How a Broken Mirror Helped Kurt Busch Win Daytona 500

I brought Earl the trophy along. Can I show you?

Stop, yes! Yeah!

I'm giving you like half, see? Yeah. Winner! Winner!

What's up guys? Leslie Robbins here in the Young Hollywood Studio joined by NASCAR champion and Daytona 500 winner.

Ah. Thank you. It's so cool to be here and good to see you guys. Great studio. I love it.

Well, now that you're the winner, you have the honors of getting to do the rounds leading into Fontana.

Oh, it's not such a bad problem to have. Of course. But no, it's an amazing win, an amazing race. And just the residual value that comes with it afterwards of all the press and stopping by different uh big media hits and now here we are in LA doing some good shows and here we are. This is one of the last stops, though, before I head to the track for race weekend in LA.

Let's go back to Daytona. We have to go back and talk about it.

For sure. Yeah.

You've been in the game almost 20 years. You raced that race 16 times, never won. Came runner-up three times. When you got on that car after the win, you literally had that moment of I took like I can't believe I won.

It was amazing. It was like shedding 17 years of skin or battle scars or just the the feelings and emotion that Daytona brings to you each and every year. Uh, you go there with optimism, confidence. You feel like you've got the best car, the best crew and you hope that everything goes perfect. And this time around, the all the preliminary races, a lot of guys are spinning out, wrecking, having trouble with the tires. And I went, you know what? My approach this time is gonna be the tortoise approach. Everybody just go on ahead. I'll be the slow and steady and I'll catch you at the end.

So happily married, you win the Daytona 500. Life's good.

It's going all right. I mean, I'm even a big sports guy and my Chicago Cubs won the World Series.

You went to spring training and got to play ball with them.

I got to dress out. I was a Chicago Cub for the day. I know. I felt 12 years old doing that. That was so much fun.

I know. Again, you call to say, hey, I'd like to come do this. Boom, done. It worked out. Now you talked about brother little rivalry there. Yeah. Now you both are series champions. What else we got going? You got you got to one up each other somehow, right?

Oh, he's he's been on a mission his whole life to one up his older brother. I know.

Do you have an older brother? Younger brother?

I have an older sister.

Older sister. So you're the younger one?

I'm the baby. See? Now you're just pushing hard all the time, right?

We're so different though. But so are Kyle and I. Yeah. But yet, we're NASCAR champions. But my sister and I don't compete. My sister and I don't compete in the same, you know. Yeah. In Marinas. In Marina. Yeah. Do you think the new guys coming in now know what you guys know?

A little bit. They have a little bit. Everybody has to have car sense. Right. to make it in racing. And the generation before me really worked hard on their cars. They knew everything about it. Our generation, it seemed like you got to know the cars, got to know the marketing, got to know the driving. Now it's really a lot about driving and marketing to be able to break through.

Well, you're the pro. Tell me. You get in a car. Yes. It's race day. Race day. Racing race mode. Race mode. What happens? What happens like you get in the car?

Well, I go Dukes of Hazzard style in through the door. Like through the window, really. The door doesn't open. Yeah. Right. Okay. So when I get in, my first thing is my seatbelt. Seatbelt. And then my Hans device. And then my helmet. Hook up the Hans device and the helmet together. Plug in the radio. Plug in not a radio like you listen to music, but the radio to communicate to the team.

If you had to, what are you putting in your head?

I would love it, be great, man. Like Sammy Hagar, I can't drive 55. That'd be great pump up music.

In the Daytona 500, your rearview mirror broke off. It did. Before you won. It did. It was nuts. And you still won. I love that.

So the way that the restrictor plate racing at like Daytona, Talladega, you always have to look out the windshield for the draft and then you're trying to block guys from behind. All the time. About 30 laps to go, the bracket on the mirror broke and it swung down. And I was literally like trying to hold it, drive at 200. I was like, oh no, this isn't working. So the mirror, I couldn't see anything out the back. And I and then I was laughing at it going, this is an omen. You always have to look out in front. The future is out in the front. Don't look in the rearview mirror. That won you the race. And so I just ignored the guys from behind and I just went off of instinct on where I thought they might be and just tried to block them with instinct.

And that won you the trophy.

It's an element that yes, it's part of it. It's amazing how that everything at Daytona, you want to control it all, but yet the more that you just let go and let the race come to you, it seems like that's the the more successful route.

Life lessons with Kurt Busch.

I don't know about that, but we did win the Daytona 500. And And I brought Earl the trophy along. Can I show you?

Stop! Yes! Let's bring it in. Let's bring it in. We even put him on wheels. Come on in. Whoa! This is the Daytona 500 winning trophy. It says Harley J. Earl, Daytona 500 Trophy on there. Now I have to ask if I can hold it. Ooh. Pretend I'm like the greatest driver. It is a little awkward to hoist up and hold up. It's 40 pounds. You just don't want anyone else holding it. It's front

No, I'll tell you. Mario Lopez already had an accident. You see some of this uh makeup smudge on here. Yeah.

Yeah, he was like, "Uh" and tried to. You just like outed him twice. One, he messed up holding it and then he wears a lot of makeup.

He'll admit to it. He was like, "Whoa, it was way heavy." And but he wanted to do like the victory lane pose above his head.

You did it. Serious.

No, I didn't. I knew how awkward and heavy this trophy was. I just had I had a crew guy help me with it.

Oh, I didn't see that guy.

Yeah. It's I mean, we're sweating and there's Monster and champagne and beer everywhere and this thing is slick here. Like, here. Try to hold half.

Okay. So pretend we're in Victory Lane. This is not the Young Hollywood Studio. This is Victory Lane. Right? Champagne. Streamers everywhere. And you want me to hoist this thing up? I'm your crew guy. Like I'm helping you. Okay. Let's go waist high with it.

Waist high?

Waist high. So that means just hold it. Yeah. Okay. And watch, it's heavy. You're going to go like, "What?" Yeah. Try. Just be careful that I may not be able to do it. Yeah, try. Come on. All right. I'm giving you like half, see? Yeah. Winner! Winner! We did. Look how heavy it is. Coming at ya. Ready? Wait. Wait. We're going. You're crazy. You're getting crazy on me. You're crazy. Wait. One, two, three. Got it! I got it! Whoa! In heels! I got it! Yeah. Okay. All right. I'll get it back.