Fan's Eye View ~ Kurt Busch: The Most Favorite Unpopular Driver
7/02/2013
Jim Fitzgerald
They
flutter around and land wherever the climate and surroundings are just
right. They certainly tweet a lot. They’ll probably soil your shirt as well, if
given the opportunity.
They
are the boo-birds.
On
Sunday afternoon in Kentucky, they came in a large flock, and they perched
themselves right near the front stretch and into Turn 1. They were looking for Kurt Busch.
Busch
had just made quite the daring move. He
moved down to the flat surface of the race track, usually reserved for
underperforming cars wishing to get out of the way or a daring last lap final
attempt at passing for or securing a win.
Kurt Busch was going for the pass, but it wasn’t on the last lap. It wasn’t even with five or ten last
remaining. Busch did it with only 49
laps on the board.
Brad
Keselowski called it driving “like an animal.”
Animals that can drive a car are not seen too often, to be sure. (Aside from Toonces
The Cat, anyway.)
What was seen was Busch’s car down on the apron of the track, clipping a
storm drain which slightly lifted most of the car off of the track. These cars have tire which grip to keep them
on the track and out of trouble, but when the tires leave the track, their
effectiveness is severely limited.
Busch’s car returned to the Earth, and slid up into the left rear of
Keselowski. Keselowski spun and
eventually collected multiple cars. The boo birds came out.
But so did the support.
Twitter
was alive with tweets both condemning the actions of Busch, and supporting them
as well. Busch himself, of course,
addressed the incident and took full responsibility, a trait he was perhaps
lacking in the early stages of his career.
Busch would often point the finger away from himself when calamity
struck, but on Sunday, they were all pointed right back at himself.
“I
hate that my mistake ruined @bradkeselowsi @gbiffle @RCR27PMenard and their teams
day,” Busch tweeted. Apologized to them
all but mad at myself still”
So
why are some of the fans so quick to bash the driver
of the No. 78 Furniture Row Chevrolet, and others are so quick to defend
him? Questions and guesses all around,
but one would have to understand that Kurt Busch has been a polarizing
individual for most of his Sprint Cup career.
Kurt
Busch is the guy that told Jimmy Spencer to put his lips where the sun doesn’t
shine when we was dumped into the wall at Indy by Spencer.
This
is the same Kurt Busch who gave his time to play a charity softball game,
NASCAR vs the NHRA, and hosts a Kurt Busch Celebrity
Bowling Tournament.
This
would be the same Kurt Busch who yelled at his team and crew, and called Roger Penske
“Dude.”
This
is the same Kurt Busch who never quit when he had a tire fall off of his car at
Homestead in 2004, and ended up winning the Championship anyway.
This
is the same Kurt Busch who barks at and sometimes disrespects members of the
media, such as Jerry Punch, Jenna Fryer, and Bob Pockrass.
And
this is the same Kurt Busch who recently won the Major General Thomas Sadler
Award for his charity work with Speedway Children’s Charities, the Victory
Junction Gang Camp, Special Olympics, and the Armed Forces Foundation.
All
of these are things we know about Kurt Busch.
The fans love the caring Kurt Busch, but some of them also love the
aggressive underdog Kurt Busch which he most certainly is right now, while
others remember his as the Champion Kurt Busch he was and could still be once
again, while some others just remember the negative side of Kurt Busch with all
of the problems.
Will
the real Kurt Busch please stand up? For
many fans, their love or dislike for Busch reads like the printout of their
last EKG. There are peaks and valleys of
love, approval, condemnation, and pure distaste. Reading social media, you will find “We love
you, Kurt” messages right above or below “Kurt’s an idiot” messages. And
depending on how long between those posts and what has transpired in that time,
sometimes they may come from the same person. Maybe the fans are the fickle ones and have a
pro-wrestling mentality of needing a “good guy” or a “bad guy.” But which one is Kurt Busch?
Maybe
it is the one you see. Maybe it is the
soft spoken out of the car, loud mouthed in the car, tactical driving, risk taking,
happy winning, angry losing, donation giving, racecar crashing, compliment
dealing, tirade throwing, fine paying, money raising, cautious racing, top ten
placing, front stretch bumping, military supporting, pit crew bashing, fan
loving, all I want to do is make a difference Kurt Busch.
Yeah. That’s definitely sounds like a racer, and
that’s what Kurt Busch really is.
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