Kyle Busch on state of racing: 'No way to make it perfect every time'

With safety at the forefront of most everyone's mind in NASCAR after two drivers in the past four days have had their vehicles leave the ground and destroy part of catch fences, Kyle Busch joined the discussion on Friday at Kentucky Speedway.

If any driver is justified to weigh in on the safety debate, it's Busch, who suffered extensive leg and foot injuries in a February crash at Daytona International Speedway where his XFINITY Series car struck an area of a concrete wall unprotected by a SAFER barrier.

Busch, who missed the next day's Daytona 500 and was sidelined until mid-May, was asked Friday about the difficulty NASCAR faces in keeping safety its top priority each weekend.

The question was raised in light of Austin Dillon's vicious crash at the finish of Monday's Coke Zero 400 at Daytona, and Ben Kennedy's wild ride in Thursday night's Camping World Truck Series race at Kentucky.

Both drivers saw their vehicles lift off from the ground and take out significant portions of the respective catch fences.

Busch believes it's an ongoing challenge for NASCAR to find the right balance between exciting racing and safety.

"It's hugely difficult," the driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota said. "You can have it perfectly right and put on a good race and a great finish one time at a particular racetrack and go back there with the exact same rules package and somebody hits on it and they check out and it's boring. There's absolutely no rhyme or reason as to being able to make it perfect every single time. I think a lot of fans out there respect the sport for what it was and what it has become, and the finishes that we do have."

The restrictor-plate racing done at Daytona and Talladega -- while popular among fans -- has resulted in some of the sport's most wicked wrecks since NASCAR mandated the plates in 1988 to slow down the cars at the Sprint Cup Series' two fastest tracks.

"There's some fans out there that want to see us eight-wide across the start-finish line every single week for the win," Busch said. "That's just not practical and that's not going to happen. Even if that situation did arise, you're going to get it like you did last week at Daytona. We couldn't be eight-wide because the track isn't wide enough -- you have to stay above the yellow line. It was three-wide and it was eight rows deep and it was a mess. That's just not safe, obviously for the fans or the competitors. 

"There's a way to put on good racing and for those that respect racing for what it is, they'll see good racing in their own mind."

Luckily, neither Dillon nor Kennedy was injured in his respective incident, nor were any fans in the stands seriously hurt -- although five fans at Daytona were treated for minor injuries.

"As far as the catch fence and everything, I'm glad they're there and I'm glad they're doing their job keeping the race cars or trucks on the racetrack," Busch said. "It's a dangerous sport -- we live it every day. Sometime we take it for granted because of all the safety advancements we've gotten over the years that we feel invincible, but certainly it's rare inopportune times that you can put yourself in a situation to get hurt.

"We saw it in Daytona with myself and saw it in Daytona again with Austin Dillon and we probably saw it again last night (with Kennedy), among other times. Those times just seem to be the most severe or scary crashes we see."

As for his own recovery from his injuries suffered at Daytona, Busch -- who returned to competition at the Sprint All-Star Race on May 16 -- admitted he's not 100 percent back to his old self.

"When I'm inside the race car, I feel like I'm 100 percent," he said. "I feel like I'm fine for the things I have to do and all the abilities that I have to have to drive a car -- I feel like I'm at 100 percent. Walking around here, I can't.

"They haven't approved me to go running yet. If you say me being able to go for a run is 100 percent, I'm probably 85."

VIDEO: Austin Dillon talks about his wild wreck in Coke Zero 400 at Daytona