would say back in the beginning, she thought it was all her fault and there was something wrong with her.

1:47:00Well, come to find out, she had PCOS and I had low sperm count. I had male factor. And so, you know, we both suck, is what we said. So that's how we both sell it to each other now. It's like, we just both suck, you know. So we're both just not good at this, but with what we've been able to accomplish and the good that's come out of with Brexton and the joy and the love that we have with him, for him, and so we want to share that with another one, a girl. Samantha wants a baby girl. So that would complete our family, we feel like. It's worth it. It's worth it. I mean, and we just keep building each other up and supporting each other.

1:47:42And, hey, you suck. Hey, you suck. You know, but we at the end of the day, we you love each other and you work through the situations as best you can. And you just it's about being each other's rock. She'll have a bad day and I'll have a bad day. And we just pull together. I want to wrap talking about Toyota completely shifting gears here. How have you seen the relationship with Toyota evolve over the years? So the first year I was in at Toyota, I had a way better Toyota relationship, I felt like, in the first year, being with those guys than I ever did with the Chevy folks. So they're very welcoming, very family-oriented.

1:48:27They were always very supportive. And we came in, and we had a rough start. I want to actually bring this up because Ed Laukas, the Toyota marketing chief, brought this up to me the other day. So you pretty much publicly trashed their engines. engines. Take me to that moment, what you said through then going in front of the Toyota team in Costa Mesa. Yeah. So they had some issues with engines. I was at Hendrick for 2007. That's when they first came into the sport. And so they had some engine issues their first year. They had some blow ups. They had where they weren't known for power. They didn't have very good power.

1:49:11We were smoking them. Um, so when I was going over to join JGR and I heard about the Toyota thing, I'm like, Oh no, you know? So I was like, Oh, I don't know about this. Right. But I, I put that to the side. I'm like, it's a new opportunity. It's a new opportunity for us all. Like we're going to, we're going to fix this. Joe Gibbs racing is really good. Very competitive. They have their own engine department. So Mark Cronquest was building the Toyota engines for JGR and was making great power. And I showed up and we, we about dominated the Daytona 500, my first race and should have won the damn thing.

1:49:47Um, and then Tony really should have won the damn thing, but Tony wanted to stick with me in the final laps. And we got our doors blown off by Kurt and Ryan Newman that, that state, they were teammates and they stuck together as well. And they just out beat Tony and I, but anyways, so the relationship goes on for a couple of years and, and the motors aren't really getting better on power, and we're having more reliability issues. We're blowing up. We're having fuel mileage issues. We're not getting as good a fuel mileage, so we're not making power, and we're not making fuel mileage, and we're blowing up, like all three traits that are the wrong way to be.

1:50:22So we've had some come-to-Jesus meetings with them, and we've had some talks and this and that, and there was a meeting at Joe Gibbs Racing in one of our competition meetings, and Joe got up out of his seat and chucked his pencil across the table at the engine builder, and the veins are popping out of Joe's forehead, and you can see his neck and everything all stretched out, and he is just going off, right? And he used one cuss word. It was ass, but Joe never cusses, right? He does not use foul language. So we were all just like blown away. So I guess I took Joe's emotions, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, and did it more publicly.

1:51:07So instead of just doing it behind closed doors like Joe did, I did it publicly, which granted that was young and dumb, Kyle, right? So there were a few instances and a few people that I wasn't really fond of and didn't really get along with at Toyota. Ed and I, we've had a couple come to Jesus meetings. We needed milk and cookies together. Well, and you both are strong personalities too. Yes, we are. Okay, so take me into that meeting with him shortly there. I don't remember exactly. Ed was trying to chew my ass. He was doing a good job at it. And then I gave him some whys, and I gave him some of my thoughts and theories, and he was like, you're not wrong.

1:51:54So we came out of that, I think, stronger and in a better place because he understood where I was coming from and my drive and passion, which everybody already kind of knew and understood, but I think I did a really good job selling him the ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves. Ed was the woman in white gloves. I'm just kidding. But no, we just came to an agreement. And I said, and I gave him my sense. I'm like, look, I've been in this a long time, but I'm also really young. I says, you've been in this a long time. The Toyota guys that are running this program have been in this a really long time.

1:52:32I said, you know, a couple things probably need to change. Personnel needs to change. Policies need to change. Philosophies need to change. And I'm not going to say I'm right today, but lo and behold, some of that stuff went into play. And we came out of that, I think, way further ahead. What was it like when you were in front of the team in Costa Mesa? It was awkward. Yeah. I mean, I've done a few of those before, but I just imagine everybody's naked. You've got to put your big boy pants on, and we've got to come out of this and get better. We both can't be babies about it and keep our diapers on and keep fighting back and forth as we leave here.

1:53:09It's about growing up and moving on. And so that's what I did with the Toyota guys. Yeah, I had to go there and apologize to them and talk to them and not give them all of my rationale like I gave Ed, but just some of that. And, you know, a lot of those team members still today will say how much they appreciated that moment and my admittance and our opportunities to get better. Well, and it's heart to heart. It's hearts to heart like that that lead to productivity and increased success and what you want in the relationship. Toyota is more communicative with their drivers than, you know, most other manufacturers.

1:53:54Explain that. Well, I think we just do a lot for each other, you know. So we're obviously athletes and race car drivers and whatever. So we're asked to do things. But also when we ask of things, they oblige and they do as well, too. You know, like they say, hey, let's go do this appearance or whatever at such and such. and we're kind of like, eh, nah, what if we just, instead of doing A, B, and C, what if we did LKMN? And they're like, oh, you guys would like to do that? And we're like, yeah, okay, let's do that. So we work together. It's fun like that. And to have that relationship with them and the way that it's grown over time and to just, when you're in race areas or, Texas, for instance, is headquarters now.

1:54:42It was California. But when you go to those areas of the country and you just call them up and say, hey, you guys want to go to dinner? Without them requiring a sponsor appearance dinner, they're like, oh, cool. There's a relationship there. In what ways do they like to get their hands dirty? Well, for instance, here at Kyle Busch Motorsports, I've got a relationship with a few other Toyota guys, the TRD side, where Toyota Racing Development, essentially, we're developing talent. And so I have a relationship with those guys where they really like to be ingrained here and have the opportunity to have some say in, you know, personnel, crew chiefs or drivers, especially in who we bring up through the ladder next and stuff like that.

1:55:23But in those other instances, too, they'll give their suggestions and I'll give my suggestions. You know, when I raced against Eric Jones at the Snowball Derby years ago and he beat me, I was like, this kid's good. I've seen him race three times. He's blown my doors off three times. You know, my cars are pretty good. So he's obviously got the talent to do this. So let's work with him. And that's that was my suggestion, you know, and their suggestions have been Christopher Bell, for instance, who's who's been a driver. Yeah. So it works both ways. And lastly, the Toyota relationship means what to you?

1:56:01Oh, I feel like even if I was done racing, I could have a relationship with Toyota similar to that of Ivan Stewart. I mean, Ivan Stewart hasn't raced in probably 20 years, but him and Toyota, they're synonymous with one another. You know, Ivan Stewart's the most winningest off-road driver for Toyota ever in off-road desert racing and off-road stadium racing and all that sort of stuff. So me, I feel like I'm a Toyota guy. Like I'm Toyota blood. My kid goes, Rexton goes to karate class. When they make their moves, you know, it's Kia. And I keep trying to tell him he needs to say Toyota. So I am ingrained Toyota, all right?

1:56:44Completely off topic. But the question is, before you made it big, what were creative ways you went about saving money? So interesting point about me is my mom was a school banker. So she worked for the school district. So she was in charge of some of the school's money and stuff like that. When she was a school banker at the high school, you know, and she would always collect the funds of the baseball games or the basketball games or whatever. And so she was always in charge of the money. So when I get to make it to the big time, she wants to control my money. And she wants to be the money gal.

1:57:17And I'm like, eh, okay. So I let her start doing it, you know, and a couple bills don't get paid. So I'm like, okay, you're out. So I had a couple really good people in the beginning that sat me down that were like, look, you're a professional athlete. Everybody's going to want to come at you for stuff. Everybody's always going to ask. You have to be able to figure out how to separate your money into buckets, right? So you have your tax bucket. You have your savings bucket. You have your insurance bucket. You have your investment bucket. And then you have your slush fund, your play money. So you have to fill all those buckets.

1:57:55If all those buckets aren't getting filled right, you know, and then it doesn't work right. I was broke at one point. Oh, you were? In 2007, my money guys, these people that finally took over, they were checking out my money and looking at my statements and stuff. They said, you're going to be negative$200 ,000 by the end of the year if you keep spending this way. So we literally had to stop spending in July. What was your reaction when you found that out? I was furious at the people that were helping me before. So I went from my mom to somebody to somebody else. So the middle person, I was furious.

1:58:28But look, I made it at 18. I'm young and dumb, I was only 20. So like, I'm wanting to go out and have fun, I'm spending money, I built this building at 21 or 20 years old, whatever it was. So like this was a$13 million project. Like who the hell needs to build a$13 million project at 20 years old? That was a bad idea. You know what I mean? So people need to tell me, hey, that's a bad idea. Don't do that. you know so i didn't quite get that so uh anyways now i feel like i'm on a good track and and and that experience taught you what i mean well it taught me the buckets yeah right and it taught me the opportunity to not fall into the trap of other professional athletes that when you look at them after retirement after a year or two they got no money they're broke because they spent it all they're trying to figure out what the hell they're going to do with the rest of their lives and they can't go play the sport again because either a they're hurt or b they're too old you know what I mean.

1:59:19So you've got to have good people surround you to help you in those instances. Thank you very much for doing this. Absolutely. Yeah. Right on. Bush also offered us a thorough tour of his 77 ,000 square foot headquarters and challenged me to a remote control car race. Check out both of those videos at YouTube dot com slash Graham Bensinger. Also, make sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. Thanks again for listening.