Last Saturday, June 6, 2009, Kyle Busch won the Nationwide series race at the Nashville Speedway. After being presented with a Gibson Les Paul hand-painted by Sam Bass, Kyle smashed it (or tried to–Les Pauls are pretty damn strong), Pete Townshend style.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m one of those people who doesn’t really get Nascar. I don’t have anything against it, but I just don’t get it. But I do get one thing: publicity. That’s exactly what Kyle was after, and that’s exactly what the media gave him. He’s the so-called “bad boy” of Nascar. We all need our villians, I suppose, and he’s apparently perfectly happy to be one. At least for now.

Perhaps in the world of Nascar, smashing a guitar is a super irreverant thing to do. In the world of rock, it’s a yawner. So what? I think he kind of comes off looking like a dick in both worlds, quite frankly. But it’s a week later, and we’re still talking about him. And about Nascar.

Now, I don’t want to get all conspiracy-ish here, but if Nascar ticket sales are slumping thanks to the bad economy, wouldn’t it make sense to…oh, I don’t know…use your resident bad boy to stir up some controversy publicity? I mean, good lord, even the frickin’ LA Times is writing about this nonsense.