KANSAS CITY, Mo. — 14-year-old race car driver Waylon Phillips showed up to the track at Sweet Springs Motorsports Complex on Friday night with a challenge ahead of him.
“I felt nervous,” said Phillips.
“But I felt decently confident that we would have something for him in the least.”
Phillips lined up alongside 2-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch. Busch was in town for the Hollywood Casino 400 on Sunday and spent his Friday and Saturday nights going wheel to wheel with Phillips.
“He’s got enough there in the top ranks and he’s at our little racetrack running against us, running against the grassroots drivers. It’s an amazing experience to get to be able to run some, run with somebody like that,” Phillips explained.
Phillips started racing karts when he was just six years old.
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“We got what was cheapest, took it back home, and from there we showed up to the racetrack every weekend and it’s kind of been that way ever since,” he said.
Now, he’s racing in non-wing micros at Sweet Springs Motorsports Complex, where he’s leading the series by 532 points.
Phillips said that racing against Busch was like nothing he’d ever done before. But he entered the race with a winner’s mindset.
“The first thought of mine was, beat him,” he remembered.
“That sounds incredibly cocky, but I wanted to see how it would how I would pick up against, you know, the higher competition like that because that’s the first time I’d ever gotten to raise somebody of that caliber.”
Busch and Phillips would go wheel to wheel early in the race.
“We went toe to toe for, I think, a good five laps, never touched, not even once,” Phillips remembered.
“I have never got behind the wheel with somebody who’s so clean of a racecar driver.”
Phillips would not only pass Busch but end up winning the race.
“I was ecstatic,” he said.
And he wouldn’t just beat Busch on Friday night, he repeated that performance with another win over Busch on Saturday night.
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“We not only were able to beat him, but we were able to go toe to toe with them for a lap or two during the feature. It felt amazing.” Phillips said, explaining that Busch drove like no one he’d ever seen.
“Not only would he be able to just hold it neck and neck, going all the way down the straightaway, he had the guts to put it into the corner, unlike anyone else I’ve ever raced with.”
Phillips said that now he feels like he can race with anyone.
“I can get the opportunity to get to get behind the wheel with some of these guys. I can get laps put down with them. It’ll make me better. Iron sharpens iron.”
He says that in his next race, he’ll use some of the moves he learned from Busch.
“I think it really did push me. It really did give me something to think about the next few, next few races I throw myself into it.”
Waylon’s final race of the season is next weekend, where he’ll look for his 13th win of the year and the championship title.
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