I Could Do Without This Guy

Sometimes I ask myself if all the disdain for Kyle Busch is really justified. Then he'll go out and do something so childish and embarrassing that my doubts are kept in check. Saturday was one of those days when he reminds the racing world that he is the most classless driver on the circuit.

After dominating the Nationwide race at Bristol, one of his crew members made a mistake on the final pitstop by allowing the right-rear tire to roll outside of his pit box. Busch picked up the standard NASCAR penalty of restarting at the end of the lead lap line, which in this case was 14th position. He ended up finishing sixth.

Okay, we get it: the guy made a mistake and it probably cost them the race. Everyone has a right to be passionate about it. But where Kyle loses points is in his childish antics. After learning about the penalty he ripped his team through the in-car radio. Then, after the race was over, he didn't even bother driving the car back to the garage area. He parked it on the track, threw off his helmet to show his anger and left the facility -- clearly an insult to his team.

The reality is that NASCAR is a team sport. You win as a team, and you lose as a team. It's always been that way, and always will be that way. Kyle Busch is not a team player; probably because he feels that his talent is above his crew's abilities. Some day he is going to make a mistake when driving the race car. What would he think if his crew threw up their hands, told him he sucks, and then refused to service his car for the rest of the day?

Here is where the problem lies: the racing media has launched this guy into God's gift to the racing world and have fed his relentlessly immature self-aggrandizing by endlessly talking up his perceived greatness. Then all the Busch apologists come out to defend him on TV when he acts like a spoiled brat. Even this evening Jimmy Spencer and Kenny Wallace used their platform on SPEED TV to speak of Busch's "righteous anger" when dealing with his crew. Wallace offered that Busch's greatness makes him "the Dale Earnhardt of now". (With all due respect, I do not believe that Kyle could carry Earnhardt's jock strap.)

Busch will probably go on to have a lot of victories, but if he doesn't grow up quick, he'll never be one of NASCAR's greatest drivers. NASCAR's greatest drivers were also some of the best people. Ned Jarrett, Neil Bonnett, Bobby Allison, Richard Petty -- all drivers with talent, passion, and success in their own right -- but also good gentlemen that have represented the sport well.

Here is one fact I know about automobile racing: there is no other sport in America that can humble a man in the wink of an eye like this sport can. One moment you can be the hottest driver on the circuit, and the next moment you're laid up in a hospital. If Busch is building his personality on victories and brash ego alone, he is opening himself up to the possibility of a huge downfall.

Who knows... maybe that Formula One ride will come through after all. That'll be just one less punk NASCAR fans will have to deal with.