But this, this stopped him in his tracks.
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Busch, prostrate on a hospital bed tucked inside his living room, but still smiling, considered the hundreds of letters, cards and child-drawn artwork scattered around him. He broke his pose. His wife, Samantha, phone in hand, paused before taking the picture.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“This is just . . ."
Busch paused.
“Amazing.”
The resulting image goes against the narrative. This is Kyle Busch, NASCAR’s resident bad boy, suddenly beloved. This is racing’s heel, now healing, now humbled.
The outpouring of support came from fans young and old, from fellow racers and sponsors. But it was Busch’s thank you, that simple photo, which showed a softer side of the vilified driver. Outside the car, immobile, removed from the drama and back-and-forth that made him famous, Busch looked, suddenly, incredibly human.
“It was pretty humbling for him to see it,” Samantha said. “It’s easy to see the negative on the Internet and stuff. But I think it was really good for him to see how loved he is by everybody.”
Busch’s recovery mirrors his softened social media presence. The driver known for his dangerous aggression has discovered the necessity of patience. The young man notorious for big wins and big achievements (he holds the NASCAR record with 141 wins across its three national series) learned to savor the smallest of victories.
In 2009, Busch stood among the best in the sport. He had just become a Nationwide Series champion one year after registering a career-high eight Sprint Cup victories. But after his wreck at Daytona, Busch struggled to stand at all, to even imagine what would be necessary to race again, to win again.
“The first time I stood up, I about passed out,” Busch acknowledged Wednesday. “It’s just like trying to relearn how to walk. We knew how to do this when we were one year old.”
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The same man who once graduated to NASCAR’s top level with Rookie of the Year honors now speaks of celebrating when he graduated to squats, and soon, leg presses. The same man who extricated himself from his car door with a broken body will, according to Samantha, soon celebrate the small victory of being able to use his shower door — of discarding the ramp that allowed him access.
Busch, famous for his lack of restraint on the track, has learned that the race to recovery means accepting these little victories. Slowing down. Waiting his turn.
“It’s just a matter of every day that goes by you get better,” he said. “Being able to walk the first time I got up and then the next step was try to put one foot in front of the other. I’m on a walker. The next step was now I’m carrying the walker around so in case I fall or do something — I trip — I’ve got something to catch myself, so then I’m carrying the walker around. Now the walker is gone, so it’s just every day, man, every day is just a little bit better.”
But before you believe this Busch bears no resemblance to the character you know from the NASCAR narrative, rest assured: to Kyle, this is still a race. This is still a competition.
“He is very competitive,” Samantha said. “It’s like a race against himself. ‘How quickly can I get healed?’
“That’s what has driven him. It’s crazy. He’ll be the first one to admit it: He does not like working out, but since his accident, every day, he is down in the gym with me, for hours. He’s down in the pool. He is just doing everything he physically can to get back as quick as he can.”
But will the Kyle Busch NASCAR knows truly be back? The very nature of his recovery and rehabilitation has brought about a new perspective. For the first time since he joined the racing scene at 6 years old, Busch has been given a new goal beyond reaching a destination as quickly as possible.
Busch’s quip to the press Wednesday about what he’s learned about himself in the process contained multitudes: “That I actually do have a little bit of patience.”
Car and driver, broken. (Getty Images)
Hidden in that quote, perhaps, resides a new Kyle Busch persona. Less brash, more reserved. Less split-second decision, more sacrifice for the bigger picture. He hinted as much in his plans for his comeback.
“I want to get back sooner than later, but we’ve obviously got to be smart about it, too, knowing that I’ve got a long career ahead of me,” he said. “That we don’t need to rush anything too crazily and try to be as healthy as I can be to get back.”
And even if Busch comes back with his brashness, even if he resumes his off-road squabbles and on-road aggression, he will seem less the villain. For this absence has given the NASCAR world a window to the softer side of Kyle Busch. You can’t help but see him differently.
He’s no longer just the driver who flipped off officials at Texas Motor Speedway. He’s the humbled inhabitant of what his wife calls the “Kyle Busch Wing” — a hospital bed and stationary bike stuffed in a living room, the master bed moved nearby so Samantha could still sleep by his side.
Busch is no longer just the architect of the Hornaday Incident. He’s a series of images on social media — a beaten body next to his pint-sized pup, a smiling man in a sea of fan mail, a dad-to-be (his first child is due May 18), an athlete relearning to walk.
To Samantha, this isn’t necessarily a new Kyle, but simply her Kyle, revealed.
“I think that everybody got to see the Kyle that I see on a daily basis,” she said. “Funny, warm, and compassionate Kyle.”
It’s an inconvenient discovery. The sports world likes to anoint heroes and villains. Shades of gray rarely go beyond the uniforms. But it seems inevitable that when Kyle Busch gets back in a racecar, when he finally returns, the story will seem different.
It’s hard to root against redemption and return.
But Busch himself said, “You’re never done driving until you’re stopped.” And if hitting a wall at 90 mph, at a force of 90 Gs, could not slow Kyle Busch’s competitive burn, who’s to say the largest serving of humble pie will make him any less hungry?
