Commentary: Kyle Busch held special place in Kentucky racing

Kyle Busch may have been a Las Vegas native, but the NASCAR star long seemed quite at home in Kentucky. Busch's shocking death last week at age 41 from "severe pneumonia (that) progressed into sepsis, resulting in rapid and overwhelming associated complication" hit hard for those of us who first remember Busch with peach fuzz on his cheeks as a teenager driving at Kentucky Speedway. Over the 21 years (2000 through 2020) in which NASCAR conducted races in Sparta, Busch had so much success at the track, he became synonymous with Kentucky Speedway. In total, Busch won a record seven NASCAR-sanctioned races at the Sparta racetrack. He won the inaugural Cup Series race at Kentucky Speedway in 2011, and backed that up by outdueling Joey Logano to win a second Quaker State 400 in 2015. In addition to his Cup wins in Sparta, Busch won three times there in what is now called the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series and twice in the Craftsman Truck Series. If you check the record books, you will see that the all-time leader in laps led in Cup races at Kentucky Speedway is Kyle Busch with 630. The all-time leader in O'Reilly Auto Parts Series laps led in Sparta? That, too, is Kyle Busch with 877. And the all-time leader in truck series laps led at Kentucky Speedway is — wait for it — Kyle Busch with 310. For good measure, Busch also won a race in Sparta in what is now the ARCA Menards Series, giving him eight career victories in major stock car-racing events over the Kentucky Speedway tri-oval. The first time I interviewed Busch one-on-one came in 2005 at Daytona International Speedway only days before he would race, as a teenager, in his first Daytona 500. Appearing far younger than his 19 years, Busch looked like someone who should have been at a high school dance, not preparing to drive in the "Super Bowl of stock car racing." "I'm really not that nervous," he told me. "The Daytona 500, it's just a race." When I asked Busch's father, Tom Busch, about someone so young competing in the Daytona 500, he said "This is a new-school 19-year-old. It's not like we just pulled some kid off a basketball team. Kyle's run a lot of races to get here." Because Kyle Busch was so successful at Kentucky Speedway, the track would bring him to the commonwealth for promotional events at some unexpected venues. In 2012, the Speedway paired Busch with a chef inside a track kitchen. Their task was to whip up deep-fried, bacon-wrapped bourbon balls and Hot Brown hamburgers. Bourbon balls and Hot Browns are culinary staples of the commonwealth. "Never heard of them," the ever-blunt Busch said. Busch acknowledged that day, however, that having won the first Cup race at Kentucky Speedway had been a signature moment in his career. "To get the win in the inaugural (Cup) race here was extra special," he said. "We loved that." Five years later, Kentucky Speedway brought Busch, along with his wife, Samantha, and the couple's then-2-year-old son, Brexton, to Lexington for an appearance before reporters at the Kentucky Horse Park. That day, Kyle Busch petted 2003 Kentucky Derby winner Funny Cide. Brexton's parents tried to get their little boy to sit atop a horse, but he seemed more enthused about playing in the dirt. At Kentucky Speedway, the only driver who pressed Kyle Busch for supremacy was Brad Keselowski, who would win three Cup races and three races in the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series in Sparta. That day at the Horse Park, I asked Busch about his rivalry with Keselowski at Kentucky Speedway. "I'd like to think it's my year every year," Busch said. "I couldn't care less about (Keselowski)." What could have been Busch's third Cup win at Kentucky Speedway in 2019 was denied in dramatic fashion. In what were likely the two most-exciting Cup Series laps ever run in Sparta, Busch came in second to his older brother, Kurt Busch, in a paint-trading, green-white-checkers finish. The Busch brothers had flown to Kentucky together on Kyle's plane. "No hard feelings. That was fun. That was good," Kyle said after the race. "But (Kurt's) got to find his own way home. I'm not waiting on him." Kurt Busch engaged in some sibling ribbing of his own. "We're going over to (Kyle's) house tomorrow, actually, for a little get-together on a Sunday off (from racing) — and I am going to plop the (Quaker State 400 winner's) trophy down right on his kitchen counter," Kurt said. The passing of Kyle Busch means that two of the drivers who won inaugural races at Kentucky Speedway have died in the past six months. Greg Biffle, who won the first trucks series race in Sparta in 2000, died at age 55 in a plane crash last Dec. 18. Now Kyle Busch, the Las Vegas product who won the first Cup race in Sparta and became the brightest star in Kentucky Speedway's NASCAR galaxy, is gone far too soon as well.