As NASCAR mourns Kyle Busch, the show goes on at Nashville Superspeedway | Estes
LEBANON – It’s “still tough,” said NASCAR’ s Bubba Wallace. Thoughts will wander to what happened. To his absent friend. To Kyle Busch’s family. To those “conversations that you wish you had” with Busch when you could, Wallace said. And, also, to advice Wallace once received fr
Thoughts will wander to what happened. To his absent friend. To Kyle Busch’s family. To those “conversations that you wish you had” with Busch when you could, Wallace said.
And, also, to advice Wallace once received from racing royalty.
“Richard Petty told me this when we were driving for him: ‘It's not work when you get in the car,’” Wallace said. “That's where we come to life and have fun and get to be ourselves. … Throughout all the stuff going on last week, on the racetrack, off the racetrack, you just wish you could hit the fast-forward button to Sundays and to be able to escape it all for a couple of hours.”
So it was on the cool, pleasant evening of May 31 at Nashville Superspeedway. This year’s Cracker Barrel 400 , ultimately won by polesitter Denny Hamlin, had a cathartic feel.
Middle Tennessee welcomed NASCAR back at an especially unfortunate and emotional time. The sport, clearly, was still grieving the tragic death of Busch, one of its most successful and well-known drivers. Busch died suddenly on May 21 from pneumonia that progressed into sepsis.
In a world accustomed to the risks drivers take on any track in every race, it was more difficult to wrap minds around an otherwise healthy 41-year-old having that happen.
“It just reminds you that there's more life outside of just racing,” Kyle Larson said, “and there’s more risks outside of just racing as well. Enjoy your time on this earth, because you definitely never know when your time is up.”
Three days later, the show went on for NASCAR. The Coca-Cola 600 went off as planned in Charlotte, which is what Busch would have wanted, drivers agreed.
