Between the two of them, Kyle Busch and son Brexton have five cars at the Tulsa Shootout and are having fun while continuing to learn the nuances of open-wheel dirt cars.
Busch came up driving pavement Legends before making the transition to Late Models and then NASCAR national touring on the rails laid by older brother Kurt Busch. To that point, the elder Busch says he has just as much to learn as his seven-year-old son and they are once again learning it together in Tulsa.
Speaking to FloRacing, who has the broadcast rights to both the Shootout and the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals that follow in January, Kyle says he has put Brexton on dirt because of the car control skills it teaches.
That becomes important on pavement too.
“Definitely; that’s a piece of it,” Kyle said. “He had really good car control in practice and looked like a professional. Today, we just couldn’t get (him) to the bottom. We’ll work on it and make it better for him.
“Overall, the craft and the class you get in running different things on dirt, gives you different feelings and driving styles, and we mix in the pavement too with his Bandolero but not old enough for the Legends. We’ll go there when he’s old enough.”
What about Brexton though? Does he like dirt or pavement more so far?
“I don’t know,” Brexton said. “I really like the Bando. I do like the restricted and the Junior Sprints.”
Brexton made his Restricted (Micro) debut last month and it is his first time racing it at the Tulsa Expo Center.
“The restricted was good,” he said. “I just couldn’t get it to the bottom.”
It’s different than the Junior Sprint he has raced here the past several years.
“It’s just faster and you have to get it more sideways and the bottom matters more,” he added.
Does Brexton plan to keep advancing up the dirt open-wheel ranks?
“I’ll probably go to Micros and then Midgets but my mom doesn’t want me to get into Midgets though,” Brex said as Kyle laughed.
Kyle said his wife Samantha definitely doesn’t like Midgets but they’re taking a wait and see approach.
“Yeah, exactly, mom would not like the Midget class,” Kyle said. “We’ll give it a whirl someday and see what we like as we go through Micros.”
How about Kyle and the two divisions he’s racing this week?
“We had good hot laps with our A class car,” said the two-time Cup Series champion. “I was really impressed with that. It’s brand new for us. The winged car was really good. The non wing outlaw was off to a really rough start on the start, got put into the fence on the start but was able to rally. Four to three aint bad. Man, you kick yourself when you have those moments or opportunities where you could have gone four to one. It would be a much different point situation. We’ll probably have to battle through a B main or something like that. We’re looking forward to the rest of the week.
“We have some good pieces here with Driven Cars and Lucas Oil and everyone at KBM has been working real hard.”
The elder Busch is going to make a qualifier, which he concedes is something to be proud of.
“For sure,” he said. “You come here and there are 1700 entries, you know, and a lot of different kids in the kid classes, 115 in Juniors. 150 in restricted or whatever. The big boy class having 300 is a lot. Its fun to race guys from all over the country and everyone comes to Tulsa for the Nationals and we go out there and have fun.”
And that’s really what it is about for ‘Rowdy.’ He couldn’t just come to Tulsa and completely sit on the sidelines for a week working with Brexton.
He also hopes he can learn some lessons to impart on Brexton too.
“Just for the fun of it,” he said. “Giving me something to do. It’s a lot of work for Aaron and Jack and the work they do for us and there’s a lot of back and forth between my cars and his; setup stuff. I take a lot of the stuff I learn from my car and put it on his. Didn’t work out today. (laughs) It’s about being hands on for me. I enjoy being a hands-on car guy, setup guy and such.”
Right now, Samantha says no to Brex racing a Midget but could Kyle ever make his Chili Bowl debut?
“No, I’m too big,” he said with a laugh. “I’m 200 pounds man. You come here with no weight rules and you have to build a bigger car and be in a bigger car and can’t keep up with all those light weight kids.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.