NASCAR: Kyle Busch coming up short has become must-see TV

Whether you’re a Kyle Busch fan or not, the entertainment value he provides when he fails to win a NASCAR Cup Series race is second to none.

Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series playoff opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway proved one thing. There is nobody, but nobody who can get the NASCAR fanbase talking quite like the driver of the #18 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, Kyle Busch.

Busch finished this 267-lap South Point 400 around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) Las Vegas Motor Speedway oval in Las Vegas, Nevada in 19th place.

Busch’s race appeared to be over early on when he hit the wall, but he battled back from the low 30s and two laps off the lead lap to put himself in a position for a top five finish before he made late contact with the #52 Rick Ware Racing Ford of Garrett Smithley. Smithley was running 12 laps off the lead lap.

If any other driver finishes a race in 19th place or around 19th, playoff contender or not, the only time you’ll even see his name mentioned is if you look closely — very closely, at that — at the final results sheet.

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How much talk was made over Aric Almirola’s 13th place finish to launch himself above the playoff cut line — a storyline that might actually mean something down the stretch?

Literally the above paragraph.

How much talk was made over Ryan Blaney being wrecked — and actually knocked out of the race — by a bunch of lapped cars at Bristol Motor Speedway last April?

Certainly not as much as there has been about Busch, even though Busch’s incident means next to nothing in the long run given its minimal effect on the playoff picture.

But people know how Busch responds to losing, and that entertainment in itself is enough to get people engaged.

I could go into many instances of Busch not winning or feeling cheated out of a position over the years, and his response is different yet similar in every situation.

You have him talking about Goodyear tires not being able to hold air at Daytona International Speedway, attempting to fight Joey Logano at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, talking about Talladega Superspeedway not being a “real race track”, dropping the microphone during a tense press conference at Charlotte Motor Speedway, blaming God for why he reacts the way he does to things, the whole Watkins Glen International debacle last month…the list goes on.

And on and on.

And now you have what happened after the playoff opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday.

After finishing in 19th place, Busch proceeded to rip backmarker drivers and call it “pathetic” that some of them are allowed to compete in the Cup Series.

He then participated in what turned into a disaster of a post-race media session, which involved him saying, on multiple occasions, “I’m just here so I don’t get find”, made famous by former NFL running back Marshawn Lynch, who ironically drove the pace car to get the South Point 400 underway and did a helmet swap with Busch for the race.

Busch ended this session by saying “I’m answering the dumbest f***ing questions over and over again” before walking away.

When some of the backmarker drivers, including Smithley and MBM Motorsports’ Joey Gase, responded to Busch’s criticism afterward, he only went on to further rip them on Twitter before they released statements illustrating how they got to NASCAR’s top level, effectively illustrating why Busch’s claim was ridiculous.

Meanwhile, Busch had already gone on a night-long Twitter rampage of responding to and ripping fans for their opposing takes on the matter.

Suffice it to say that no two 19th place finishes are alike.

Whether or not this is truly “good for NASCAR” like many are claiming is immaterial; what it proves is that Kyle Busch’s entertainment value is second to none, and when he doesn’t win a race, the post-race becomes must-see TV, almost to the point where it seems like that’s exactly what he wants.

And who knows? Maybe it is.

Then again, maybe it isn’t.

But it’s certainly good for ratings and social media engagement.