NASCAR was different when Kyle Busch started, and it's very different 20 years later today. Busch feels the older drivers had a racing etiquette, and practiced more patience in racing than showing aggression the way they do today. And a strong reason for this according to him is the grassroots racing.

Ahead of Sunday's NASCAR All-Star race at Dover, Busch shed light on how he does not see respect while racing from young drivers, as they are involved in door slamming to desperate wheel-to-wheel racing.

"When you watch all the children that race all year long in the ARCAs and Late Models, and the other things, you see that stuff already," Busch said. "They’re taught from a very young age to dive bomb and run into them, and door that guy," Busch said.

When asked if such things can be taken care of, Busch said, “How do you fix it? I don’t think you do."

Notably, Kyle Busch participated in the recently concluded NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race, the Ecosave 200 at the Dover Motor Speedway, and won it. He defeated the 2024 Truck Series title winner, Ty Majeski.

In the race, Busch saw how Brendan Queen and Luke Baldwin made contact during the race, and stopped the race to proceed. In another incident, Mini Tyrrell and Brandon Jones hit each other, registering another chaos.

Busch mentioned how this wasn't the case earlier. “I think other people have said this as well, where it starts from the top down, right? So from the Cup series and down the line. And I’ve raced against the likes of Mark Martin and Bobby Labonte, and those guys, Jimmy Johnson in their heyday, Jeff Gordon.

"And then it changed. Like the guard changed, and the driver etiquette on the racetrack changed years ago, where it’s just all out, all the time, balls to the wall,” he explained.

In a way, Kyle Busch was far from impressed with the drivers of this generation and how they race these days. Sharing his thoughts on the same, Busch explained how his days of racing differed from these days.

Kyle Busch shows frustration over career slump

Busch also touched upon how there’s a difference in behavior within the team when the performance is good and bad.

I would think anytime that you have positive mojo going, which, you know, when you have positive mojo going, it’s just kind of like it’s a good feeling, and it just kind of gives you that vote of confidence of just like, ‘Okay, we’re doing our job.’

“And then when you’re—when you don’t have when you’re not doing well, you’re like, ‘Well, what am I doing wrong?’ Like, I’m doing everything I always would normally be doing. If you’re the car chief, you know I’m putting in what the engineers and the crew chief are telling me to put in there. Like, obviously, it’s not working. So, who’s the idiot here? You know which one of us?”

It’s been 105 races since Busch hasn’t seen a Cup win. Nonetheless, his two Truck wins this season at Atlanta and now at Dover surely bring some relief to keep going.

You can read more on the Daytona Racing Digest!

Written by

Sabyasachi Biswas

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason