As one of the veteran NASCAR drivers in the Cup Series, Kyle Busch has seen the generation before him and the current generation.
And he has seen the changes in the driving style through these generations. In fact, he has already complained on a number of occasions about the loss of etiquette in the current crop compared to the era of Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Bobby Labonte.
The latest Cup Series race at Pocono has raised fresh sparks after Denny Hamlin made an aggressive pass on Kyle Larson to take the lead, a move that was called “dirty” by Martin Truex Jr.
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Busch also spoke about the incident but alluded to a bigger issue that the Cup Series is facing at the time.
“There’s all this — it’s racing. It’s just a different form of racing. I don’t know whether you call it dirty or whether you call it greedy. I think it’s both of those things, but you know, I’ve been seeing it a lot out of the younger generation. The kids and stuff like that coming up through the ranks. How they do it in ARCA, how they do it in the Truck Series, how they’re doing in an Xfinity, and now it’s come up to the Cup Series. And so it’s just this vicious cycle of how to race.
“But it’s a hell of a lot, damn more exciting I guess than it once was in the Jeff Gordon-Mark Martin-Rusty Wallace-Bobby Labonte era, where you know the racing was a lot cleaner. You gave each other room. If a faster car caught you, you let them go. You hoped for the same favor later. Now it’s if they catch you try to hold them off as long as you can and screw them up so they don’t go by you because track position is everything.”
Unfortunately for Kyle or any other driver that wants to race in the old ways, the ways of racing evolve with every passing generation and you got to race the way that others are racing, despite one’s values.