It was Tuesday night of this week, I was on the road for work. To kill time while sitting at the bar waiting on dinner, I was in my phone, flicking and clicking my way through all of the posts and stories speculating that Kurt Busch would announce his retirement as a NASCAR Cup Series race. On Saturday morning at his hometown racetrack of Las Vegas Motor Speedway, he announced that he would be stepping away from full-time racing.
The gentleman sitting next to me was totally reading it all over my shoulder and finally tapped that shoulder, followed by a trio of questions.
“Hey man, how many Cup races has Kurt Busch won?”
I replied quickly, “34.”
“Hey man, how many of those do you think you were there for in person?”
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I replied just as quickly, “Probably 25 of them.”
“Hey man, for real, what do you think happened more often, you seeing Kurt Busch win a race or him cussing you out to your face?”
OK, this one I had to think about. For a long while. It has been days now since I was asked the question and I still don’t know the answer. And that’s really all you need to know about the complicated, door-to-door dual of the fates that is the Kurt Busch legacy.
The winner versus the jerk.
For nearly a quarter of a century, Busch made his living in NASCAR’s premier series. He has indeed won 34 races, ranked 25th on the all-time victories list, just ahead of NASCAR Hall of Fame members Fireball Roberts and Dale Jarrett. In his trophy case are victories in the Daytona 500 and Coca-Cola 600. Among his non-points-paying triumphs are one each in the NASCAR All-Star Race, Bud Shootout and even an IROC championship. His 28 poles rank 28th all time. His 10,292 laps led rank 21st. His 339 top 10s rank 15th. Busch has won in all three national series, and he has won at least one race for all three current manufacturers — Ford, Chevy and Toyota — and he won 10 races in long-departed Dodge. He won races driving cars owned by Jack Roush, Roger Penske, Tony Stewart, Chip Ganassi and even Michael Jordan.
— Kurt Busch (@KurtBusch) October 15, 2022
Busch survived the single most nail-biting moments ever seen in a NASCAR championship season finale. In 2004, the first iteration of the Chase/Playoff era, he coolly shed a snapped-off right front tire and narrowly missed the water…
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