Artist Sam Bass ‘heartbroken’ over Kyle Busch’s guitar smash
Artist Sam Bass poses with winner Kyle Busch following the NASCAR Nationwide Series Federated Auto Parts 300 Saturday night at Nashville Superspeedway. // Chris Graythen, Getty Images for NASCAR
Sam Bass, the longtime NASCAR artist who painted the Gibson guitar smashed by Kyle Busch after the Nashville Nationwide Series race on Saturday night, said he was “stunned and heartbroken” to see his work destroyed in victory lane.
Though Busch immediately told Bass he “meant no disrespect” to anyone – the artist, Gibson or the track – Bass said Monday he’s struggled to accept the incident.
“It’s like raising a child,” Bass said. “You start out with nothing and you finish it and you hope people will take care of it. And it was stunning, absolutely stunning to see that thing destroyed within seconds of him getting it.”
Bass said Busch told him he would order two more guitars from Gibson to be painted like the one that got smashed, and the artist said he understood the “rock-star thing” Busch was trying to accomplish.
“It’s his trophy, he can choose to do with it what he wants,” Bass said. “But I’m not going to lie about it. If he had asked me, ‘Hey, I’m thinking about destroying that trophy guitar whenever I win it, what do you think,’ of course I would have told him, ‘No! Please don’t. Let us give you a prop guitar.’”
The Gibson guitar has become the symbol of Nashville Superspeedway, and the one Busch smashed was the 30th designed by Bass, who said the trophy has come to be “a very revered piece of history … and revered by the fans here in Tennessee.”
Seeing Busch smash the guitar after getting out of the car upset both fans and sponsors. Bass noted that representatives from race sponsor Federated Auto Parts walked out of victory lane after Busch’s act.
Bass estimated that he and Gibson put “hundreds and hundreds of hours” of work into the guitar, which is so unique that “you can’t just buy this thing right off the shelf.”
“A guitar might be a guitar and he might have seen rock stars destroy them and things like that, but at the same time, this is a trophy,” Bass said. “You wouldn’t think he would destroy the Daytona trophy or the Brickyard trophy or something like that.
“This is much more than just a guitar somebody plays at a concert and beats the hell out of when they’re done. It symbolizes something much bigger, much greater – and that’s the part I don’t think he thought all the way through.”
After the race, Bass smiled in pictures with Busch and told reporters he was OK with Busch’s act. He said his feelings haven’t changed and he has no interest in criticizing Busch for what happened, preferring instead to stick to a personal philosophy of always taking the high road.
“I’m not going to accost him in victory lane or fuss at him and berate him,” Bass said. “If he told me he meant no disrespect, I’m going to take him at his word that he meant no disrespect.”
But Bass couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if the situation were reversed.
“What if I won a contest to win Kyle Busch’s car?” he said. “Let’s say the crew prepares it and everything else and I accept it at an awards ceremony and just start beating the hell out of it.
“I don’t think they would appreciate that, it would hurt their feelings that they put their work and time and energy and effort into it.”
And what if Busch races at Nashville again next year?
“I joked with someone that if Kyle’s in the show, we’ll make an exact replica – only it’ll be a pillow,” he said.
