Kurt Busch shows injured soldier a great time

Those gentlemen and Danica Patrick don’t start their engines out at Las Vegas Motor Speedway until Thursday, but I’m already making a nomination for NASCAR quote of the week.

Former Army Sgt. Brendan Marrocco went on the Letterman show Monday to discuss having both arms and legs blown off by a roadside bomb in Iraq, and having a rare — and thus far successful — double-arm transplant.

The spirit of this young man is amazing. He’s more upbeat than the late Benny Parsons was in front of a plate of barbecue spareribs.

Anyway, toward the end of the segment, the Army vet was telling Dave about being the guest of Las Vegas’ Kurt Busch at the recent Daytona 500.

I’ll let Sgt. Marrocco take it from there:

“Kurt and the Armed Forces Foundation had me down there with one of my buddies, and we were in the starting grid, and they were doing the opening ceremony for the race, and they were singing the national anthem — and all of a sudden I realized to myself that I’m holding my hand over my heart, and I was pretty much completely just like zoned out at that point, just thinking, how (effing) cool is this?” he said.

Only Sgt. Marrocco didn’t say effing.

When the cheers from the studio audience subsided, David Letterman leaned into the microphone.

“It is very (effing) cool,” he said, and then the audience cheered even louder.

Yes, it must have been, and it’s also pretty (effing) cool how Kurt Busch spends a lot time with injured soldiers, even if a lot of NASCAR fans don’t care for him that much.