If Kyle Busch’s 2025 NASCAR campaign were a telenovela, Sunday’s race in Mexico City would’ve been the midseason plot twist where the hero accidentally sets the house on fire — then apologizes while holding the matchbook.
In what’s shaping up to be his worst season since dinosaurs roamed the Earth or, more precisely, since he drove Pontiacs in the Busch Series, Busch became the first driver out of Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix of Mayhem. And it wasn’t some mechanical failure or a pit crew blunder that did him in — no, he owned it. This was pure, unfiltered Kyle.
Lap 7. Rain had turned the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez into something between an ice rink and a Slip ‘N Slide. Busch, feeling good about his car and apparently trusting the track like it hadn’t just been pounded by rain, dove into Turn 1. It didn’t end well.
“Just in the rain, I went down into 11 and got on the brakes pretty hard and everything was fine,” Busch explained afterward, already knowing the headlines were writing themselves. “Everything was comfortable, it stopped really good, and I thought okay, I can be a little bit more aggressive this time.”
Spoiler alert: he couldn’t.
“Getting back into one and went to the 10 marker—if there is a 10 marker, it’s the bridge—and we’ve been going much past the bridge all day on dries,” he continued. “So wet, I figured it’s going to be fine. As soon as I went to the brakes, it was just on ice, and I was sliding… I was just trying to figure out which direction to go, and then I was like, I’ve got to turn this thing around backwards because I’m going to nail some people.”
And nail some people he did. Justin Haley was the first innocent bystander to get collected, then Haley got launched into Kyle Larson, who got punted into AJ Allmendinger. Somewhere behind them, Zane Smith saw the whole thing and panicked himself into Chase Briscoe.
Busch took full blame, as he should have. “I hate it for all those that were involved in my mishap there,” he said, while also expressing regret for Lucas Oil and Richard Childress Racing, who likely burned a small pile of cash preparing that Chevrolet.
Oh, and the kicker? Busch won the last Xfinity Series race in Mexico back in 2008 — back when his nickname was “Rowdy” and not “Whatever Happened to Kyle Busch?” That was also the last time NASCAR raced in Mexico until this weekend. His return? Less glorious, more demolition derby.
Qualifying suggested he had a good car. Maybe even a top-ten car. But as has been the theme this season, things went sideways — literally, this time.
Now winless in 2025, Busch is somewhere between snake-bitten and snake-wrestling-his-own-bad-luck. It’s not even funny anymore. Actually, no — it is funny. In a tragic, watching-an-Elvis-impersonator-trip-on-his-cape kind of way.
But hey, there’s always next week. And maybe a dry track.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.