Kyle Busch says there’s sponsor interest in possible Indy 500 run
Could Kyle Busch be joining his brother Kurt as drivers to race the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600? If you ask Kyle, it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
The 2015 Sprint Cup Champ had been dropping hints about possibly running both races sometime and said Friday at Bristol that he’s had some sponsor interest about doing the double. If Kyle was to try the 1100-mile drive, the two would be the first set of brothers to run both races.
“Joe’s going to be the hardest one for sure,” Busch said. “[Wife] Samantha is not necessarily a fan of it and I’ve talked to her about it a little bit and she’s just like, ‘I’ll be there when the time comes, but don’t tell me.’”
“Then the sponsor aspect, they’ve actually shown some interest in it and that was kind of fun for me to hear that there might actually be an opportunity there if I continue my relationship with them from the Cup side to the IndyCar side. We have to work out all those details and it’s certainly not going to happen for this year, but maybe in some future years we’ll see what we can put together.”
Joe is of course Joe Gibbs, Busch’s team owner. And while Gibbs could understandably be hesitant about letting his title-winning driver run both races after seeing him miss 11 races in 2015 because of nasty leg injuries suffered at Daytona, he’s had experience with drivers trying both races before. When Tony Stewart ran both races in 1999 and 2001 he was racing for Gibbs.
Stewart’s 2001 effort is still the best combined run in both races. He finished sixth in the Indianapolis 500 and third in the Coca-Cola 600. He’s the only driver to finish in the top 10 in both races and he also did it in 1999. Kurt Busch was sixth in the 500 in 2014 but 40th in the 600 after an engine issue.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
