Busch, Harvick forge a truce
Homestead hosts finals in Monster Energy Cup
MIAMI BEACH — Often, the ties that bind can be the simple things. Family. Fatherhood. Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch have forged a truce of sorts after a rather contentious history making left-hand turns for a living, and things often getting bumpy. And while Busch has moved on to tangle with another antagonist — Brad Keselowski — he has made nice with Harvick.
An odd couple, but not really. They are both the same guy: Type-A personalities with an edge. It took family for them to sort it all out, and realize they were racing soulmates instead of rivals.
They both found peace by becoming the marrying kind and fathers. Keelan Harvick was born July 5, 2012. Brexton Busch was born May 18, 2015.
“Obviously we were still mad at each other when he first had Keelan but then after a few years it got better,” Busch said Thursday during the run-up to the final weekend of the NASCAR season. “This week when we were doing the media stuff in New York and whatnot, we were kind of high school buddies joking around and making fun of the others. It was kinda weird.”
“The others” are also pivotal characters in Homestead this weekend for the final race of the Monster Energy Cup season. Harvick, Busch, Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr. are the Championship 4, the last drivers standing after three elimination playoff rounds.
Unlike old-school NASCAR math in deciding a champion based on points, this deal is very simple: The first of the four drivers to cross the finish line at Homestead-Miami Speedway wins the championship.
The sidebar involving a “Mean Girls” theme among Keselowski and Busch likely
won’t be a factor in the race, but you never know. NASCAR has banked a lot of blood money over the years on the wreckin’ and racin’ thing.
Even if nobody gets banged up at Homestead on Sunday, it makes the prerace media scrums more entertaining.
“Sometimes you just don’t like a guy,” Busch said, referencing Keselowski. “I never ran into Matt Kenseth and I don’t think Matt Kenseth ever ran into me. There is a respect factor on the race track… as a wise man once told me I think it was Chase Elliott, ‘I race those how they race me.’”
The four personalities in play make for intriguing dynamics. Keselowski, Harvick and Busch can be a tad chippy. Truex may the nicest and least pretentious guy in the NASCAR garage. Now that Busch and Harvick and Truex are practically BFFs, it may leave Keselowski feeling a bit lonely out there come Sunday.
They have Brexton and Keelan to thank for that.
“The last thing you want to do is make a complete moron out of yourself,” Harvick said. “You go home and [your kid asks] ‘daddy why did you say that?’ There’s nothing more embarrassing, especially when those old replays pop up.”
That would involve a few greatest YouTube hits involving Busch and Harvick, including a 2011 race in which they made contact and took each other out. Busch’s take: “He wanted to commit murder on me.” Harvick’s take: “A lot of fast race cars on the track with a few drivers who have their heads up their rear ends.”
It’s all good now. Harvick and Busch even shared a cab ride in New York during pre-race pressers earlier in the week. They cut up like high school kids, busting on the other two drivers.
Poor Brad. It’s lonely out there.
“There’s four of us here on the stage and it’s not enough to beat each other, we have to beat everyone to win a championship,” Keselowski said during Thursday’s media availability at Lowe’s Hotel. “So it would be a little foolish to get caught up in any one person.”
True, but rivalries drive every sport. And Keselowski and Busch are still a thing.
Busch and Harvick probably got a good chuckle out of that in the taxi cab.