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Kyle Busch Has Brutally Honest Take On Young NASCAR Drivers

Originally posted on The Spun | By Tzvi Machlin | Last updated Mar 22, 2025 7:08 PM ET

NASCAR veteran Kyle Busch has never been one to hold back how he feels, so when he was asked to give his opinion on the state of NASCAR, he was brutally honest about some of the sport's younger drivers.

In an interview with Kevin Harvick for FOX, Busch lamented that the days of a younger driver approaching a more experienced driver to be taken under their wing are over. He said that legends like Harvick, Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart would do exactly that but that young drivers don't seek advice, they just go out and be aggressive.

“That was the Mark Martin era, the Jeff Gordon era, the Tony Stewart era – you were there, the Harvick era,” Busch said in the interview. “That was a different era than what we’re in today. People ask me all the time like, ‘Why don’t you take these kids under your wing and teach them and tell them.’ I’m like, we’re in a completely different era now. There is no fixing what we’ve got going right now with everybody running over everybody. They would much rather crash than win a race, I don’t get it.”

Busch took particular issue with rising star Carson Hocevar, who he had a run-in with at the Atlanta Motor Speedway a few weeks back. He said that the problem he has with Hocevar dates back years:

"“So, the Hocevar problem, the biggest problem I have with him is when he was 13, 14 years old whatever it was, I was racing at one of his home tracks in Michigan with a super late model while I was a Cup guy,” Busch said. “… It was Kalamazoo. Lap 8, Lap 11 somewhere early in the race, like, I wasn’t that great but I was going to bide my time and I was just riding, right? Like, you ride. He comes right up alongside of me, sideswipes me, puts me into the frontstretch fence, and goes on. And I’m like, ‘What the hell just happened?’ Never nothing after the fact, never a sorry, ‘Hey, my bad.’ Like, same thing right now. He hasn’t learned not one thing because he hasn’t been under someone’s wing this entire time.”

At 39 years of age, Kyle Busch is closer to the end of his career than the start. But by the sound of things, he isn't particularly thrilled about the men set to take over the sport when he leaves.

This article first appeared on The Spun and was syndicated with permission.

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