Saturday afternoon, things were looking down at the headquarters of Richmond, Virginia’s newest green effort, “Richmond Recycles.”  With only a few hundred pounds of recyclable aluminum, plastic and glass litter collected on the day, the director of the effort, Gus Argosy, was downright dejected.

“I didn’t think we’d never have no other Richmond Recycles day never,” Gus told us.

Fortunately for Gus and for the planet, an enterprising member of his team, known only as Boots, was able to enlist the support of one of his heroes to save the day and to save the earth at the same time.

Gus related the tale: “All Boots told us was that he would call his friend Kyle, who would know what to do.  The hour was late, and we figured that just meant ole Mister Mysterioso was headed to the bar to drown his environmentalist sorrows.”

Little did Gus know that Boots, a former journeyman rear tire carrier, had a plan almost as good as drinking the night away.  He called his old friend and environmental activist Kyle Busch, who was nearing the end of that evening’s NASCAR race at the Richmond International Raceway.  Kyle knew exactly what to do, swerving his car into the side of race leader and crowd favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr.

“The skies just opened up,” Gus said as he wiped a tear from his eye.  “The race stopped as bottles and cans rained down on the track.  It was like recyclable manna from heaven, and it saved our little environmental awareness campaign a whole heap of embarrassment  God bless that Kyle Busch and what he did for the movement last Saturday night.  If it weren’t for that kid, all that aluminum and plastic and glass would have gone right into big trash barrels outside the track, where we never would have seen it again.”

Rural Virginia activists won’t soon forget Kyle Busch and the night he singlehandedly saved the Planet Earth. Richmond Recycles is already in talks with Jeff Gordon about making the event biannual, urging him to wreck Junior in the fall race at RIR.