Chase Elliott starting on a path Kyle Busch has walked

Kyle Busch was among the first members of the NASCAR community to contact Chase Elliott after the Georgia driver was injured in a snowboarding accident prior to the Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Elliott underwent surgery for a fractured tibia, forcing him to miss last Sunday’s race at Las Vegas and beginning an absence that will stretch into weeks.

Busch said he wanted to encourage Elliott and to offer him any advice or assistance he might need.

Busch knows this road all too well.

On the 111th lap of the NASCAR Xfinity Series season opener at Daytona International Speedway in 2015, Busch was involved in a multi-car crash. His car sailed at near-full speed into an inside wall near the end of the frontstretch.

The crash looked significantly worse than the normal car-meets-wall accident at Daytona, and indeed it was. Busch suffered a broken right leg and a fractured left foot and was rushed to an area hospital for surgery.

The Daytona 500, the first race of the Cup Series season, was the next day, and Busch obviously was a no-show. While recovering and then rehabilitating, he would miss the season’s first 11 races.

Busch had won a total of 25 Cup races over the previous seven seasons – but no championship. And some wrote off his 2015 chances in the hours after the Daytona accident, saying the seriousness of his injuries would make competing difficult when he was finally able to race again.

As he would do on so many other occasions over the years, Busch silenced the doubters, winning in his fifth points race back (at Sonoma), scoring three other victories before the playoffs and reaching the top 30 in points – then a NASCAR requirement to make the playoffs – by finishing second at Watkins Glen in his 11th race