Kyle Busch has constructed a well-decorated professional driving career with NASCAR over nearly the last two decades. Busch has experienced tremendous highs and lows along the way. One of those troubling incidents saw him go through a brutal car crash that he believes NASCAR saved his life.

Kyle Busch’s tremendous professional career

Since making his debut in NASCAR in 2004, Kyle Busch has been a prominent fixture.

Busch has experienced a tremendous amount of success with 57 Cup Series wins, a pair of Cup Series championships (2015, 2019), and 316 top-ten finishes in 570 events. He also garnered an Xfinity Series championship in 2009, and 97 career wins with 258 top-ten finishes.

The 35-year-old is also a well-decorated Camping World Truck Series driver with 59 wins and 123 top-ten finishes in 155 career races. Busch is known for more than his driving with his polarizing personality that often butts head with several of his colleagues over the years.

Beyond all that, he experienced a life-changing accident that he credits NASCAR for saving his life.

Kyle Busch experiences terrifying 90-mph car crash

Kyle Busch has experienced a tremendous amount of success throughout his career and some scary moments along the way.

One of those came in February 2015 in the Xfinity Series opener at Daytona. With nine laps left in the race, things took a scary turn as Busch’s No. 54 car became entangled in a pile-up that sent him skidding toward the interior wall beyond the grass at over 90 MPH.

The disrupted airflow from the spinning cars around him guided his car off the track into the energy-absorbing wall. The crash quickly led to safety workers getting him out of his vehicle away from the wreckage.

Busch required immediate medical attention that saw him taken to the local hospital. Doctors diagnosed him with a compound fracture of his right leg and a left mid-foot fracture that necessitated surgery. He missed the next four months due to the injuries before returning at the Sprint All-Star race at Charlotte.

Despite that devastating injury in the series-opening event, he put together an incredible 2015 season that saw him win his first Sprint Cup Series championship.

Believes NASCAR saved his life

Beyond the career-defining triumph following the scary accident, it was a life-changing event.

In April 2015, Busch acknowledged that had it not been for the safety measures taken within NASCAR’s vehicles, he would have suffered potentially fatal injuries from his crash. (H/T News Observer)

“I’m alive today just because the fact that the restraints worked, the seat worked, the HANS device worked – everything worked,” Busch said. “I can’t say enough about NASCAR and their innovations. From my knees up, no problem, not a mark on me, not a bruise, not a headache, not a neck ache, nothing.

“It was just a matter of your flailing feet when you’re in a wreck like that.”　

Over the years, NASCAR has made some significant strides in the safety setup in their cars. The increased amount of framework inside the vehicle kept Busch’s upper body and head area safe from a major impact.

According to News Observer, NASCAR took the initiative after Busch’s 2015 crash to increase the safety barriers covering their interior concrete walls to further lessen the damage from future crashes.

These precautionary measures saved him from experiencing something far worse from the wreck. Busch required physical therapy for his injuries, but those are things he gladly trades off instead of suffering a far more frightening fate.

Statistics courtesy of Racing-Reference.