Keselowski: Kyle Busch fed jealousy

ByBob Pockrass ESPN logo
Thursday, March 19, 2015

Brad Keselowski has explored many past relationships in his personal blog, including his long rivalry with Carl Edwards.

His latest subject? The one driver everyone knows he dislikes, the one he once publicly called, well, another word for derriere.

Kyle Busch.

Keselowski posted a blog on his website Wednesday night about Busch, who is out for months with a broken right leg and a broken left foot suffered in a Feb. 21 crash at Daytona International Speedway.

"Kyle is one of the best, and in some ways, it takes away from every driver's accomplishments if one of the best drivers isn't in the field," Keselowski writes.

The 2012 Sprint Cup champion notes that the rivalry started before Busch probably even knew Keselowski. The Team Penske driver admits that he was disappointed as a teenager when he didn't get invited to Roush Racing's tryout for trucks and he figured it was because he was too young. The fact a 16-year-old Busch later got the call to drive Roush's truck was devastating, Keselowksi wrote.

Later that year, the 17-year-old Keselowski, who was working for his father's truck team, went up to talk to the 16-year-old Busch.

"I remember looking at him and being stone cold jealous," Keselowski wrote. "Still, I tried to tell myself to be the bigger person. It wasn't easy. Finally, I walked over to him and said, 'Hello.' He looked at me, gave me kind of a stare, and never said a word. So I walked away.

"It was one of the first times I'd ever tried to be bigger than my own jealousy and disappointment. Kyle had wound up feeding both, and he definitely didn't know it."

The blog also details some of their more infamous battles, including at Watkins Glen and Kansas. He indicated the last time he has spoken to Busch was prior to driver introductions at Kansas (a day after they wrecked in the Nationwide Series race in October 2013 and traded jabs in the media), and Busch wouldn't speak to him.

Keselowski, who like Busch owns a team that competes in the Camping World Truck Series, and who, like Busch, is expecting to become a first-time father in mid-May, left open the door for reconciliation.

"But hopefully, one day, we'll be able to get along," Keselowski wrote. "When it comes to racing, it seems like we have too much in common not to. I just have to believe that eventually, we'll get past everything that we've been through, and get to someplace better."