Kurt Busch takes stand, calls ex’s testimony ‘fabrication’
The testimony came as a family court commissioner prepared to decide on a protection order filed by Patricia Driscoll last month. There was no decision Wednesday and the hearing will resume Jan. 12, when Busch's lawyer Rusty Hardin will cross-examine him.
Busch, the 2004 Sprint Cup champion who has shown flashes of his temper on and off the track earning him the nickname ''The Outlaw," kept a cool head as he staunchly denied Driscoll's version of the story during an hour of direct questioning by her lawyer, Carolyn McNeice.
Busch's attorneys have denied the assault allegations, which are the subject of a separate criminal investigation by Dover police that remains ongoing.
Busch also testified he ended their four-year relationship following a race in New Hampshire, a week before the race at Dover International Speedway, where the alleged altercation occurred Sept. 26. He said the two of them had a discussion en route to Logan International Airport in Boston and in the process he had damaged a rental car. She left him stranded at the airport, he added.
The two had no contact in the week leading up to the Dover race, but Driscoll said she did reach out to Busch's mother and was concerned about his alcoholism and depression. Busch said he did not drink the night of the alleged assault and has avoided alcohol during race weekends for 15 years.
They talked again for the first time in Dover after Driscoll texted him and asked how he was doing. He responded that he was on the floor, crying after watching the Brad Pitt movie Seven Years in Tibet. He said the movie made him emotional and made him reflect upon his own life and experiences.
That night in Dover, Busch said he had been sleeping when Driscoll arrived unannounced at his motorhome with her nine-year-old son. He says he told her repeatedly to leave, but she kept bringing her son in from another room, saying that Busch needed to tell the boy that the relationship was over.
Busch said he was naked during the entire encounter, and finally put his hands on either side of Driscoll's face. "I took my hands and cupped her cheeks. I looked her eye-to-eye. I said, 'You have to leave'. I was defusing the situation," he told the courtroom.
"It needs to be described because of the fabrication we listened to yesterday," he later said of the details he shared in court after holding up his hands, showing how he held Driscoll's face.
Busch was never asked directly if he smashed Driscoll's face into the motorhome's bedroom wall.
After Wednesday's hearing, Hardin said his client did not smash Driscoll's head into the wall and Hardin said he advised his client not to address that detail unless specifically asked.
Hardin said he suspects McNeice didn't ask because she knew Busch would flat out deny it. That wasn't the answer she would want to hear, he added. "Bottom line: this man simply didn't do it," he said. More at USA Today