By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
Prior to Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at Talladega Superspeedway, Kurt Busch joined the Motor Racing Network booth team to call the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series’ Fr8 Auctions 250.
Busch’s primary goal during the broadcast was to try and sprinkle in details about what a driver goes through during a race.
“It was pretty wild. To paint a picture just with audio is something unique and different and the team that they have assembled to call all the corners, the pit road reporters and the guys in the booth, I just took to sprinkle in something that comes from more of the racing side from the cockpit and what drivers go through, what they see, what they’re thinking, so I just tried to be brief and mix in with the talent that they have and just to have some fun with it,” Busch stated about the experience.
While with Dan Hubbard and Woody Cain in the booth, Busch was tasked to pick who he thought would come up and win the race. The 40-year-old driver chose fellow Las Vegas native, Noah Gragson, to win the race.
However, Gragson came just half a lap short of scoring the victory
“Man, I even picked Noah Gragson with 10 laps to go. I was like, ‘Maybe that’s a bad thing. You’re not supposed to call somebody out to try to win it,’ and he was leading when he took the white, but he just didn’t come back around to finish the race off,” he said.
With his driving career winding down, does Busch want to do broadcasting post-driving in NASCAR?
According to Busch, he is looking at a variety of different things. In 2017, he signed Livewire Entertainment in Orlando, FL and was hired by ICM Partners.
Recently, Busch’s wife, Ashley, has been filming Racing Wives on CMT. Busch discussed some of the challenges of TV filming.
“For me, I’m looking at different options in a variety of different things, whether it’s TV, radio. My wife filmed a lot of TV stuff this summer with CMT, which will be released at a different date, and some of the hardest parts about TV is when you live it and then they want you to go back and relive it and re-enact things and talk about this scene and then fast-forward three months and then go back to something that happened six months ago, there’s a lot that goes on in TV,” he continued.
With “television” under his belt, his goal this weekend was to try his hand at audio. Busch’s approach to the broadcast was unique
“I wanted to try audio, I wanted to try the radio, and I pretended that I was driving down the interstate and I wanted to hear the race through the MRN voice, whether it was even my guys working in the garage or a group of people in the backyard barbecuing listening to the race. There are so many different ways to get your NASCAR and I just wanted to experience it from the booth.”