How Kyle Busch worked his way from serious injury to Chase favorite

The crash was violent. Horrific in nature. And the injuries reflected the severity. After sliding across the track, Kyle Busch slammed almost head-on into a Daytona International Speedway interior wall at 90 mph.

Busch instantly knew the crash -- which registered 90 Gs and occurred Feb. 21 during the season-opening Xfinity Series race -- was grave. Beyond just the excruciating pain and trying to extract himself from the smoldering No. 54 car, Busch’s mind turned elsewhere, figuring his season, if not his career, was over. That to overcome a double compound fracture of his right leg and a broken left foot wasn’t possible.

“I thought, ‘Man, I’m done,’” Busch said during an April press conference when he reconstructed the accident. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to come back from this.”

Those concerns were quelled some when doctors informed Busch the injuries weren’t career threatening, though the exact timetable of how long he would be sidelined was measured in months, not weeks.

But Busch had other ideas. Not coming back until August assured he would not qualify for NASCAR’s playoffs, the Chase for the Sprint Cup. So immediately he began working on an accelerated rehabilitation plan to return. That resolve was evident when team owner Joe Gibbs visited his driver following a second foot surgery.

“I went over to his house the day after the foot surgery, and he’s sitting there, and I figured he was going to be drugged up and everything, probably wouldn’t recognize me,” Gibbs said. “I go in there, he’s wide awake, he’s bouncing around, and then he starts wiggling his toes. I go, ‘What are you doing?‘ He goes, ‘Well, it doesn’t hurt.’ I said, ‘Did (doctors) tell you that you could do that?‘ And he says, ‘No.’ I go, ‘What are you doing?’ He was off all the pain medication and he was roaring from the start.”

Consisting of him first learning to walk again, the physical therapy was grueling, Busch said. Several times he nearly passed out due to the agonizing pain. His diligence and commitment paid dividends, though. Instead of a late summer return, early July became the target date, then that too got moved sooner.

Busch’s first race back came May 16 in the exhibition All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, with his official return the following week in NASCAR’s longest event, the Coca-Cola 600. But the hurdling of one sizable obstacle just meant another awaited.

Because he had missed 11 races, Busch needed NASCAR to grant him a waiver making him eligible to claim one of the 16 spots in the Chase field. Officials signed off on the request, with two caveats he must fulfill: 1) Busch needed to win one of the 15 remaining regular season races and 2) finish 30th or better in the standings.

Both provisions presented a challenge. To win and accumulate enough points, Busch would not only need to be healthy enough to race competitively weekly, but also require Joe Gibbs Racing to solve a horsepower and aerodynamic deficiency that had hampered the team throughout last season and carried over to 2015. So distinct were its woes, Busch’s teammate Denny Hamlin described JGR’s cars as “sucking” following the March race at Phoenix.

But as Busch went through rehabilitation, JGR worked to resolve its deficiencies, spurred by a lambasting from Gibbs, the three-time Super Bowl winning head coach and NFL Hall of Famer: “We had the longest competition meeting I’ve ever been a part,” Hamlin said. “Joe raised his voice, which doesn’t happen very often, told us to get off our tails and go to work, and we all did it.”

Coinciding with Busch’s return, JGR had positioned itself to become NASCAR’s dominant organization, as Toyota had improved its motors and the team, its cars. Starting with the Coca-Cola 600 -- Busch’s first race back -- a JGR driver would win nine of the next 15 races. And leading that swing in fortunes was the driver whose own fortunes had swung dramatically.

Two crashes in his first three starts made Busch a longshot to reach the Chase. Forget winning -- he was struggling just to see the checkered flag. Through four races he had only narrowed the gap between himself and the 30th-ranked threshold NASCAR mandated by a scant six points.

The turnaround came at the unlikeliest of places -- Sonoma, a demanding Northern California road course where a driver with his braking foot held together by screws would seemingly be at a disadvantage.

“We were really worried about Sonoma, even being able to drive the race,” Gibbs said. “It puts so much pressure on your foot.”

There was no need to be apprehensive. Lined up sixth on a restart with seven laps remaining and fresher tires than those ahead, Busch pounced. With great haste, he moved to second before dispatching leader Jimmie Johnson to win his 30th career race.

“Made it through today -- that’s all that mattered,” Busch said. “I knew it was going to get painful and I was going to have to power through it. It kind of started to cross my mind, but you know, when you’ve got fresh tires and seven laps to go and you see the checkered flag waiting for you, you know, you forget about all those things.”

Emerging as an unstoppable force, Busch would score successive victories at Kentucky, New Hampshire and Indianapolis. Any notion of not qualifying for the Chase became moot. In addition to the wins, Busch also had consistency to erode a once significant points deficit.

“Making the Chase was something we weren’t all sure was possible after my injuries,” Busch said. ”... I thought there was a slim chance, but I wasn’t sure how good of a chance we had.

“We weren’t looking so good after Michigan, it was really doom and gloom and I was bumming. I wasn’t sure what to do; I wasn’t sure what was going on. It took a little bit of time to knock the rust off, I guess. That was probably the longest I’ve ever been out of a racecar in my life.”

From laying in the emergency room wondering if his career might be over to entering the Chase as one of the favorites, Busch’s season had evolved in improbable fashion.

“When we saw that incident and heard about how bad the injuries were I think all of us thought, oh man, six or nine months before he comes back,” Jeff Gordon said. “And even when he does, what’s it going to be like? He got back sooner than everybody thought and he’s been on a tear ever since. I think a lot of us would like to have a little bit more time off at home, but none of us want to do it that way.

“I think it’s pretty amazing what he’s been able to accomplish.”

As if the season wasn’t already filled with enough hurdles, another awaits Busch in the playoffs. The 16-driver, 10-race championship has undergone several incarnations, with the most recent a four-round format that eliminates four participants every three races.

The brilliance Busch exhibits throughout the regular season has never manifested itself in the Chase. A combination of bad luck, under-performance and an inability to handle adversity has derailed promising years where a championship appeared possible.

Busch won a series-best eight times during the 2008 regular season, his first with JGR, and recorded more points than anyone. When the Chase began, he flamed out, finishing 15th or worse in four of the first five races and ranking 10th in the year-end standings.

In 2011, Busch earned a one-week suspension after deliberately wrecking Ron Hornaday Jr. under caution in a Camping World Truck Series race. Despite having the second-most victories since 2005 -- Busch’s rookie season -- not one of those wins have come in a Chase that Busch was playoff eliglble. He’s never gone into a season finale with a chance at the championship.

“I always haven’t been the smartest points racer out there,” Busch said. “I put myself in some bad spots. ... I’ve made mistakes in the past. Hopefully, I don’t continue those same mistakes this year.”

But this go-around Busch carries something that’s been absent in previous years -- perspective. Needing to move high enough in points to become Chase eligible dictated he look at the bigger picture and scale back his trademark aggressiveness.

Instead of pushing Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick for the win at Watkins Glen, Busch saved fuel to ensure a second-place finish. On an afternoon when passing was difficult, he fought to 11th in a backup car at Michigan. Labor Day weekend at Darlington, Busch again drove a backup car and overcame a mid-race spin to net a seventh-place finish, a result that secured his Chase berth.

“Mentally I think he’s really been up on it, ever since the injury,” Gibbs said. “We’ve really been proud of him. The way he’s handled everything, disappointments, handled that really well, too.”

Though racing for points might not be sexy, it goes a long way towards winning a championship. And a driver who can win on any kind of track on any given week and balance that with consistency is the kind of driver who finds the ultimate success.

“We had some bad days, but we’ve definitely capitalized on some of those good days in winning four races,” Busch said. It’s just a matter now of hoping to continue this wave all the way through. Certainly, I’ve had plenty of years in my career where we’ve made it to Chase and everything has sort of hit a brick wall. Hopefully we don’t have that and JGR continues to power through and really look strong through the postseason.”