CONCORD, NC — The smell of burnt rubber filled the air as the 11-year-old boy and the machine he was driving disappeared into a cloud of smoke.
After it cleared, Brexton Busch was standing atop the No. 8 Chevrolet that his daddy once piloted. He waved a checkered flag and then performed the signature celebration that had become the exclamation point to every race his father won, the Busch Bow.
Brexton burning out in a NASCAR Cup Series car at Charlotte Motor Speedway on the evening of Friday, Oct. 9 made the thousands of members of Rowdy Nation in the crowd roar as it capped off a night where the late Kyle Busch was honored, celebrated and remembered.
By his family, friends and fellow competitors, Busch was talked about as a driver, a brother,
a boss, a father and a husband in an emotional ceremony held after the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race.
This open-to-the-public memorial for Busch was months in the making. The two-time Cup Series champion and owner of several NASCAR records — including most combined career victories across the three national touring circuits, with 234 checkered flags — died suddenly on May 21 at the age of 41 due to complications from sepsis caused by presumed bacterial pneumonia.
He left behind a wife, two children, his brother, his parents and a legion of passionate fans.
“Kyle, babe, I wish you could see this,” his widow Samantha said, holding back tears. “I wish you could see how deeply you were loved and I wish you knew just how much all these fans out here appreciate you.”
In honor of his dad, in a NASCAR Cup Series car, Brexton Busch burns rubber at Charlotte: pic.twitter.com/ROm9MRX6xn
— Mitchell Northam (@primetimeMitch) October 10, 2026
Before Fox Sports broadcaster Mike Joy began emceeing the event, those supporters broke out in a cheer: “Rowdy! Rowdy! Rowdy!”
When Brexton walked to his seat, stopping to give hugs along the way to drivers his dad raced against, they yelled: “Brexton! Brexton! Brexton!”
And when Busch’s teammate Austin Dillon stepped to the microphone and thanked them for coming, they cut him off by erupting into hoots and hollers and applause, and he said to them, “Yeah! Go for it!”
Then, when Samantha Busch got emotional and choked up, they were there to pick her up. One yelled, “We love you, Samantha!” and a chorus of clapping followed.
“I don't want to feel like we're putting a period on this today. This is not the end of Kyle's story,” Samantha Busch said. “His story continues every time we give a young racer a chance, share something he taught us, or tell the next generation what made Rowdy unforgettable.
“Years from now, I hope people remember Kyle as one of NASCAR's greatest drivers. He worked his entire life for that. But I also hope they meet someone whose life is better because Kyle was here. That's a legacy that no checkered flag can contain.”
Kyle Busch, the boss
In today’s Cup Series, nine of the 36 full-time drivers got their start in NASCAR by racing for Busch’s Truck Series team, Kyle Busch Motorsports. That group includes Bubba Wallace, Daniel Suarez, William Byron, Erik Jones, John Hunter Nemechek, Todd Gilliland, Riley Herbst, Christopher Bell and Noah Gragson.
Active from 2010 through 2023, drivers for KBM won 100 races in the Truck Series while Jones and Bell both captured championships for the team. It didn’t just produce drivers that would go on to have success at the top level of the sport, but crew chiefs, pit crew members, public relations staff and marketing specialists, too.
Gragson, Suarez and Bell joined Joy on stage to tell stories about Busch the boss, who was just as demanding leading meetings as he was behind the wheel on the track. Busch desired perfection and he wanted to win. He expected his drivers to aim for the same thing.
“There's not been a person in the industry that has had a bigger impact on my career than Kyle,” said Bell, who has made the postseason in each of his six seasons with Joe Gibbs Racing. “Kyle Busch Motorsports is what gave me my opportunity on asphalt.”
Gragson put fans in a time machine back to 2018 while he spoke. Following a Truck Series race at World Wide Technology raceway outside of St. Louis, Gragson (No. 18), Gilliland (No. 4), Herbst (No. 51), and rookie Christian Eckes (No. 46) were set to have a debrief with Busch at KBM headquarters.
Busch pulled up 15 minutes late in his silver Mercedes, marched into the room with a coffee in hand, grabbed the remote and took control. He started replaying one clip of Eckes over and over.
“46,” Busch said. “Who’s your spotter?”
Eckes replied, then Busch, without missing a beat said, “He sucks. Find a new spotter.”
“46,” Busch gestured again to Eckes, replaying a clip. “How would you rate this side draft, one out of 10?”
Eckes paused. “A seven?”
“Wrong,” Busch said. “Two. Work on your side drafts.”
Busch continued, going around the room: “51, thanks for not wrecking my truck. 4, good race. 18, sorry about your luck.”
“He just had such an incredible standard. We learned so much from him,” said Gragson, who now races for Front Row Motorsports in the Cup Series. “He just meant business every time he walked into a room.”
Kyle Busch, the father
Two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Larson remembers a different side of Busch. Of course, he couldn’t ever forget how tenacious he was on the racetrack, like when Busch got into Larson’s bumper at Chicagoland in 2018, wrecking him on the way to taking the checkered flag.
But Larson’s more recent memories are of Busch at the local dirt tracks, watching Busch mentor son Brexton.
“You see Kyle in the NASCAR setting, I got to see him kind of away from that. I got to see a different, light-hearted Kyle,” Larson said. “He was a great coach and intense with Brexton. With me having a kid (his son Owen) similar age as Brexton, and me looking up to Kyle so much and how he was able to coach and lead, I tried to take as many notes as I could.”
Dillon saw Busch in a different light too. On his grandfather’s racing team, Richard Childress Racing, Dillon was the last teammate that Busch had in the Cup Series. Dillon looked up to Busch, rooted for him as a kid, and thought that bringing him to RCR in 2023 would get Childress excited about competing again.
“To me, watching all the years of racing, there was only one guy that reminded me of what I thought Dale Earnhardt would look like constantly, and that was Kyle Busch,” Dillon said. “But man, as I sit here today, one of the biggest things I learned about Kyle is not just the ‘Rowdy’ that he leaves behind, but it's the love. It's his love for his family.”
In the last few years of Busch’s life and NASCAR career, Dillon got to see up-close how his teammate was leading his son.
“That kid right there, Brexton, he's special, and he's got a lot of his dad in him,” Dillon said. “He's not scared of anything. He's got calmness to him, and confidence. He has stepped up for his family more than anything, and it makes me so proud. Kyle was pushing him the whole time for the situation he's in now. I have no doubt that this support system in this garage is going to be there for him whenever he needs it.”
All Brexton needed Friday night to honor his dad were four wheels and a crowd to rise to its feet as he burned the rubber off them.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Brexton Busch burnout caps emotional celebration of life for Kyle Busch at Charlotte
