Artist Sam Bass ‘heartbroken’ over Kyle Busch’s guitar smash
06/09/09 As a follow-up to our feature article yesterday by Dave Grayson on the antics of Kyle Busch in the Nashville Victory Lane, 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.’"