Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Kyle Busch Interview

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

Kevin Harvick sits down with Kyle Busch for a candid conversation about his current winless streak, what it felt like to return to his hometown track in Las Vegas, and what the future holds for him in NASCAR. Busch opens up about the challenges he’s faced, his mindset moving forward, and how he plans to get back to Victory Lane. Don’t miss this in-depth look at one of NASCAR’s most polarizing and talented drivers! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So people ask me all the time, they're like, well, why don't you take these kids under your wing and, like, teach them and tell them? I'm like, we are in a completely different era now. Like, there is no fixing what we've got going right now with everybody running over everybody. They would much rather crash than win a race. I don't get it. Five, four, pretty far. And there's Kevin Harvick. Right there.

You're the man. It's good thing. I'm sorry. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour, presented by Echo Park Automotive and NASCAR on Fox. and this week's interview with Kyle Bush, and I think for a lot of the fans and myself personally and everyone here at Fox, this is going to be a great interview. You got to see a little piece of it on the pre-race,

but Kyle had some pretty interesting answers to some pretty direct questions, so I can't wait to hear it. Hope you enjoy it. Hello, sir. Yo, yo. How are you? All right. What's up?

Just working. Living the dream, man. How are you? Hanging out. City to city, town to town, still living the, NASCAR schedule. So you're living the NASCAR live going week to week out on the West Coast just doing normal stuff? Yeah, exactly. You know, we went to some Brexton racing earlier in the week before Phoenix and then Phoenix to Vegas, West Coast Swings, stay out and have some family time, stuff like that and then go home

right after Vegas. How do you balance it all? I mean, when you come to when you come to Vegas, there has to be more to balance than on a normal week. Is that fair? Not really. not anymore. Like I've got a couple friends in town. They asked for passes and they just go and low key, you know, no big deal. But we're just, we're tourists, man. We're just here. No family here, no, no house or anything that from back in the day. So it's just kind of seeing how the city's grown and what it looks like now from what it was when I remember as a kid. So you come to Las Vegas. It's been since 20, 23 that you've won. I don't have to remind you that. I've been through the exact same thing that you're going through right now.

I look at several moments last year. I look at the start of this season. And it's been close. And you expect to win, but the way that you've handled it has been much different than the way that everybody thinks Kyle Busch is going to handle it. How has this little stretch of not winning change the way that you look at things? It's tough. I mean, it was really hard. Last year going winless first year ever in Cup Series competition, not being able to score victory, was really hard. So I don't know. I look through it through my son's eyes sometimes because he talks about how Owen gets to go celebrate with Tiny Kyle. And when he wins and he gets to go run out on the racetrack and get a ride to victory lane and all that. And Brexton, when we were in our highs of 2015, 16, 17, 18, even some of 19, we won. four, five, six, eight races a year in those years. And so he was too young to really kind of remember it and take part in those

because he wasn't that perfect age of running out to the track. Now that he's a little bit older, he wants to be a part of that, and I'm not winning as much. So it is tough. It's more tough on that, probably for me, feeling bad for him that he doesn't get to enjoy in that, as much as I feel bad for me that I don't get to enjoy in being able to go to Victory Lane as much as I once did.

But life is life. You just keep fighting it out and keep working with the team and everybody that we've got on this year at RCR and stuff and trying to make it better to get us back to Victory Lane. When you look at that motivation that comes from your kids, though, I mean, for me, that was really, that was the only reason that I really liked to race because they enjoyed going to the racetrack. They enjoyed everything that we did revolved around the racetrack. And I think that the connection that I've seen from you with Braxton in trying to help him has to motivate him. has to motivate what you do on Sunday, not just for riding in the car, because when you look back at winning all those races

and you talk about Brexon not really understanding it, it's got to be somewhat of a help as a parent, too, to make him understand how freaking hard this is. Yeah, I mean, I think what helps him understand how hard it is are the times where he travels and he goes in races and he doesn't win all the time. So he gets to kind of see like, okay, it's not just jumping a race car automatically I win.

right? So he gets to see a better picture of that it is hard. You do have to work at it. It is something that this doesn't come easy for everybody. And so that helps maybe a little bit, but he still does remind me quite often that he wins a lot more than I do. Yeah, that'll slow down though. That's what I tell. It's not always going to be that way. Yeah, yeah. I say cherish it, man. Cherish all those moments that you get to win because it's only going to get harder. Does he ever go back because Keelan does this with me? I keep trying to refer to myself in my situations because I don't want you to think I'm like I'm picking on you because I'm not. Does he go back and watch YouTube?

No, not yet. Not yet. No. Oh my gosh, buddy. You are in for a hell of them. I get more questions from Keelan about why'd you do this? Why'd you do that? How come I can't do that?

How come I can't do this? Right. Yeah. That's going to be an interesting time when he starts going back and watching those YouTube clips. That's probably because we've been through that. We've lived through that. We know the consequences of all of that.

So there's much better ways in handling a lot of the situations that we went through. So having that tutelage and that knowledge that we have now to kind of hand down, I think helps them, which I'm pretty confident helps them. Who's a better coach? You or his mom? In what regard? Just in racing. Life or racing?

In racing in general. Racing me for sure. Is she the, is she kind of the intermediate, does she have to referee? Yes. There are times where, you know, I want to get on them about something and I'll tell him and he's like, I'm trying that or I'm doing that or the car's terrible or it stinks. It's not fast enough. And I'm like, hold on a second. You got the best money can buy, all right? Like sometimes it's not our problem. It's your problem. So you've got to figure it out. And then he gets a little mad when you tell him that he didn't do his job. But mom is kind of the intermediary there where she helps kind of smooth things over. And we get to a common ground. So where do you think, going back to your stuff, where do you think from the start of the year to where we are right now? I know we haven't, we've got a small sample of Speedways and Phoenix. Where do you think you and the team are currently?

Much better than we were last year. I would give big kudos to everyone at RCR, ECR engines, everyone that's been working really, really hard over the off season, the new people that have kind of come in to help us out with car builds at the shop to different setups. that we've run at the racetracks to the strategies and the software that we have behind the scenes with the computers and the simulation of all of that improving and getting better. So we're getting better results on Sunday just due to different,

different but yet better processes through the week that get us to the racetrack. So when you have the, I look back at Cota and I think, man, if that just goes green. If that goes green. You've got a great shot, but you lead laps. Yep. You had the pick crew executed all day.

on pit road, even under the circumstances of leading, winning the race. They have made, that was a big stride from last year in those moments. When you have these moments that you have the speed and you go back to the shop, who's the cheerleader? You, Richard, crew chief, who's the one going into cheerlead? I haven't been home yet, so I will take. But you can still do it at the track. I do.

Like I tell the guys like, hey, good job. I ask questions of like, well, what's different? What's going on? What are we doing here? Why at Cota last year did we fade gracefully from starting, I think, eighth or something like that? Where this year we started eighth or ninth and we went forward from the drop of the green flag, you know? So Phoenix. I remember last year at Phoenix in the spring race looking up in my mirror, there wasn't a car behind me.

Oh, man, that's terrible. And I was like, what are we doing? what is happening. And this year, we qualified 15th, which maybe three spots worse than I probably should have could have been. So for the potential that we had. And then throughout the race,

I was still running like 11th. I can't tell you how many times Derek on the radio last week was like, and we're still running 11th. You are choosing 11th. We are pitting from 11th. It was always 11th. And then, you know, we get to the Reds. We put Reds on and we go forward on Reds.

I felt much better on Reds, by the way. We had a good normal front half of the field day, all day. We had one hiccup on a pit stop with the pin on the stud getting stuck, you know. But other than that, I would say that we had a really good day. So competition-wise, relative to the rest of the field, were much better than where we were. So good progress. So I look at the next-gen car. For me, you, Martin, a lot of these guys that have, we had to, I had to change my driving style.

and you've always been with the old car I felt like one of your biggest assets was you could pinpoint every freaking thing on that car to tell them what was happening with every corner of the car, every lap, and the way that you would analyze that car was just to the T and then you'd come in and say, do this, this, this and this. How has that changed with the next gen car for you? Have you had to step back? Yes. Yeah, I've definitely had to take more of a backseat role on calling out. adjustments. Now, I have still been able to kind of pick out like the right front is not where it needs to be in the middle of the corner or like I get in the corner last week, for instance, we lowered left rear air pressure and I got tighter, you know, so it was like the left rear added grip. So the left rear added grip made the car tighter and took the right front out of the racetrack, you know, so I'm still able to do those things. But for me to be able to pinpoint and tell them, like we got to change a

spring or a shock or a bar or this or that, I'm out. Like, I can't do that. A lot of times I say things and I'm backwards. So when you go through that process of having to change the way that you approach all that, do you lean on the simulator, engineering, crew chief? What's your, what's your go-to in next-gen world? The simulator was a big tool for Randall and the guys when Tyler was there. I mean, they were in that thing every week, six hours of, six hours a session, all that sort of stuff. And that's how I was in 2023. And we saw some pretty good results from that. We won.

We were competitive. We were fast. We did the same thing last year, and we started to get further behind. I felt like we were going the wrong way. And so I was like, we need to start limiting our sim sessions because it's not telling us the right stuff to go to the racetrack with. And so then we started relying more on like the Hendrick guys and the notebook and the sharing of the key partners with the Chevy stuff. And so again, that sort of really wasn't the answer either. There wasn't a clear cut definitive of like, where can we improve?

And so I just feel like this year, for whatever reason, we did a little bit of SIM for Cota, like just, hey, let's go run three or four hours. Let's kind of get a basis. More for you. More for me. Like I didn't know six, six A, six B. I didn't know all that. So getting into that. But I remember last year we struggled through the infield section, the stadium section, the real tight, slow stuff.

and I would say this year that was our strong suit a stronger suit for us 1920 was our best corners and last year 19 was my worst corner you know we've got all those segment times so we know that stuff so we did improve on some of the areas of the car with the sim but it's not your it's not your bible like you can't you can't you can't just it's right here you can't do that is there a guy and i mean you guys all share notes and you all share is there one guy that you're driving style fits compared to others in the camp? Is there a consistent driving style that you compare to? Well, I mean, we all, the cream of the crop is Kyle or William, I would say, with this car.

I would say those two are the guys that are most competitive each and every week. So we try to rely on them a lot. And Randall's got a really good relationship with the engineer on the 24. They went to school together. I've got a really good relationship with Rudy. He worked at KBM for 10 years. And then, you know, with Kyle, Kyle and I, we're close off the race track. our kids race with one another.

So I bounce some ideas off of him. So that's kind of how I look at it right now. And just, but again, there's no clear cut definitive of driving style, I would say. I've had some long conversations with Chase Elliott because we grew up the same way, like racing super late models across the country and those style of cars. And I'm like, man, have you found this thing to just be a beast, like a challenge? And he's like, yeah, I've had to change my driving style, just like what you just said. And I'm like, I don't know how to do that.

You know, like I have a feel that I'm looking for. And when we get that feel, I can have the same feel as the old car and be fast with it. But dude, trying to find that is like a needle in a haystack. Yeah, especially as we get older. Yeah. Yeah. And so as we do get older, and you look back at like at Coda, you know, you're racing with Christopher Bell. You've got William Byron there.

You talk about Rudy. What's it like to be on the other side of that fence to have been the teacher, see these guys, see these guys, that you brought up and taught how to race. I mean, that's how I would look at it. Is that a fair statement? Fair statement. Yeah. I mean, you taught those guys how to race at KBM.

And now they're the guys that you're competing against for these wins. It's one of the top crew chiefs in the sport. And we could keep going down that list. Have you found it interesting that the wild and crazy Kyle Bush has turned into the guy that's the mentor, giving advice, dad, how has that been for you personally to go through that transition? Yeah, I don't know exactly. I don't know how to answer it.

I know what you're saying. I just don't know how to answer it. But for me, the Williams and the Christophers and them being as good as they are and as strong as they are in championship four contenders each and every year, it makes you feel a little bit of sense of pride. But honestly, it makes you feel a little bit of that jealousy factor. like, man, I want to be there. I want to be racing with those guys, challenging with those guys, being in that final four that I remember being a part of five years in a row and racing with you for the championship.

So I would love and want to get back to that point. And doing it at an older age, I feel like that would give a greater sense of pride because of knowing how good these kids are. And they're only going to keep getting better through their 30s until, you know, they get to the point of where it kind of tapers off. And the new, there's going to be another next crowd. And that might be Keelan and Bresden. But when I go back and I watch Coda, there was like this over-the-top level of respect from Christopher Bell, wanting to make it right from the year before. Right. I mean, that has to make you feel like, hey, these guys are, they want your respect.

Yeah. And that, to me, is the ultimate piece of respect that the young competitors can show you in a situation like that. I think after the race, it was pretty evident that you were crystal clear that he was. making sure that you knew you knew that he was trying to make sure you knew that well i was making it quite difficult on him and putting him in some precarious situations and he was able to handle it all with grace and do a good job of avoiding contact as much as we did uh man as much as he could two years ago two or three years ago we wrecked racing for third yeah i spun out he ended up finishing third like i got the worst of that last year same thing i got the worst of that as you mentioned

you were not you were not thrilled about so i was not too thrilled about that. But I don't feel like if I don't have that pit road conversation with him, that the same way the race would have ended. You follow me? Yeah. Oh yeah. This year. Follow you 100%. So I feel like, you know, not that I wanted to, I wanted him to know how upset I was. Yeah. And that I was mad at him. And look, I don't expect these guys to just lay over and give to me because I helped them through the truck ranks and gave him. And I gave him. And look, I don't expect these guys to just lay over and give to me because I helped them through the truck ranks and gave. them some knowledge bank to utilize for their career. But you give me this much, I'm okay with that. Yeah. You don't give me any? Not okay. Not okay. Yeah. I mean, you can take it away from, you can take it away from the guys that have grown up around you or came through your system.

I mean, you look at the host of our scenario. I mean, you were pissed at him at Atlanta. Right. And did you, do you, I mean, do you reach out to him or does he reach out to you to try to get better? Not a word. Okay. Well, that one's different. That's, bad example. And so the host of our problem, the biggest problem I have with him is when he was 13, 14 years old, whatever it was. I was racing at one of his home tracks in Michigan with a super late model while I was a cup guy. Not Berlin. It was Calamazoo. Okay. Lap 8, lap 11, somewhere, early in the race. Like, I wasn't that great, but I was going to bide my time and I was just riding, right? Like, you ride. He comes right up alongside him. He sideswipes and he puts me in the front stretch fence and goes

on and I'm like, what the hell just happened? Never nothing after the fact, never a sorry, hey, my bad. And like, same thing right now. It's just like he hasn't learned not one thing because he hasn't been under someone's wing this entire time. Yeah. It's just. So when you look back in those situations for you, is there one conversation that you remember? Was it a- Tony Stewart? Tony Stewart. Tony Stewart. Tell me. I think it was Vegas. I made him mad at Vegas. I wasn't, it was in the last 25 laps of the race,

but I cut him off a couple times, and he tried to get back at me, and he missed. And he ended up fencing himself off a turn two, and I think I finished third. I think he ended up like 15th or 20th because he killed his car, steel body cars, right? And he was not too thrilled with me, but it was like, he was mad at me for like another two months,

and then finally we had a run in with one another again, and I went over to his bus and I was like, no, Eddie, Eddie called me over to his bus. He goes, hey, Tony wants to talk to you. And I'm like, okay. So like, you're on pins and needles. Like you're, you know, you're waiting to hear. Is the monkey going to attack me? What's going to happen? Or the dog? Or the dog? Yeah, the German Shepherd. Um, so yeah, we went in the bus and he was like, look, man, you're young, you're fast. You can do this. You're going to be a winner, multi-time winner champion one day. Like, you've got it. You're going to be fine. You just got to figure out how to rain it all in and be in control or under control and all that sort of stuff and do the

things of like how that era of racing was done you remember like that was the mark martin era the jeff gordon era the tony stewart era you were there a harvick era like that was a different era than where we're into today so people ask me all the time they're like well why don't you take these kids under your wing and like teach them and tell them i'm like we are in a completely different era now like there is no fixing what we've got going right now with everybody running over everybody. They would much rather crash than win a race. I don't get it. At the end of my career, the winning slowed down. Still, you know, we've not really though. I mean a little bit. Your second to last year, you had nine. I know, but it was different. Like, well, the slump that we got in the,

in the next gen car, we went a year without winning, got into the middle of the year and won. But in that time, it was the really, this really weird transition of the people almost rooting for you. And I felt like that changed for you a little bit when you went to RCR from the fan reaction. Yep. And now I listen to Driver Intros and I'm like, wow, this is, there are still some booze, but it's not like old Kyle Busch booze. Like it is a fan base that's rooting for Kyle Busch to win. That has to be almost, almost feel, it has to feel a little bit weird, but it has to be very motivating because those people are rooting for you.

It is. definitely motivating. I feel though that what is more motivating to me is the pure diehard Routy Nation fans that are out there that have been with me through thick and thin. Yeah. I want to win more for them than for anything, but you're right. There's a lot of fans out there that have that sediment where they're like, man, it would just be great to see Kyle win again, even though 10 years ago I was winning too much. Yeah. But I mean, it's not that I'm not trying. I mean, the lack of effort is not there. I don't feel. like I have put in as much effort in the last three years as I did in the prior 10.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it is just, it's, I'm doing everything possible that I know to do to be able to go out there to still score wins. Is this the weekend? Last year's speed would indicate that this weekend would be the weekend. We were fast. Yeah.

We were the only car to pass Kyle Larson under green flag conditions last year, you know. So that felt really good. it all depends on what kind of piece you get to the racetrack you know so i would like to say that Vegas is one of my better places i finished top three here five of the last eight times or something like that it's a really good track and i enjoy it it's a mile and a half i love running strong of the mile and a half so it's a wide track you can run anywhere you need to run so let's go yeah make it happen last question i see these legend car posts of of you and brexton and the first time and only time that I got in the legend car with Keelan.

I got in the car. I said, just stay away from me. Don't get around me because I know what you want to do. So I'm out there just tooling around, getting used to the car, and boom. He slams you. Slams me out of the way. How's this going? Mine, yes.

For you and Brexton. Yeah, right. We went to Kerryway for our first test and we're running around there and I let him get a few shakedown runs and then I go out there and I run and then we go out there. we run together. And I was about two-tenths quicker than him from my first run to his, I think it was his third run. So I still had some speed on him. So I let him get out there in front of me and I'm trying to get closer to him. I got within half a car length and I couldn't get to him anymore. So then we have radio. So I talked to him. I says, hey, let me buy.

So then he lets me buy. And same thing. Like I get out about a car length on him and he can't get to, I know damn well he's trying to hit me. He wants to run you over. Oh, yeah. Because that's all he talked about is I'm going to, to hit him. I'm going to hit him, you know, to our crew guy, Aaron. And he couldn't get to me. So I felt some, some goodness in that. But what I didn't feel some goodness in was that he kept up with me. Yeah. You know? So I let him go run a few more times and then we go out there again. We run our last session together. Same thing again. Like, I get out there with him and I can't run them down and I get out there in front of them. And we changed his setup a few times. So now he's

getting too loose, but he couldn't run me down either. So it was, it was fun. No contact was made. but good successful test. It's not far away. And I think when you, when you look, you ran the winter nationals at Almondale. Yeah, I didn't fare very well. I got ran over every time I was on the track. Yeah. Yeah. So what happens when Brexton goes faster? Is that? Then I moved to the Masters. Is that when you just say, I'm done with it? That's what I moved to my kids faster than me because I feel like that's where I'm headed is. I'm already retired. Yeah. So it doesn't matter if I get beat. But that's a lot of pressure if the, if the 10-year-old winds up kicking your ass.

But that's what we're here for, right? Like, that should happen. Like, if he doesn't ever progress enough to be faster than me, end of the road, we're done. Save the money, you know? So I would, I'm actually, I look forward to the day where he's faster than me and he can put clean moves on me

and pass me the way that he needs to. And we do the same thing in late models. We go do it again there, you know. So I feel like that's really my forte, my bread and butter, I made everything. And so that'll be pretty fun when we can get to that. Well, it's been a heck of an evolution. Oh, yeah. As we've gone through our careers. And now we're watching our kids race. So I hope you park that thing in Victory Lane because I think there's a lot of people rooting for you.

So good luck. I definitely want to. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah, appreciate it.