Kurt Busch says ‘The universe smiled down on me’ in Hall of Fame career

Kurt Busch was nervous about whether his name would be called Tuesday for the NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2026.

It ended up being the last one called by NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps, who had the honor of announcing the new inductees. Busch was named alongside Harry Gant and Ray Hendrick, as well as Landmark Award winner (for outstanding contributions to the sport) Humpy Wheeler.

Busch and Gant were elected with 61% of the vote from the Modern Era ballot. It was Busch’s first year on the ballot in his first year of eligibility.

“I felt like it was race mode,” Busch said. “I had to put the emotional blinders on, and yet, you’re watching the video of the past and thinking of the present and the future all at once. Everyone who is on the ballot is someone who can go into the hall because of the impact that they made on the sport. And for me, a blue-collar kid out of Las Vegas, this I never would have imagined. We were a family where it was just a hobby to race; it was fun to go to the track as father and son.”

Tom Busch, Kurt’s father, and Gaye Busch, his mother, were in attendance at the NASCAR Hall of Fame for the announcement. Busch appeared to lean over onto his mother’s shoulder when his name was called, and then reached across to his father’s arm.

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It was a quick career trajectory for Busch from Las Vegas to North Carolina and the NASCAR Cup Series. Busch did not have a traditional path through the lower national series before signing with a Cup Series team.

“I’m running a legend car at the (Las Vegas) Bullring in September of 1999,” Busch said. “September of 2000, I’m in Jack Roush’s Cup Series car qualifying at Dover. Jeff Gordon is next to me. Dale (Earnhardt) Sr. is behind me. That’s how fast things happened for me. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. There was no template. There wasn’t a ladder that you see a lot of the kids these days have a system where we’re going to this and this. A lot of mine was being in the right place at the right time, and the universe smiled down on me.

“There are so many great people to thank. So many great sponsors. And the teams. The teams that would give me a shot, even after I’d stub my toe a few times.”

Busch was a full-time Cup Series driver by 2001 and won 34 races in 776 starts. Among those victories were a Coca-Cola 600 (2010) and Daytona 500 (2017), which are two of the sport’s crown jewel events. Over the course of his 23-year career, Busch won in 19 different seasons and was crowned the first Cup Series champion when NASCAR adopted its first playoff format in 2004.

Roush was just one of the team owners for whom Busch drove and won during his career. Others include Roger Penske, Tony Stewart, Chip Ganassi and Michael Jordan. And, he is the only Cup Series driver to win with four different manufacturers.

However, off the racetrack, Busch was the topic of many unflattering headlines, whether for his interactions with those in the industry or legal troubles. Busch never directly addressed how he would have felt if the latter were the reason he was kept out of the Hall of Fame.

“I felt like the late 2010s, early teens, I was in a spot in my mid-30s where I was exploring IndyCar, NHRA, doing some dirt racing,” Busch said. “Anytime I finished up with those projects, the NASCAR car kept calling my name and I was given plenty of advice from top team owners, whether I was catching lucky breaks or still able to open doors, things still had a flow and a rhythm even though I was sleeping on Todd Barrier’s couch out in Denver, Colorado for a year, it all worked out.”

Busch’s career was cut short in 2022 when he crashed at Pocono Raceway and suffered a head injury. At the time, Busch was still competing at a high level and had won a race earlier in the year. There were times when the emotional stress and physical aspect of what happened made it one of the toughest times of his career, but Busch came to an understanding that there is a time when you have to move forward.

Pocono, meanwhile, invited Busch back to its facility after the NASCAR Hall of Fame nominees were announced last month. He has not been there since his crash, but acknowledged he will take them up on their offer and return later this year. He is unsure what the track has planned for him during the weekend.

“I’m OK with how things went,” Busch said of his forced retirement. “In all honesty, I was going for pole with a competitive team at the age of 43. To be competitive and be locked in the playoffs for as many years as I was, and at the end going for pole, it’s almost like a Hollywood-type story. So, I’m OK with it.”