NASCAR legend Tony Stewart calls mourning fans 'a--holes' in tone-deaf rant about Kyle Busch
It's been nearly a month since Kyle Busch's tragic death shook the NASCAR world, and I thought we'd seen all the takes.
We've seen the tributes and the warnings. The flashbacks. The memories. We've heard all the Kyle Busch stories, seen all the highlights from all of his wins, and heard from wife, Samantha, and son, Brexton.
One month post-Rowdy, I thought we'd heard it all ...
Until now. Enter, Tony Stewart.
One of the greatest NASCAR drivers of all time, and Kyle's former Joe Gibbs teammate, has decided to pop in with his thoughts on the death of Kyle Busch, and they are ... puzzling.
Frankly, they're a little baffling.
I'm not sure why Tony Stewart is angry, or who, exactly, he's angry at, but he's "pissed off" at how we've handled Kyle's death, and he made sure to talk about it ahead of this weekend's NHRA race.
Strap in:
"I guess the biggest thing in this tragedy that’s happened that pisses me off the most is that now everybody wants to talk about how he was as a person," Stewart said. "Outside of that, all they wanted to do is judge what they saw on TV. It’s frustrating.
"That’s the way every one of us are judged by what they see on TV and then once you die, they want to talk about how good a person you were. That’s the part that pisses me off the most about it right now. Should’ve given him a chance to learn him as a person before they judged him in the first place.
"So, right now, I don’t care about educating everybody about how Kyle Busch was. I know how Kyle Busch was. The fact that they all want to learn now, they’re the a--holes for not taking the time to learn him and accept him for who he was back then.
"You want to wait until a guy dies and then care about who he was as a person is the part that pisses me off about everybody."
Goodness gracious. I reckon I shouldn't be surprised given it's Tony Stewart, but still, this feels out of left field, even for him.
I agree with "Smoke" on a lot of things. I love Tony Stewart. I loved him when he raced, and I've really grown to love him in retirement because he's become even more of a loose cannon.
That being said, I disagree with just about everything Tony said here. It's among the more tone-deaf rants I've heard, and that's saying something.
Again, I'm not sure who he's referring to or who he's angry at, but I'm gonna go ahead and assume it's the fans and the ... media? He never really clarifies, but that's the vibe I get.
If so, I'm not sure what Tony wants us to do? Fans are fans. We only saw Kyle Busch on TV every Sunday for a few hours. We didn't ride in the hauler with him to the track, or hang out on pit-road with him, or go to dinner with the Busch family.
How else are we supposed to judge an athlete, besides ... what we see on TV? That's sort of part of the deal. It's literally the only way we can judge them, because we only see them on TV.
Fair or not, it's how this works. It's the only way this works.
"You want to wait until a guy dies and then care about who he was as a person is the part that pisses me off about everybody."
Huh? What does that even mean, Tony? Again, I'm not sure why he's so angry, but something has triggered him. The comments just make no sense. None. Zero. Nada. I feel like I'm trying to solve the "Da Vinci Code" here.
Here's the part that I really don't understand, and I've written about this a few times since Busch's death on May 21.
Kyle Busch had become a fan favorite over the past few years, which is shocking to say given how hated he was during the early part of his career. And I mean HATED.
He infamously wrecked Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 2008 at Richmond, had to basically be escorted out of the track by the Secret Service, and was universally despised for the next decade.
But something changed when he moved to Richard Childress Racing in 2023. Something clicked with NASCAR fans, and he was suddenly beloved. Trust me, I've covered four Daytona 500s since Kyle joined RCR, and the cheering was deafening during driver intros.
He started on the pole for what turned out to be his final Daytona 500 this past February, and fans were thrilled. I was there. I heard it.
Maybe it was because he stopped winning so much? Maybe it's because folks started to realize he was the last true "old-school" driver? Hell, maybe after becoming the winningest NASCAR driver ever, Kyle just earned everyone's respect?
Regardless, Kyle Busch was adored by fans these past four years. Adored.
So no, Tony, I don't believe he was unfairly judged while he was alive, whatever that means. I think he was judged pretty damn fairly, and I think fans knew — and loved — the person he was.
Spare us the lecture.