”He busted his butt very hard for us”: Kyle Busch reflects on his father's financial struggles, stating they were worse than Dale Sr. Richard Petty's

Kyle Busch is the winningest driver today with 231 victories in all three NASCAR national series. Needless to say, it’s the fruit of years of struggle and perseverance. On that note, he appeared in a recent episode of Kenny Wallace’s podcast and revealed the source of his never-give-up mentality.

The credit goes to his father, Tom Busch. The man left Chicago with his wife and arrived in Las Vegas just to make a living. He used to visit various local tracks, looking for gigs at the time. An opportunity showed up when one of his friends, a race car owner himself, was looking to sell.

“They weren't really doing that great, they weren't lighting the world on fire but the guy was actually going to sell it and get rid of it,” explained Busch. (13:59)

However, Busch’s dad wanted to house the car for a while and race it a few times. His friend agreed. Soon, the car started visiting victory lanes; so much so that they won three of the last five races that year. They even won a championship with it.

“I say all that because that kind of gives you a little bit of who my dad was and how good he was at just what he was doing amateurly,” Busch added. (14:27)

A younger Busch used to wonder why his dad moved to the West and not to the East or the South, considering those places had better opportunities to race. When asked about the same, Tom said that money was the only issue. Busch recalled,

"He was like, 'Oh we didn't have any money.' I was like well, I hear all the stories like Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt and all those guys...they didn't have money either and he goes, 'No, we didn't have any money!'" (14:46)

“He worked for everything that he had. He worked for everything that we had, that were able to go race with, and he busted his butt really hard for us, for myself and my brother. But that's where I was taught from,' Busch further stated. (15:03)

Today, Busch is a multimillionaire and a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion. The Las Vegas native will return behind the wheel of the No. 8 Chevy Camaro for Richard Childress Racing in 2025. His first race of the season is scheduled for Sunday, February 2.

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“Those questions are going to come up again”- NASCAR insider on why Kyle Busch needs to win in 2025

Kyle Busch went winless last season. As a matter of fact, he hasn’t won a single race since June 4, 2023. He even snapped his streak of winning at least one race every season for the last 19 years.

Veteran NASCAR journalist Bob Pockrass thinks that Busch needs to win to corkscrew his position as a driver at Richard Childress Racing. And if he doesn’t, his future at the top-tier Chevy team could be on the line.

“I mean, remember the middle of the year all the talk about, could he go back to Gibbs or what’s he going to do?” Pockrass said in an episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast. “And I think if he doesn’t win early those questions are going to come up again, and saying where will he be in 2026?”

“A lot of people thought, ‘Oh they’re going to change crew chiefs and stuff.’ But they didn’t change the team itself as much as they changed a lot of the infrastructure and some of the people behind the scenes,” he added.

Although RCR has tabbed new crew chiefs for drivers like Austin Dillon, Austin Hill, and Jesse Love for the 2025 season, Kyle Busch will stay with his old crew chief, Randall Burnett. 2025 will mark Burnett’s ninth season at RCR and also his third with Busch.