NASCAR drivers reflect on Busch's legacy
Connor Zilisch, Ross Chastain, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin share their thoughts on Kyle Busch's legacy after his passing.
Video Transcript
You know, I, I feel like this is a very tight-knit sport.
you know, it's a small community, but it's a tight community.
And, you know, when you lose somebody, it's, it's felt throughout the entire garage, and especially when it's somebody, you know, with the magnitude like Kyle Busch.
So, yeah, I mean, I, I remember Thursday really well.
I was at an autograph session and, at that point I'd started hearing, you know, buzz about the possibility of, you know, Kyle passing away.
And, you know, I didn't want to believe it.
And, you know, I was in the middle of an autograph session when I found out, and, you know, NASCAR posted it, and that was really tough for me to get through the rest of that autograph session.
and then, yeah, I, I finished and, you know, somebody walked up and, and just without even asking, you know, prayed with me, and I got in my car and broke down and, and, you know, cried the whole way home.
So, yeah, it's, it's, you know, that You know, no matter who it is, our industry is really tight, and, and losing somebody and being able to It's hard to deal with and hard to accept and, you know, especially at his age with two kids so young and, you know, Samantha, Braxton, and, and Lennox, it's, it's so hard to believe that, you know, they're gonna grow up without a dad and, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna all rally around the three of them and, and make sure that they're taken care of.
Obviously an emotional weekend on multiple fronts.
How do you balance those, or how do you put them out of your mind once the helmet goes on, just with what this event means combined with the events of the last couple days?
Go race.
yeah, it felt good to get in the truck last night.
Like I'd mentioned earlier, like, I definitely looked up at the 7 truck, and for one of those whole pace laps I was staring at it.
But, go race.
And I-- knowing Kyle, that's, that's what he would wanna do.
So, no questions about driving down there to the track.
No questions about, in my mi- no questions in my mind about coming and, and going to work, and going to race.
it's, it's what we do.
you know, Kyle's loss is the whole industry's loss.
and the industry's had a lot of losses here in the last five or six months, and that seems to come in waves.
I don't know why that is.
so it's, it's been a, a, a tough few months for the industry, and this is, this is another hard one.
You know, I don't wanna try to weigh one against another.
but, you know, it's, it's a tough part of the sport is there's a lot of people in this garage area.
You know, I, I, I figure-- I did some napkin math a few months ago.
I figure there's about 10,000 people that work in this industry, whether it's at the teams or at NASCAR or at the racetracks.
And, you know, the, the events go on because of them and, and some of them have more notoriety than others, which is natural.
But whenever you have a, a group of people that large, there's going to be loss.
There's going to be, you know, moments of pain.
And, you know, some just naturally hit harder and wider than others, and Kyle's hits pretty deep.
You know, it's affected everybody here, I think, in a, in a very unique way and, in a very heart-touching way as well throughout this week and, and, seeing how everybody comes together in moments like this is pretty impressive to see.
But yes, to answer your, your question, probably one of the last times I've talked to Kyle was at the playground at Talladega.
And, I remember seeing him, and the first thing I walked up to him, 'cause it was right after he did a podcast saying how he didn't like me.
And of course, 'cause I just hit things head on, I walked up to him, I said, "What the heck?
I thought we were friends."
and we had a good laugh about it and joked about it.
And, Braxton and Hudson are-- you know, they, they play together all the time.
They're-- he's a great kid.
and so they're shooting hoops.
And to be honest with you, neither one of us knew how to play basketball worth a crap.
so I'm glad no cameras saw it because it'd been a little embarrassing, When Kyle Busch came to Joe Gibbs Racing in 2008, you were already there.
he came in like a house on fire, won eight of the first 22 races that year.
what was that like, him coming to JGR at that point, and how did your relationship with him evolve over the next 15 years?
I mean, it was eye-opening for one.
you know, I, I was, you know, kinda when I signed my deal with Joe Gibbs Racing, as development driver, it was kinda-- I think it was the first year, he was, gonna run full-time, with Hendrick in the, in the O'Reilly Series.
And, and I just remember that, you know, it was kinda him and Martin and just those two guys going back and forth, and just he was, really, really good.
But I didn't really, you know, know until he got in the same equipment that I got in, and I could see how fast he was and, you know, just generally how good he was, that at that point it was like, you know, "This is, this is gonna be super challenging."
To be the fastest, and the best at your organization, you're gonna have a really tough time, as long as this guy's your teammate.
So- on your podcast, you talked about how Kyle gave you crap for your joint appearance at Dover.
and you said that you guys are g- you know, this last interaction-- or was that your last interaction?
As you look back, what will you think about that?
it was good.
I mean, we, we had laughs and smiles together.
That was, that was really a, a good opportunity.
I, I, I wasn't even aware that we were, doing it together nor, I don't think it was planned.
I think he might've been early to, to that appearance.
That's quite unusual.
But, he was early.
I think he was supposed to be before me or, or after me and, and instead, went on with me for that one.
but it was good.
We, we got to talk about old people stuff, you know, and, you know, there, there were aches and body pains, things like that, and just, you know, just they were listing off kind of our accomplishments and stuff, and I was like, "Kyle, it just means that we're old.
That's it."
You know, this many starts and got all these accomplishments just means we've been around a really, really long time.
And, so it was really good to, to have that, you know, last interaction with him and, and see him.
