September 27, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

Kurt Busch remains hopeful about return to racing

CONCORD, N.C.—On a day when Charlotte Motor Speedway embraced breast cancer survivors and provided hope for other warriors battling the disease, Kurt Busch offered his own support by joining in the "Paint the Wall Pink" celebration at the 1.5-mile track.

The 2004 NASCAR Cup champion has endured his own challenges over the last 10 weeks since his car backed into a wall at Pocono Raceway during qualifying. He’s been sidelined from the 23XI Racing Toyota ever since.

On Tuesday, when Busch renewed his commitment to the Window of Hope initiative, the appearance marked his first at a track since his injury on July 23.

“I'm doing good,” Busch said. “Each week is better progress, and I feel good. I don't know when I'll be back, but time has been the challenge. Father Time is the one in charge on this one.

“I feel hopeful. I know that I have more doctor visits and more distance to go, and I keep pushing each week. And TPC—Toyota Performance Center—has been a group of angels that have helped me with the workouts and the vestibular workouts, different nutrition as well. The different supplements and things to help, you know, everything to rebalance with my vision, my hearing, and just overall balance in general.”

Busch has also had extensive conversations with Dale Earnhardt Jr, one of the first drivers who brought head injury to the forefront after electing to sit out of the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in 2016 after multiple concussions. He has also tested his skill through the use of simulators, go-karts and a late model.

Still, for a competitor who has raced for more than three decades, the progress can never come quick enough. Being outside of the race car while the circus rolls on has been a learning experience for the driver.

“It brought me back to my beginning days,” Busch said. “This is something I never knew would happen—as far as like an injury. I never knew I would make it in racing, and you keep pushing based off of your instincts and the village of people around you. Whether it's the race team—and 23XI has been tremendous, Toyota, Monster Energy.

“It reminds me at the beginning of I don't know what journey I'm on, but I'm going to keep pushing.”

Busch is never one to sit idle. His Window of Hope initiative, featuring pink window nets on the Cup cars in the Bank of America Roval 400, will benefit Levine Cancer Institute’s Project PINK to fund Free Mammogram Days throughout underserved communities. The race-used autographed window nets will be up for auction from Oct. 10-17.   (http://www.nascarfoundation.org/WindowOfHope).  The idea came to Busch through a young fan last year. 

“Mason, a race fan from Tennessee, his mom was going through breast cancer, chemo and the therapy, and she's a survivor,” Busch said. “Yet, he's a nine-year-old watching his mom go through these struggles and it literally was a fan note, a fan letter that came to the race shop. We go through our fan mail and this one, it just hit me the way that he drew the car out. He said that he loves the Monster Energy car and it had a pink window net on it.

“And I'm like, this is genius, this is a fantastic idea. I called Jim France at NASCAR. He told me to talk with the NASCAR Foundation, and then things start to blossom from there.”

Busch went through Thermal Control Products in Concord to create the window nets. TCP was generous enough to donate the nets for the Cup drivers competing in the Oct. 9 race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course. In addition to being bright pink on the outside and black facing the drivers to cut the glare, the nets also had to be SFI certified.

“Then all the race teams, all the crew chiefs, all the drivers, all the competition directors for each of the race teams had to approve this net, because each team used to have a small different design around their window nets for aero,” Busch said. “But I figured out on the road course we would all come together as a community and just kind of throw the design aspect out. 

“This year with the next Gen car, it's super simple because everybody has the same window net. Thermal Control helped us do this. They’ve been tremendous to donate the window nets. There will be nets for fans to purchase and for more donations that we can raise.”

Busch has heard from a variety of drivers since his accident. He’s engaged in conversations with NASCAR through the Drivers Advisory Council which also includes his team co-owner Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Austin Dillon, Daniel Suarez and Corey LaJoie.

“Yeah, definitely, with the Driver Council and communication amongst our fraternity of drivers, it's important for all of us right now to communicate clearly with NASCAR, with the teams and the direction of where we need to go. 

“And so everything, like life, it's a work in progress.”