If Kyle Busch could take back his intentional wreck of Ron Hornaday at November’s Camping World Truck Series race at Texas, he would do so without hesitation.
Kyle Busch Wishes NASCAR Texas Incident Never Happened, Understands Need For Change
“I would have liked that it never have happened,” Busch said Monday during the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour. “If I could, I would take it back.”
The reality, though, is that Busch can’t reverse his actions – nor erase the post-incident fallout.
NASCAR suspended him for the rest of the Texas weekend and M&M’s, the primary sponsor for his Sprint Cup Series ride at Joe Gibbs Racing, pulled its name off the car for the final two events of the season.
Busch said everything that happened afterward was “certainly a little more than I expected” but now realizes how much his actions affect the people around him.
“It’s not necessarily affecting me,” he said. “It affects (public relations rep) Bill Janitz here. It affects Joe and J.D. Gibbs. It affects Dave Rogers, my whole team, the Joe Gibbs Racing organization, Kyle Busch Motorsports and the people behind the brands, too.”
Busch wouldn’t discuss his offseason conversations with M&M’s (“It’s none of your business,” he told reporters), but said everything has been positive.
“I’ll tell you what – I didn’t have much work to do with the people that were closest to me,” he said. “Those people are the utmost supportive of me and who I am and (wife) Samantha and our relationship. You kind of have a family-type relationship with those folks and they know who you are as a person.”
Busch compared his own actions to that of a kid who gets in trouble at school or gets thrown out of a baseball game.
“You’re disappointed in their reaction, but you still love them and stick up behind them and try to help them through that,” he said.
If there are any restrictions or ultimatums imposed on Busch by his sponsor, he wasn’t saying. But Busch did say he didn’t feel handcuffed by M&M’s and would still be able to race how he wanted.
He also understands, though, that he can’t cross the line.
"I've got fans all the time that tell me they don't want to see me change," he said. "I've tried to keep that, but ultimately, it's not going to work. If you keep getting in trouble, you're not going to be here very long. I'm trying to change something."
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