BUSCH HONORING SWEET MEMORIES

Tucked away in the desert off Cactus Garden Drive sits a chocolate factory that makes small batch super-premium candy. Every hand-touched piece is made inside the factory, where a viewing area draws 500,000 tourists and locals each year.

Ethel M is such a Las Vegas staple that Kyle Busch often visited as a child with his grandmother. She let him pick chocolates from the case and sometimes wander the 3-acre botanical cactus garden that runs adjacent to the shop.

Years later, after Busch had both made it to NASCAR and also landed a premium sponsor in Mars, he pulled up to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory for a sponsor obligation. It was then that he put it all together: his sponsor was the parent company of a brand that hearkened some of Busch’s childhood memories with his beloved late grandmother.

The synergy continues today at Las Vegas Motor Speedway when Busch races his hometown track honoring Ethel M on his No. 18 Toyota. His car is one of the most popular in NASCAR for the colorful confections Mars spotlights each season, but it has always been M&MS, Snickers or Skittles, all the popular candy.

Mars chose for the first time ever Ethel M, with a green and white scheme, to celebrate the brand’s 40th anniversary in its hometown with the hometown driver.

“It’s crazy how life comes full circle sometimes,” said Busch, who smiled briefly as he recalled the childhood visits with grandmother Joann Busch.

“You know, I wish my grandmother was still around to see that. She’ll be smiling from above,” Busch said. “It was never in my mind, never in my wildest dreams, that I’d be a racecar