He’d be mostly shocked, probably.
It’s been over a month now since NASCAR legend Kyle Busch sadly passed away at the age of 41, on May 21st, 2026, due to pneumonia that progressed into sepsis. It was very sudden, and he left behind his wife, Samantha, and two children, Brexton (11) and Lennix (4), as well as his parents and fellow race car driver in his brother, Kurt Busch.
It’s just so incredibly sad, and my thoughts and prayers continue to go out to his family who have experienced such a devastating tragedy. Samantha has shared several posts since his passing, mostly thanking fans for all of their support.
The two-time Cup Series champion was a prolific winner. At the time the time of his death, Busch is the all-time winningest driver in NASCAR history, with a total of 234 wins, including 63 Cup Series wins, 102 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series wins, and 69 Truck Series victories. Those accolades are impressive, but the titles that Kyle Busch ended up being most proud of were husband and father.
If you ever even watched just one race, then you probably know that Busch’s personality transcended the sport. Even casual fans of NASCAR, and those who didn’t stay up to date with racing, knew the name Kyle Busch. Dale Earnhardt Jr. shared a beautiful tribute for Kyle the day of his passing, this week, and he also took some time on his Dale Jr. Download podcast to reflect deeper on everything Busch meant to the sport.
He explained that, contrary to what many fans might think, he believes Kyle wanted to be liked and didn’t necessarily want to be racings number one villain. He eventually embraced the fact that fans booed him (mostly because he won so much, to be honest), and Dale believes he thinks Kyle truly did want people to “recognize his greatness”:
“I think Kyle wanted to be liked. Kyle wanted to be a fan favorite. He was. There’s fans of his listening to this show going, he was a fan-favorite. He had fans. He did. But he didn’t love being the guy that they booed. He didn’t want that. He didn’t choose or prefer to be polarizing, but he kind of just had to embrace and lean into it at some point, and so he did.
But he didn’t prefer that, he didn’t want that. Dude, they booed Darrel Waltrip in ’82, ’83, when he was driving the ‘Dew car and winning every week, they booed the hell out of that man… I think deep down in there, Kyle wanted affirmation, he wanted approval, he wanted people to recognize his statistics, his greatness, his wins. He kept winning, right?
And he’d win and win and win, and look around and go, look at what I’m doing, you know. And where is the acknowledgment, right? Look at what I’ve done. He wanted that.”
I think there’s a lot of truth in that, and like usual, no one can put it quite like Dale Jr.
And it sounds like Kyle’s longtime PR manager Bill Janitz would agree.
In interview with Kaitlyn Vincie available to read in-full on Substack, Bill opened up about his relationship with Kyle, and he says he still “feels a little lost” without Kyle here:
“I’ve been seeing fans say they feel a little lost, and to be honest with you, I feel a little lost myself. I’m going to the race track this weekend at Chicago, and you almost expect to see him walking up pit road. Or I’ll think about stopping by the bus to see him and Samantha.
It still doesn’t seem real. Everyone is going through this, including the fans.”
He added that he is in full support of posthumously giving Kyle the Most Popular Driver award, which is fan-voted, and has gone to Chase Elliott more than anyone since he came into the Cup Series, as he has won it eight times. Before him, Dale Jr. won the award 15 consecutive times from 2003 through 2017, a streak that only ended because he retired.
Kyle was never in that conversation, though Bill believes as Kyle matured and fans got to know him in a different way, especially in more recent years as a dad, that would’ve changed. He says he would “love” to see fans rally and vote for Kyle, because he knows Kyle would “get a kick out of it,” adding that he “talking about it more than people would ever know”:
“One of the conversations that’s happened since he passed has been about Most Popular Driver. Chase Elliott was so gracious in talking about that and saying he’d love to see Kyle win it. It’s kind of crazy because, as much as Kyle wore that black hat, he didn’t really love it.
Human nature is that you want to be loved. I think he believed that, with everything he had accomplished and how successful he’d been, people would eventually get behind him. It was starting to happen more as he got older, and I think that’s part of the natural cycle for a successful, long-term Hall of Fame driver.
I’d love to see the fans rally behind him and vote him Most Popular Driver because, I’m telling you, he’d get a kick out of that. He talked about it more than people would ever know.”
Of course, fans loved to paint Busch as NASCAR’s biggest villain, and Bill says that even if Kyle didn’t always want to be the villain, it made racing fun to watch, and he is “thankful” for all of the time he had with Kyle:
“Every sport has its villain. Some people lean into that role, and others aren’t as comfortable with it. But if you had a bunch of people who weren’t passionate and didn’t care, nobody would want to watch the sport. He was one of the people who made NASCAR fun to watch, and I was incredibly lucky to have a front-row seat to watch greatness for 15 years.
We went through tough times, just like any working relationship, but it made me a better person and a better public relations representative. I call it the ‘Kyle Busch School of Hard Knocks,’ because that’s exactly what it was. I’m thankful for all those moments when he pushed me to be better at what I do.”
It would be really cool to see, and while it sucks Kyle’s not here now to be part of it if it does happen, it would be incredibly special for his family, especially his children, to see him honored by fans in that way, and I think they will make it happen.
The NASCAR Most Popular Driver Award is given out in November during the annual NASCAR Awards Banquet following the end of the racing season, so we’ll see what happens later this year.
There’s been a lot of talk about Most Popular Driver this year and the potential for Kyle Busch to earn the honor. Here’s insight from his long-time PR rep Bill Janitz on the possibility.
Full story for @NASCAR: https://t.co/Ukct7gkxJ8 pic.twitter.com/aBsNUVw9lb
— Kaitlyn Vincie (@kaitlynvincie) July 5, 2026
