It’s a very cool thing for Trevor Bayne that there’s a chance he’ll get behind the wheel of NASCAR’s Cup Series again. Bayne, the Rich Strike-esque Winner of the 2011 Daytona 500 on his 20th birthdayis the standby driver when Kyle Busch’s surrogate mother goes into labor and Busch is missing either Darlington today or Kansas next week.
It’s also a very cool thing that the Busch family used their spotlight at NASCAR to talk about it fertility problemsand it makes perfect sense that Busch would miss a race to give birth to his daughter.
It’s still kind of funny that Busch told Bob Pockrass that he didn’t speak to NASCAR about the consequences of missing a race, because what is NASCAR really going to do about penalizing Kyle Busch for missing a race because of the Missed his daughter’s birth…on Mother’s Day?
Busch is also no stranger to controversies involving his family and rightfully freaked out at people criticizing him after his 6-year-old son Brexton rejected a provisional from a sponsor at the Tulsa Shootout. Brexton will be heard from himself in due course, apparently winner of the C-Main in the race he ran in January.
And even with all that, even with Bayne’s possible return to the Cup Series for a shot in a championship-fighting car, cinematic stuff for a man who’s not even old at 31, wouldn’t it have been cool if Busch’s Team owner, Joe Gibbs Racing, had leaned fully into the family history and made Ty Gibbs the reserve driver?
Gibbs, the 19-year-old grandson of the Multisport Hall of Famer, finished 16th in the Xfinity Series at Darlington on Saturday and sits third in the season standings with three wins this year and a secured playoff spot. Busch, the two-time cup winner and future Hall of Famer himself, sits fourth in the top series, his playoff berth being capped with a win at the Bristol Dirt amid a recent streak of five straight top 10 finishes .
Gibbs could pilot the 18 one day. As a family affair Sunday would have been neat but either way it’s all going to be a good story and best wishes to the Busch family and Happy Mother’s Day to all.
