Kyle Busch Is Winning Whether You Like It Or Not

Kyle Busch has been in the news for many controversial topics recently, mostly for negative purposes. While he has not won a race since last year, he has still been winning as a result of the constant media coverage.

Perhaps aside of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s retirement announcement, the most covered storyline of the NASCAR season so far has been the behavior of Kyle Busch. Busch has not won a race since last year’s Brickyard 400, which was 28 races ago.

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Being winless through 12 races to start a season is not something that Busch has done since 2006, and his frustration has been evident on a number of occasions. However, it is becoming increasingly obvious that despite legitimate frustration, Busch is having a grand time getting the media coverage he has been getting for his antics.

Have a look at the interview below. This interview came before the Phoenix race just one race after Las Vegas. The Las Vegas race ended with Busch getting a bloody forehead after fighting with one of Joey Logano’s crew members in a failed attempt to attack Logano himself as a result of a last-lap crash on the track.

As we can see, after Busch repeated himself once, he couldn’t help but smirk. After continued repetitions of the same exact answer, it became increasingly difficult for him to fight off that smirk. As harmless as this was, people talked about it, and Busch got every bit and more of the media coverage he desired.

This and the fight itself aren’t the only things that Busch has done to get people talking this season. Comments about Talladega not being a real race track after he finished in 3rd place, comments about how a 5th place finish at Kansas was mediocre, and most recently his post-race interview after a 2nd place finish at Charlotte, which can be seen below, have people talking about Busch and either defending or ripping him for his actions.

Think and say what you want about Busch, as I’ve done in the past. But know that he’s a guy who is a former NASCAR champion with the 2nd-highest win total in the playoffs era. He is sitting in 5th place in the championship standings. He doesn’t care what people think of him, as long as the media and the fans are paying attention. That attention makes him more of a known figure, and it makes NASCAR a more marketable product in an era that is seeing the sport fight for fans.

Busch is kind of like NASCAR’s version of LaVar Ball. People say they hate him, but all they do is talk about him, and the media plays off of that and continues feeding the public information that can get them talking, which they do. Even with much of that talk being negative, it’s giving Busch exactly what he wants, and it’s a never-ending cycle.

In an Instagram post shown below from Busch’s wife Samantha, she addresses the fact that there is so much negative talk about Kyle, yet she still stands by him since she knows him better than anybody else.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUvWDQIFLgD/?taken-by=samanthabusch&hl=en

In an interview from earlier today at Dover, Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Matt Kenseth was asked no more questions by the media after they were prompted to ask anything they had left for him. Kenseth proceeded to drop his mic, in all likelihood a tip of the hat to Busch’s Charlotte interview, and leave the front of the room. You can see the end of Kenseth’s interview RIGHT HERE from NASCAR.com.

What these reactions show is that Busch truly does not and should not care what the public thinks, as the people who are close to him and matter to him still support him. As long as everyone else, including the media, is paying attention, regardless of how they feel about his behavior, he is winning. End of story.

Next: Kyle Busch: Good or Bad for NASCAR?

Do you think Kyle Busch is ultimately getting what he wants? Let us know in the comments below, and be sure to follow me on Instagram as well as Beyond the Flag on both Instagram and Twitter. Finally, don’t forget to follow along with Beyond the Flag for the latest news, opinions and analysis stemming from a number of different motorsports series. You don’t want to miss any of it.

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