What will Kyle Busch’s view be like from the head table? – Nascar

LAS VEGAS — Kyle Busch didn’t make the trip to Las Vegas the last time NASCAR was in town for a Sprint Cup Series race.
 
He returned this week as a champion.
 
Friday night, Busch will be honored as the series’ 31st winner of the title, a hometown hero feted and fawned over, and rightfully so.
 
Inside the Wynn Las Vegas, Busch, along with wife Samantha, car owner Joe Gibbs, crew chief Adam Stevens and a handful of other principals affiliated with the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing team, will take their seats and look out over a room full of industry folks, fellow drivers and crew chiefs, sponsors and media.
 
But the spotlight will be on Busch, literally as well as figuratively, at the Sprint Cup Awards show on Friday from Las Vegas (9 p.m. ET, NBCSN).
 
Those who have been there know what lies in store for the 30-year-old.
 
“It’s a little awkward in one way because everybody is staring at you,” four-time series champion Jeff Gordon said Thursday. ” … At the same time everybody is looking at you because you’re the champion and wishing they were up there. ‘How do I get there? I want to be up there. That’s cool.’
 
“It’s an amazing experience. As a race car driver and team there is just no greater accomplishment than earning that right to sit up there on that stage.”
 
Kurt Busch, older brother of Kyle and winner of the 2004 series title, remembers the sensation. He called it “an incredible, nervous accomplishment of genuine hard work.”
 
“At the same time,” the elder Busch said, “the only thing I kept remembering was all the people that helped me get to that point. I just kept sitting there reminiscing on my own. I might have looked like I was in la-la land but I just had different snapshots in my mind of different Southwest Tour races or different car owners or different sponsors, crew members, volunteers. (Memories) of good races and bad races, what I learned from them and how I applied them.”
 
It’s been more than a decade since Matt Kenseth sat at the head table, “so you’d have to get somebody a little more current,” the JGR driver and teammate of this year’s champion said Thursday.
 
“You want to be up there for that night; for that season you’re the man and that’s the team, those are the guys. Everybody wants to be there looking out at everybody else instead of … looking at you sitting there.”
 
For someone as successful as Jimmie Johnson, one might think sitting in front of a room full of people, sharing a meal and accepting accolades for winning the championship would become almost second nature. No big deal. No surprises.
 
But that’s not the case, the six-time series champion said.
 
“No. 1 you’re very uncomfortable up there eating with the spotlight on you,” the Hendrick Motorsports driver said. “… It just becomes real. You’ve heard and seen the success and everything that’s happened to you, the interviews, but that’s really the moment that you take it all in.
 
“You’re recognized by many and little stories pop up, make your mind wander and think about other aspects and things.
 
“It all builds to what was the most stressful part for me — when you had to give your own speech.”
 
Busch missed the season’s first 11 races due to injuries suffered in the season-opening XFINITY Series race at Daytona International Speedway. He returned and over the summer won four out of five races, including three straight in July. He advanced through the 16-team Chase to earn one of the four championship berths in the season-ending race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
 
A victory at Homestead — he beat defending series champion Kevin Harvick, Gordon and Martin Truex Jr. — cemented one of the most incredible comebacks in the history of the series.
 
Friday night, Busch and his team will be honored for what they were able to overcome and accomplish this season.
 
“It’s a fun night,” Johnson said, “and really the moment that pulls it all in.”