NASCAR: Some idiot fan tried to fight Kyle Busch at Bristol

It’s cool to boo Kyle Busch if that’s what you want to do, but confronting him at the track is another story, and could have negative consequences for all NASCAR fans.

As if there wasn’t enough going on with Kyle Busch at the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday night — which saw him involved in a very early crash, come charging back from several laps down, wreck Martin Truex Jr. and then get into another incident later — there were rumors floating around social media during the race that someone tried to get rowdy with Rowdy.

Turns out those were correct.

Redditor u/Doob-Nooby caught the fan in question trying to get in Busch’s face, apparently trying to goad the driver into a fight. You can watch the interaction here.

Commenters both on Reddit and elsewhere around the internet have pointed the finger at the fan, track security and elsewhere. The video is pretty inconclusive as you can’t see what started the near scuffle.

(And yes, Kyle Busch us all about playing up his heel persona, including his courting of the boos that greeted him before the race at Bristol, but that doesn’t excuse something like this even a little bit.)

But regardless of what touched it off, confronting a driver in a threatening manner is way outside the lines of acceptable fan conduct at a sporting event, and something like this could ruin one of the very things that makes NASCAR special. Veteran journalist Jeff Gluck summed up this line of thinking better than this writer ever could.

NASCAR is alone among professional sports in terms of the unprecedented access fans have to its stars. With a garage or pit pass, you can actually mill about while teams prepare for the start of a race, which would be the equivalent of being in the Golden State Warriors locker room or on the floor during their layup line prior to a game — in other words, something that would never happen. Even without a hot or cold pass, there’s still a decent chance at some tracks for being able to get a driver’s autograph or at least be in close proximity to them before they jump in their car.

It would likely take more than one idiot for NASCAR to change its policies, but not many more. For the sake of everyone who enjoys stock car racing, if you ever have it in your head to do something like this, don’t, and if you see someone about to do it, maybe say something to them before they help ruin it for all the awesome fans out there who just want to see their favorite drivers up close.