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In an interview with Racer.com on August 28, 2021, Kurt Busch shared his initial interactions with Michael Jordan after joining 23XI Racing for the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season.
While talking about meeting Jordan and Denny Hamlin, for joining the team, Busch praised MJ and called meeting him "an incredible moment of his life."
“Meeting Michael Jordan this summer was an incredible moment in my life.
"He’s like a living Smithsonian. He’s the G.O.A.T. in all sports, and he put me at ease within the first five minutes of our conversation about being a legend in himself and a legend in sports.”
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The statement came when Kurt Busch was asked if Michael was a genuine NASCAR fan and if he was invested psychologically and cognitively in the sport. To this, he answered in affirmation, talking about how Michael hadn’t said or suggested anything that would give the opposite impression.
Kurt added that he used Basketball analogies while talking about motorsports, leading to Michael’s demeanor changing towards him:
“Yes, I can tell. I mean, he doesn’t do anything to lose it what he says. I’m the same way. When I started to draw some basketball analogies to motorsport, his eyes lit up and you could tell that his demeanor changed a little bit. He was like, “All right, I get it.”
Michael Jordan joined the NASCAR scene in 2020 when he co-founded 23XL Racing along with Denny Hamlin. Kurt Busch joined the team in 2022, where he drove the No. 45 Toyota in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Kurt Busch’s retirement from NASCAR
In 2022, Kurt Busch got a concussion that ultimately led him to retire from racing in 2023. Talking about his career of more than two decades, he said how being a blue-collared kid from Las Vegas he never could’ve imagined spending as much time as he did racing for NASCAR.
Busch thanked his family, friends supporters, and team members for the incredible journey. He said:
“As I transition out of the driver’s seat, I can’t help but feel incredibly blessed to have spent the amount of time I did as a driver in NASCAR, and I could never have imagined that growing up as a blue-collar kid from Las Vegas.
“So many people have been part of my journey. I want to thank the fans, my family, friends, sponsors, and team members. Thanks to everyone who has taught me the different things around the motorsports world, and also for those who have had to put up with me. And I want to just thank again, everyone that continues to push me to strive for success in this sport. It’s time for a new journey, and I’m excited to get started.”
Talking about his reason for retiring from racing full-time, Kurt Busch said that his decision wasn’t based on one reason but a few different factors. He recalled being barely able to walk during his last racing season due to taking medicine shots to be able to move his knee and feet. He added that such moments and isolated incidents added up to this decision.
“Again, it’s not one moment that’s led to this.”
“It’s a few different factors, and my body is having a battle with Father Time... I remember last summer, I was trying to not show that emotion, and I barely could even walk to the car at Dover because I had to have some shots pre-race just so that I could move my knee and move my feet. Those are those moments where things were starting to add up before things happened at Pocono.”
During his career, Kurt Busch won the 2004 NASCAR Cup Series Championship, had a win at the Daytona 500 in 2017, raced in all top three of NASCAR’s racing formats, and in 2023, got inducted into the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame.
