Frye had hoped to bring Kyle Busch to the Indy 500

Former IndyCar Series president Jay Frye and the late Kyle Busch tried to find ways for the mercurial NASCAR star to add his name to Indianapolis 500 lore as the second Busch brother to attempt The Double.

Kurt Busch made his run at doing The Double in 2014 with Andretti Global, where the 2004 NASCAR Cup champion piloted the No. 26 Honda to 12th in qualifying, sixth in the 500, and was running well at Charlotte's 600 until engine issues intervened.

For Frye, who spent many years as a NASCAR team owner before moving to IndyCar, Kyle Busch was a friend, and with a direct connection to the IndyCar boss, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver sponsored by M&Ms who ran his own Kyle Busch Motorsports NASCAR Truck Series team saw a perfect opportunity to bring both worlds together.

“It started in the 2017, 2018 range,” Frye told RACER. “That's when it appeared and there was definitely genuine interest to do it. So, obviously, from my Cup days and experience, I had known Kyle for a long time, and his management, and just there was a lot of momentum behind making it happen. And then one thing or other happened and it didn't come together, and we just kept trying.

“He wanted No. 51, which was his number for his Truck team, and that was the Rowdy thing, and the Days of Thunder thing, and Rowdy Burns, and so I just kept holding No. 51 for him every year. And it's funny, if you'd ask (Frye’s former assistant) Amanda Trotter, she kept the sheet of teams and names and numbers for the 500, and it always said ‘KB’ listed next to 51.”

Frye says Busch continued to express interest in doing the Indy 500.

“I've been gone from IndyCar for a year, but up until ’23, ’24 at least, I was still getting texts from him, and he texted often about it, and he paid attention to what we were doing, what was going on,” he added. “He was just a phenomenal guy, just an incredible race car driver, and if there was anybody that could have won both races, it would have been him.”

Despite ongoing attempts to get "Rowdy" into the largest single-day sporting event in the world, Frye laments the fact that it didn’t happen before Busch was suddenly taken last week at the age of 41. Sharing a rendering of Busch’s proposed M&M’s-sponsored No. 51 IndyCar was a kind surprise by Frye amid the sport-wide grieving.

“There was genuine interest, and unfortunately, it didn't work out, and again it was no one's fault, it just that sometimes things are complicated,” he said. “He had an amazing focus, and amazing car control…he could do things with cars that most people can't.

“It’s just tragic and horrible, everything that just happened, and I just thought, you know, IndyCar fans would like to see what we were working on and he would have loved to have done it.”