NASCAR’s Race Against Time & The Reinvention Of Kurt Busch

Racing, like all sports, is a game of numbers. This column brings readers NASCAR by the numbers each week. But the truth is, it’s really about the people who put up the numbers.

Drivers and crew members come and go. The years catch up to the best of them, producing hundreds who won’t be remembered except by a few dedicated fans here and there.

This year, time and the toll of the sport caught up with the last driver of an era.

Kurt Busch, the last full-time Cup Series driver to have faced down Dale Earnhardt on the racetrack, announced that he won’t return to the series as a full-time driver after the effects of a concussion he suffered at Pocono Raceway during qualifying earlier this year.

Realistically, while Busch left the door open for a few races next year or down the road, the chances of a return to a full season of competition are small. Busch is 44 years old; not an old man by any standard except, perhaps, that of professional athletes. Drivers racing after 45 these days are a rarity and contending for titles rarer still. That goes for just about any era, even when drivers stretched their careers to the bitter end.

Change is inevitable. Busch was the last to have raced against Earnhardt. Jeff Gordon, who retired in 2015, was the last full-timer to have raced against Richard Petty (though it was only once; Gordon’s first Cup race was Petty’s last). There are already full-time drivers who never raced against Jimmie Johnson; someday, one of today’s young guns will hold the distinction of being the last, too.

But time marches on. The sport changes. Racecars change, at some point past even the best drivers’ comfort zones. Bodies age and can’t quite react as quickly, can’t bounce back from an injury overnight anymore.

When Busch entered the Cup Series in 2000 on a partial schedule (at the time, seven races was the maximum a driver could run and still compete for rookie honors), he was also running the Truck Series full-time — and already gaining a reputation.

Frankly, Busch was hard to like and difficult to respect. He was volatile to his crew, to media, and even, on one occasion, to law enforcement. He burned bridges with some of NASCAR’s top teams — despite undeniable talent, Busch was impulsive and aggressive.

There were times that his temper bested Busch on track and cost him races. He admitted to trying to cut Jimmy Spencer’s tire at high-speed Michigan International Speedway. He hit cars on pit road. He…