{"id":687558,"date":"2026-05-22T15:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T15:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/687558\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T15:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T15:16:08","slug":"the-sport-wont-be-the-same-nascar-world-reacts-to-sudden-death-of-driver-kyle-busch-nascar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/687558\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The sport won\u2019t be the same\u2019: Nascar world reacts to sudden death of driver Kyle Busch | Nascar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Longtime teammates, former rivals and others around the sports world have joined the wave of condolences over the sudden death of Nascar driver Kyle Busch<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Busch, a two-time Cup Series champion who was the winningest driver across the sport\u2019s three series in history, died at 41 after being hospitalized earlier Thursday with a severe illness. No cause of death has been announced.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely cannot comprehend this news,\u201d Denny Hamlin, a 22-year Nascar<\/a> veteran and Busch\u2019s former teammate, said on social media. \u201cWe just need to think of his family during this time. We love you KB.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere aren\u2019t really words for today. I\u2019ve raced against Kyle for a long time, and anyone who\u2019s lined up next to him knows exactly what made him special, he gave you everything he had, every single lap, and he made all of us better for it,\u201d driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr said in a post. \u201cBut more than the wins and the records, I keep thinking about Samantha, Brexton, and Lennix, and the entire Busch family right now. That\u2019s where my heart is. Rest easy, Rowdy. The sport won\u2019t be the same without you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Busch was in his fourth season at Richard Childress Racing. He ranked 24th in the Cup Series standings, with two top-10 finishes in 12 races this season, and had been the Cup Series champion in 2015 and 2019 with Joe Gibbs Racing.<\/p>\n

He won a Nascar Truck Series race at Dover International Speedway last week and was slated to compete in this weekend\u2019s Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte, North Carolina, before his family announced on Thursday he had been hospitalized.<\/p>\n

A polarizing figure known as \u201cRowdy\u201d and \u201cWild Thing\u201d for his feuds with other drivers, the Las Vegas native \u2013 whose brother Kurt was also a successful Nascar driver \u2013 stormed on the Cup Series scene in 2005 by winning rookie of the year.<\/p>\n

Dale Earnhardt Jr, an on-track rival after he took over Busch\u2019s car after he departed Hendrick Motorsports in 2007 who later became a friend, called Busch one of the \u201cgreatest drivers in Nascar history\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cKyle and I had a really challenging existence for many years. But we luckily took the time to figure out our differences and that was something he instigated with a conversation in his bus around how we each managed our racing teams. I was super eager for us to get on better terms. But it was he who made the effort for that to be possible,\u201d Earnhardt said. \u201cI will never be able to make sense of this loss but I am thankful that we had found a way to become friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKyle was a fierce competitor who demanded the very best from himself each time he put on the helmet,\u201d said Hall of Fame driver Jeff Gordon. \u201cAs teammates, I saw first-hand the passion and intensity he brought to the sport every single day. He was a champion and prolific racer who made a tremendous impact on Nascar and was a lifelong advocate for all forms of motor sports.<\/p>\n

Kyle Busch with family after winning a 2019 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Photograph: Darron Cummings\/AP<\/p>\n

One of Busch\u2019s famous feuds was with fellow Nascar veteran Joey Logano. In 2017, the two were involved in a post-race, pit-road brawl<\/a> that left Busch with a bloodied face. In a Thursday interview with a Charlotte news station, Logano praised Busch\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cKyle and I have been tough competitors. We didn\u2019t see eye to eye on everything, but there was a mutual respect for each other\u2019s talent and what\u2019s he\u2019s been able to do in our sport,\u201d he said. \u201cThe bottom line is he is one of the best drivers to ever sit in a race car, and he impacted our sport in so many ways. Such a huge personality. It\u2019s a really big reminder of how fragile life is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NHL\u2019s Carolina Hurricanes honored Busch with a video tribute and a moment of silence before Thursday night\u2019s Eastern Conference finals opener against the Montreal Canadiens.<\/p>\n

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which will stage the annual Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, lit up its scoring pylon with Busch\u2019s image. He won the Brickyard 500 at Indianapolis in 2015 and 2016.<\/p>\n

A foundation created by Busch and his wife to support couples seeking fertility treatments collected hundreds of dollars in new donations on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

The fundraising page for the Samantha and Kyle Busch Bundle of Joy Fund, founded by the couple in 2015, had dozens of messages<\/a> reading \u201cIn Memory of Kyle Busch\u201d with donations for $18.08, a reference to the No 18 and No 8 cars Busch drove during his 26-year career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Longtime teammates, former rivals and others around the sports world have joined the wave of condolences over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":["post-687558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}