Kyle Busch is spending a lot of time racing open wheel dirt cars these days, usually alongside his nine-year-old son Brexton, as they move up the ranks together.
It’s been a lot of fun for the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, not only being able to personally spearhead the development of his son while spending time together as a family, but to also challenge himself as a driver.
Busch spent most his own development years racing Bandoleros and Legends in Las Vegas before moving up to full sized stock cars. Driving Outlaw Karts and Micro Sprints has not come naturally to ‘Rowdy,’ but he uses his own development in this discipline to help Brexton.
“I’ve learned a lot of coaching situations,” Busch said. “Me being a driver coach for Brexton, while I’m driving, I think ‘what would I be telling him right now and telling myself that too.”
Busch was asked if any of the young or veteran dirt racers race him any harder since he’s a superstar NASCAR driver and he humorously responded with a story about Wyatt Miller, the 12-year-old grandson of Dale Earnhardt Sr.
“Last week, we raced against Wyatt Miller, and we raced against Wyatt last year,” Busch said. “He ran me so hard and so dirty and I went up to him after the race and said ‘bro, this is not how we do things’ and I talked to him a little bit.
“We raced this past week, the first time since then, and he cut me a break, cut me some slack and let me in. I ripped the outside on a guy, We have a caution, restart, and what does he do, he rips the outside on me after I just showed him the outside works and he drives off and goes eighth to second in the race.
“And I’m like ‘see, all you have to do is watch, learn and follow, and I’ll teach you everything you need to know and you can go do it better’ and that was the takeaway.”
Miller is the 12-year-old son of Kelley Earnhardt-Miller and LW Miller — and thus the the nephew of Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Does anyone race Brexton harder considering who his dad is?
“Yeah, he already has a little bit of a bullseye,” Busch said. “But that happens. It will only make him tougher.”
All told, Busch really is having a blast racing alongside his son, and hasn’t taken much offense to when he personally gets raced hard by dirt regulars.
“I’m not doing it because I want to make a career of it,” Busch said. “I’m just doing it to have fun with my kid, you know? He likes to come and razz me when I don’t do good so he can tell me everything I did wrong … because he’s the dirt racer.”
Brexton is also becoming quite the decorated pavement racer too, having recently moved up from karts to Bandoleros.
His dad said he should have won a golden driller trophy in January at the Tulsa Shootout and that he’s close to winning on pavement at nearby Citrus Speedway too.
“Tulsa, I think, he so deserved that one and did everything perfect,” Busch said. “The last three days we’ve been running Bandoleros, we finished second, second, second, second and he led every lap and got passed today on the final lap so I can only image what he looked like after the race was over knowing what his mom was looking like after the race was over.”
He’s seeing real progress in his race craft too.
“I was really excited for his first two races in a Bando, finishing second from eighth, didn’t touch a car, ran a great competitive race and today qualified on pole and I’m like ‘he’s going to win’ and I told him he was going to win before the end of the week,” Busch said. “I was hoping it would be today. I was hoping it would be today but it didn’t happen so now I’m pissed again. I was excited yesterday and now I’m pissed today.”
He said that with a smile. He’s living vicariously through his son as he tries to win the Daytona 500 this week.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.