Kyle Busch is happiest when racing

They tried it the other way. They sat down with him and the sponsors and everyone else with a say in the matter before the 2012 season and agreed to back off.

To quiet some of his engines.

To focus mostly on the top series in NASCAR.

To make a serious run at the championship.

They did what Kyle Busch would regard as sacrilegious.

They asked him to race less.

Which is like requesting Daniel Day-Lewis not immerse himself in a role.

“We went out that year and it was probably his poorest performance he has ever had,” said Joe Gibbs, owner for Busch’s Sprint Cup and Xfinity Series teams. “You could tell there was something off. Kyle is a racer. He wants to be racing. He’s happiest when he is racing. He has racing and (wife) Sam and the baby they are expecting. Those are his interests.

“So at the end of that (2012) season, we all sat down again and decided it was best he go back to racing as much as he wanted.”

He won’t be doing any such thing today, when Busch will miss the Kobalt 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway while recovering back home in North Carolina from a broken right leg and left foot, when one of the world’s most talented racers and a Durango High School graduate won’t compete in the town in which he was born and raised and on the track where he won the Cup race in 2009.

He suffered the injuries Feb. 21 when his Xfinity Series car slammed into an inside wall at Daytona when those at the speedway in Florida admitted they had not done enough to ensure driver safety in regards to wall barriers.

When they screwed up and Busch’s health was a casualty for it.

When his 2015 season stopped before it really began.

“He is a racer through and through,” Gibbs said. “It’s the only thing he wants to do in life. It’s eating him up not being in a car. Kyle is already talking about what he wants to do when he comes back. I was over at the house, and he was showing me how he can push his toes down and move his foot, and I was like, ‘Don’t do that!’ I’ll tell you what, when he does come back, he’s going to get after it. He will be up and ready as quick as he can.”

Busch wasn’t made available for an interview this past week, but spent much of his time on Twitter instead of talking to reporters. He and his wife offered several updates (pictures included) on his condition.

I’m guessing the smile you see might be masking his desire to, as Gibbs said, get after it.

He also seems to enjoy the company of his dog.

It made sense for Busch to race as much as possible early in his career. The more laps one finishes, the greater the improvement. It also makes the most sense now, when he is 29 and has 141 combined victories in Cup, Xfinity and trucks.

In 24 years, Joe Gibbs Racing has had two drivers miss time because of injury. Denny Hamlin sat out four Cup races in 2013 with back issues. Now, Busch.

That’s it. Two racers in more than two decades.

The cars are safer than ever, and when track officials have properly assured a secure environment (are you listening, Daytona?), risk is minimized even more. Busch still might be chasing his first Cup championship, with his best finish in the series being fourth in 2013, but decreasing his schedule won’t in any way enhance the odds of him claiming the title.

He cut back on his Xfinity (then Nationwide) schedule in 2012 and also ran a limited number of truck races that season but failed to make the Chase. Fewer definitely didn’t prove to be better.

Last season, Busch was 10th in the Cup standings and had 15 top-10 finishes. He put himself in a nice position to make a serious run, but with how the Chase is set up now, you can’t afford one bad race or break. His came at Talladega, where he needed to finish 24th or better to advance to the next round, but crashed and was 40th.

He was seven points short.

“Last year, Kyle had the best mindset he has had with us,” said Gibbs, a three-time Super Bowl winning coach with the Washington Redskins. “I believe he is always a threat to win the championship. But you can’t play an NFL game or race a car at 80 to 90 percent and expect to be at your best. I didn’t want players on the field until they were 100 percent when I was coaching football, and the same goes for racers.

“I want Kyle to make sure he is 100 percent and that the doctors agree before we put him back in a car. I want him to always be honest with himself about his health. That’s my approach. I know how competitive Kyle is. He has the best doctors in the world. In time, he will be better for it.

“He was born to do this.”

Born to race.

As often as he possibly can.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on “Gridlock,” ESPN 1100 and 100.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.