Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
On Wednesday, April 14, Kyle Busch addressed the media for the first-time since his crash in the NASCAR XFINITY race that resulted in a broken right leg and broken left foot, taking him out of the car for the season so far to date. Busch said on Wednesday that the two months that he has spent out of the car have been disappointing.
“I feel bad for my team, my sponsors and fans that are hoping out there that I could be in a car,” he commented. “It’s certainly discouraging to be watching from the sidelines, but being in the team meetings and being involved in the organization, I think that’s been really good to still be involved in that respect. Certainly, God has a lot of different things set in your mind for you, and this is one of those situations that Samantha and I are working for.
“Looking at J.D., it could be a lot worse. It could’ve been a neck or head injury, which I’m thankful that it wasn’t a lot worse.”
Busch offered no timetable for his return, saying that it would depend on the doctors and how he continued to heal moving forward.
“I got to please my doctors,” he stated. “I have to go step-by-step and do everything that they have asked. It’s been good, though. They say my recovery is going faster than they expected, but they won’t release a timetable. They’re like ‘Okay, now we’re released to stand up in both boots…now you’re released to walk’. It’s week by week and what my physical therapist says I can do. As long as I can show them that I am getting better and able to do more, they can continue to let me do more and we’ll get closer to a timetable released.”
With regards to his recovery, Busch said the gone growth has been coming along well, based on the latest set of x-rays taken.
“The break in the leg – got an x-ray done a couple weeks ago and you could still see a small crack, but it’s coming along,” he said. “The right foot – got a CT scan done the other day and he loved it. That’s just to be seen by the doctors. If I can show to them and prove to them that I can do it, they can release me for further activity.”
The recovery period also includes anotehr surgery, that is scheduled for December, to remove the plates and screws from his left foot.
When the doctors feel that he can return to driving, the current plan has Busch testing a late model a couple different times to make sure that he’s ready to return to the Sprint Cup Series. There is no option for Busch to test a Cup car before his return due to NASCAR’s testing policy, leaving the late model as the only option.
The initial return will see his focus purely on the Sprint Cup Series and making sure that he complete those races with success. As he goes forward, though, he will return to running the NASCAR XFINITY Serise and Camping World Truck Series eventually as there are “contracts in place so there’s reason to get back there. We’ll play it by ear and do it as I’m ready.”
Busch opened the floor by first thanking his wife Samantha for her support throughout the whole ordeal, whether at the hospital or at home, while pregnant with the couple’s first child.
“It’s a huge task for anyone to go through – but even huge for her,” he commented. “It shows her strength. She’s my rock, and she was always there. If there is a silver lining, it’s the fact that we’ve been spending time at home with her getting ready for the arrival of our son in a couple of months.”
He also thanked his fellow drivers, teammates and team members at both Joe Gibbs Racing and Kyle Busch Motorsports, saying that their support meant a lot to him.
“The biggest thing, I think, has been the fans and all the messages that they have sent me, whether via letters, cards or the messages on twitter,” he added.
Reflecting back to the wreck, Busch stated that he was “awake the whole time” and remembers exactly everything that happened. He detailed those events during his media availability, saying that it was “the hardest hit” that he has ever taken in NASCAR to date.
With the laps remaining in the DRIVE4COPD 300 quickly decreasing, Busch was set on making his move in an attempt to win the race.
“My initial plan was to push Erik Jones so my thought process was I see a gap between the 42 (Kyle Larson) and 62 (Brendan Gaughan), so I thought I could push Erik and we could shoot through the gap up through the middle,” he recalled. “As I start pushing him, he started going up through the middle but I got too far to the left of him, and that’s what got him sideways. I thought, ‘Okay, we’re wrecking’.”
Busch watched as Jones spun in front of him, collecting Larson and Gaughan in the process. He said that while there was initially thought by the race analysts to be contact, Busch’s No. 54 Monster Energy Camry had no contact with any of the cars around him. He stated on Wednesday that it was the air coming off of Jones’ car that got Busch sideways.
“I thought I could save it the whole time that was it was sideways, but it never stopped spinning,” he continued. “As it goes off, I finally locked it down. As I go through the grass, I thought, ‘Okay, the car needs to turn and it needs to rutter’, but it was never doing that. It was not ruttering, so I tell myself to let go of the brakes to see if it starts. It’s still not ruttering – it’s not slowing down….oh no, it’s not ruttering. So I got to get back to the brakes – both feet on the brake pedal to brace for the hit. I then say to myself, ‘Why would I want to brake both feet?’ So I took my right foot off the pedal but kept my left foot on. I’m bracing for the hit, but also telling myself that it’s going to hurt. Then I’m also saying pull your legs back – but sometimes your mind doesn’t overpower your physical abilities.
“Once I hit the grass, that was brace mode. That was when I tucked down, put my hands down tight and braced for the hit – totally forget about my legs. I left my left foot on the brake pedal and the right foot was right by the grass pedal. I left the racing surface at 170 mph, and hit the wall at 90gs.”
Busch said when the car slammed in the wall, the compression caused all the air to escape his body, with his helmet and chest hitting the steering wheel. However, with the safety advancements that NASCAR has made over the years, he never once lost consciousness and had no marks on his body from his knees up. He said it that compression, though, that caused him to break his leg.
“When the engine got pushed back, it pushed the pedal back and pushed the throttle stop back, and that’s what broke my right leg,” he explained. “As soon it hit, I knew my right leg broke. It was a sharp pain. I was like ‘At first, I’m going sit here and take a breath’, but there was a flash fire that came through the air box so I thought ‘Nope, that’s not going to work’.”
He also commented looking back, he could’ve possibly downshifted to get the car to spin and not hit the wall as directly as it did.
Busch said on Wednesday that the wreck was his fault as he was “being greedy and trying to win the race”. But yet, instead, he got hurt. Whether that will change his mindset moving forward on the restrictor plate races, he doesn’t believe it will as this was one of those “freak deals” that happened.
“I’ve been in a lot of wrecks before,” he commented. “Especially racing for wins, it is such circumstantial. Anything can happen. That’s why people lie in the back. It’s honestly fate. That’s what takes you. It doesn’t have to do with pure skill, but with luck.”
One of the big things with the wreck, though, was the fact that Busch hit a portion of the wall at Daytona that is not protected by a SAFER barrier. Busch said tha the noticed before the event started that the wall wasn’t protected.
“This might sound bonified crazy, but as I was rolling off pit road and people were pulling aside to center their wheel, I glanced over and noticed the wall without the barrier and thought, ‘Wow, if someone hits that, it’s going to hurt’,” he said. “You can call me crazy, but that actually happens. If we can go forward and help make changes to the cars and the walls, anything we can say to make it safer is good. And most times, we appreciate if they listen to us.”
Since then, NASCAR and the tracks have been moving quickly to put barriers in place – whether SAFER or tires – to keep the drivers safe.
“I’m not going to say that I’m happy about the wall not being protected as that’s not the truth,” he said. “I was disappointed that it wasn’t covered, but I’m pleased with the action that they have taken. We do so much for fans and sponsors, but we can’t let the driver safety go to the wayside. There’s a timetable there, I understand that, but we’re all hoping sooner than later.”
The wrecked car has been taken to the NASCAR Research and Development Center, where NASCAR has been studying what was left to make safety changes moving forward. Busch has been over to the R&D center to speak with the officials.
“I’ve seen cars wrecked and seen some very bad crashes, but as far as the compression of the car – I felt like there was a lot there, and a lot to learn for myself and Joe Gibbs Racing, but also the engineers at NASCAR to learn and understand,” he said. “They’re still working through it, as we speak. When I saw the wreck, it was probably worse than what I thought it to be. Now looking back and seeing it at the R&D center, I got a good chance to see what it looked like and all the safety things that NASCAR has come up through the years. I’m alive today because the seat worked, the restraints worked. I can’t say enough about NASCAR for what they’ve done – from the knees up, not a single mark on me. It’s about the leg area.”
While sitting out of the car hasn’t gone as Busch would’ve hoped, he stated on Wednesday that he feels blessed as he also realizes it could’ve been a lot worse.
“We’ve given some thought to it for sure,” he said. “I think Samantha still sheds some tears at night thinking about. We are very fortunate and blessed for our lives being in the Sprint Cup Series, and her going through IVF to have our son. Everything seems to be challenged. It doesn’t seem like anything comes easy, but we strive through it, dig deep and make it happen. It may seem like peaches and rosey on the outside, but it’s not always like that. But we’re very blessed in retrospect.”
