CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Success and fame came quickly for Kurt Busch.<\/p>\n
In hindsight, maybe a little too fast for the driver known as \u201cThe Outlaw.\u201d<\/p>\n
Busch won his first dwarf car race at age 15 in a small Nevada town, setting him on a meteoric rise. He went on to win the Cup Series championship<\/a> just 11 years later in 2004 and finished his 23-year professional career with 43 victories across NASCAR’s three national series before a concussion ended his time behind the wheel<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n On Friday night, the 47-year-old Busch will be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame along with fellow drivers Harry Gant and Ray Hendrick, culminating a drama-filled career that had more twists and turns and momentum changes than your typical Sunday stock car race.<\/p>\n There were run-ins with NASCAR. Clashes with owners and crew members of his own race teams. Altercations with other drivers and reporters. Suspensions and firings became synonymous with the Busch name.<\/p>\n There were highly-publicized relationship issues away from the track, too.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is definitely the knowledge and wisdom thing that youth doesn’t have,” Busch said with a laugh Thursday when asked if he would do things differently during an interview with The Associated Press. \u201cAnd so if I could, I would have told my younger self to have more patience and to not get so animated or so excited when things went wrong.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cIt was like I was on too high of highs and too low of lows,\u201d Busch went on to say. \u201cIf I could have just mellowed it out a little, I think, that would have made for an easier path for me, so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n Getting to the Hall of Fame was not an easy journey for Busch, who burned his share of bridges and made plenty of enemies along the way, often bringing unnecessary negative attention upon himself because of his short temper.<\/p>\n In 2005, his tumultuous six-year stint with Roush Racing, one that included several on-track flare-ups, came to an end when he was suspended for the final two races of the season by the team after he was detained by police near the Phoenix track on suspicion of drunken driving for being uncooperative and belligerent with officers.<\/p>\n During a 2007 race at Dover for Team Penske, Busch recklessly clipped a crew member for Tony Stewart\u2019s team on pit road and was parked by NASCAR for the remainder of the race.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n His time with Penske ended in 2011 following a confrontation with a member of the media. One year later, racing’s governing body suspended Busch for another incident in which he threatened another reporter<\/a> following a race at Dover.<\/p>\n Busch was suspended again prior to the 2015 season by NASCAR after a judge said the former champion almost surely choked and beat a former girlfriend<\/a> and there was a \u201csubstantial likelihood\u201d of more domestic violence from him in the future.<\/p>\n Busch was never charged in the incident<\/a> and later reinstated by NASCAR.<\/p>\n As Busch aged, he began to mellow some.<\/p>\n He drove his Stewart-Haas Racing Ford to his only Daytona 500 victory in 2017<\/a> and later helped lay the foundation for 23XI Racing<\/a> run by Denny Hamlin and former NBA star Michael Jordan, driving the No. 45 Toyota Camry and serving as a veteran leader for the team\u2019s expansion to a two-car operation.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Busch said Thursday that his fast ascent from winning the second competitive race of his life in a dwarf car in Pahrump, Nevada as a teenager to racing in the Cup Series at age 22 \u2014 he bypassed what was then known as the Busch Series and went straight to the big leagues because of his talent \u2014 never afforded him the time to mature as a person.<\/p>\n He called his rise \u201cuncharted territory\u201d at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cThat journey, and how fast it went \u2014 that\u2019s why I wasn\u2019t ready to be a professional,” Busch said.<\/p>\n