Kurt Busch is a 24-time race winner in the Nascar Sprint Cup Series. He is also the 2004 Cup champion. Kyle Busch is the 2009 Nationwide champ and he has visited victory lane in the Cup series 23 times.
These are stats that most any racecar driver would kill to have. There is no doubt that both Busch brothers can drive the wheels off a race car and win on any given Sunday. But their driving talent has not been the topic of conversation as of late. The focus, instead, has been on their short tempers.
There isn't a driver in the garage area with a shorter fuse that either of the Busch brothers. Their weekly temper tantrums on their team radios contain so much yelling and cussing, listening to it would make Bobby Knight and John McEnroe blush. Whether it's their pit crew, their crew chiefs, or even their owners, no one is safe from their wrath if a race doesn't go as planned.
Roger Penske and Joe Gibbs deserve a ton of credit for putting up with these two after Jack Roush and Rick Hendrick had had enough of them. But the fact that Kurt can cuss out Penske, a 15-time Indianapolis 500 winning owner, on the team radio and Kyle can do the same to his owner, Pro Football Hall of Famer Gibbs, and neither experiences any sort of repercussions for it is amazing. Penske and Gibbs should be nominated for sainthood.
But despite media hype that the brothers had changed and turned over a new leaf, the end of this year proved to fans and everyone within the sport that that could not be further from the
truth.
At Texas this past fall, Kyle intentionally turned title contender Ron Hornaday into the outside wall in the Truck Series race. This happened under caution and with the speeds both trucks were carrying, Hornaday hit at about 150 mph. This resulted in Busch being parked for the remainder of the weekend and Cup Series sponsor M&M's pulling their stickers off his car for the season's final two events. You can check out the Truck Series video here.
You can also see Kyle lose his cool in the fall Texas Cup race one year ago here. This is uncensored video from Showtime's "Inside Nascar" so there is a little bit of adult language. See if you think Kyle should be representing a brand like M&M's, which is so heavily geared towards children.
Kurt on the other hand did most of dirty work when the cameras were off. After the fall Richmond race, Busch cursed out a reporter on pit road and tore up another reporter's transcript in the media center after denying he said something written on that paper.
But the real trouble for Kurt happened in the season's final event at Homestead. After falling out of the race early with transmission issues, Busch was approached by EPSN pit reporter Dr. Jerry Punch to do an interview. After several minutes of waiting for the booth to throw it to Punch, Busch became restless and went into a profanity-laced tyraid. And kudos to Punch for walking away after being screamed at for doing his job. You can watch the video here, but Busch does use some very adult language. Viewer discretion is advised.
And caught in the middle of all of this are the sponsors. Kurt's sponsor Shell-Pennzoil and Kyle's sponsor M&M's both released statement's after their driver's respective incidents, saying they have expressed their concerns to team officials and that their driver's actions do not reflect the values of their companies. That's where they're wrong.
When a sponsor signs up to back a driver, that driver represents them. No matter how big of a jerk the driver makes of himself, they are linked with the company that sponsors them. Both Shell-Pennzoil and M&M's have been in Nascar for more than a decade and now both are put in a position of defending their brands as the drivers that represent them continue to make poor choices on and off the track.
So, do these two drivers have a place in the Sprint Cup Series? They do now, but in all seriousness, they shouldn't be allowed to set foot in a Nascar garage.
The choices that they make prove time and time again that they belong in anger management and not in a racecar. They continue to disrespect their fellow drivers, Nascar officials, their sponsors and the fans. It's gotten to the point where fans turn to their radio channels purely for entertainment and they are endangering lives on the track.
There is a place for tempers in this sport, just like in any other, because every driver is passionate about what they do. Drivers like Bobby and Donnie Allison, Dale Earnhardt and A.J. Foyt all drove with passion. Today, guys like Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick drive with passion. The Busch's on the other hand just drive angry. They need to be taught a lesson before someone gets hurt.
The saddest part is that both Kurt and Kyle occupy fully-funded, competitive rides that they don't deserve, while guys like David Reutimann and David Ragan sit on the sideline without a job for next year. Both Ragan and Reutimann are amazing wheelmen and great people who would represent any sponsor with pride and dignity, two qualities which the Busch's don't possess. These two have raced all their lives and are looking for jobs, while the Busch brothers can get away with murder and still have fully-sponsored rides for the next few years.
Unfortunately, it looks as though both Kyle and Kurt are here for the foreseeable future. So they better grow up and they'd better do it pretty damn quickly. Every time they throw a tantrum like a 5-year-old screaming for an expensive toy in a department store, it gives the sport a black eye.
No figure in our sport was more polarizing than the aforementioned Dale Earnhardt, but even the man they called "The Intimidatior" discovered humility at some point. If he could do it, the brothers Busch should be able to as well. The Nascar Sprint Cup Series bills itself, and rightfully so, as racing's elite. These are the forty-three best racecar drivers in the world and every one of them knows how lucky they are to be a part of this series. Well, almost all of them.
Kurt and Kyle have until February to do some serious growing up before Speedweeks 2012 kicks off in Daytona. Hopefully then we will be able to focus solely on their driving ability rather than their latest temper tantrum.
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