Profanity Laced Team Radio Tirades Translate To Boos For Kyle Busch

Charlotte, NC – It used to be Jeff Gordon got the most boos from the crowd at a NASCAR Nextel Cup race. Fueled by cat calls from ?Junior Nation? ? the legion of fans who follow Dale Earnhardt, Jr. ? Gordon was always the top target of the ?Bronx Cheer? in NASCAR.

Not anymore.

With Junior Nation taking on a kinder, gentler stance now that their boy Dale and Jeffy will be teammates at Hendrick Motorsports next season, the mantle of wearing the most boos during driver introduction seems to have fallen on Kyle Busch.

Busch was booed unmercifully throughout the NASCAR weekend at Bristol. It started with driver intro for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race Wednesday and continued throughout the week ending with a thunderous swell of boos in Saturday evening?s Cup intro ceremonies.

It?s hard to imagine how someone so good behind the wheel at such a young age ? 22 ? can be so disliked. Then again, all you have to do is listen to Busch on the team radio to understand at least part of it.

Busch is easily one of the most rude and profane drivers to ever grace the NASCAR team radio airwaves. Constantly switching between whining how bad his car is and cursing the other competitors and race officials, Busch comes off as a totally spoiled child on the radio.

No public relations filter here. No shining things up for the camera. Just pure, unadulterated Kyle Busch wide open and at full volume – most of it profane.

In Friday?s NASCAR Busch Series race, Busch sprung off the civility hook when a penalty all but killed his chances of winning. While Busch definitely had a beef with the call, which NASCAR later indicated was incorrect, there was no excuse for the kind of behavior he exhibited on the radio.

Busch constantly berated NASCAR and its officials with a flood of expletives that would make a sailor blush. If NASCAR, which appears to be in the business of fining drivers and penalizing them points for cursing on television, did so for those same actions on the team radio, Busch would be on the negative side of the 1,900 Busch Series points he?s earned this season just based on his language in Friday night?s race alone.

Busch?s demeanor in Saturday?s Cup race wasn?t much better as the profanity laced tirade continued. He may be 22, but he acted like he was 12 most of the time. We’re not prudes here as we’ve been known to spin a profane phrase more than a time or two, but evidently, there wasn?t an extra bar of soap in the Busch household when he started exhibiting this kind of behavior.

It will be interesting to see how this all holds up in the Bible Belt ? the Joe Gibbs Racing camp next year. Gibbs is known for his piety and the team has long held group Bible study sessions for employees who wish to participate. How Busch fits into this dynamic and whether his actions on the team radio will be called into question by Coach Joe remains to be seen.

There?s no doubt Busch is a wheelman ? maybe the most talented young driver in the garage area ? but his actions over the radio this weekend at Bristol show that he?s got a lot of growing up to do.

Until he does, expect the boos to keep coming.

Last Call –

So why did the Cup race at Bristol turn into a snoozer when the Busch and Truck races were so thrilling?

With so many drivers telling their crews they had no grip in the Cup race, you could easily point to the tires Goodyear provided for the race and say they sucked. However, Goodyear provided the same tires to both the Truck and Busch teams and their races were incredible.

So how come the three-wide, dive-bombing action of the Truck and Busch Series races didn?t translate to the Cup show?

Can you say COT?

Ever since the introduction of the new NASCAR ?Car of Tomorrow? vehicle, drivers have been complaining about how the cars just don?t turn. From the big tracks to the small ones, teams are still trying to find ways to get the cars ?down into the track.?

Along with a construction and inspection process that has all but made the cars identical, passing in the COT ranks has become nearly impossible at places like Bristol and Martinsville. In the Truck and Busch races at Bristol, there were definitely faster and slower trucks and cars. In the Cup race, the lapped cars on the bottom were just as fast as those in the outside lane on the lead lap.

Compound that with a lack of mechanical grip, and it makes for some less than compelling racing.

There was nothing boring about Saturday?s Sharpie 500. From the world-record card stunt (right) prior to the event to the waving of the checkered flag, Saturday?s race at Bristol was full of action. The new track surface is incredible. Nobody expected it to be this good.

Now, if NASCAR could just get the new COT car to rotate around and power off the corners like the Trucks and Busch cars, we?d really have something.

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