Rowdy forever.
It’s been just over 3 months since the sudden and shocking death of NASCAR legend and two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch.
Busch passed away back on May 21 at the age of 41, just hours after it was announced that he was suffering from a “severe illness” and would miss that weekend’s upcoming Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Kyle competed in his final race during the exhibition All-Star Race at Dover Motor Speedway, with his final points race coming at Watkins Glen about a week and a half before he passed away.
It was during that race at Watkins Glen that Busch could be heard on the radio asking for a doctor to meet him after the race, saying that he needed a shot when he got back to his motorhome. At the time, announcers said that Busch had been dealing with a sinus infection, yet he still managed to score a season-best finish of 8th in the race.
The following weekend at Dover, Busch confirmed that he was still dealing with the illness, which he described as a “severe cough.” But Busch was still able to compete at in the All-Star Race, even scoring what would turn out to be his final victory in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race on Friday, just six days before his death.
At the time of his death, Busch had competed in 12 points races and his 217 points scored during the season had him sitting at 23rd in the standings.
In the days following his passing, and following conversations with his Richard Childress Racing team, NASCAR made the decision to remove Busch from the points standings in an attempt to be “empathetic of the impact to those who would see his name in the standings.”
Well the NASCAR Cup Series just wrapped up their regular season this weekend, with the Chase being set following the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway. And though his name doesn’t appear in the points standings, Busch STILL managed to finish ahead of one full-time Cup Series driver in the final regular season points standings.
Busch’s 217 points at the time of his death would have put him at 35th in the points series standings after 26 regular season races – one spot ahead of full-time driver Cody Ware.
Ware, who drives the #51 car for Rick Ware Racing, has competed in all 26 of the regular season races, scoring a season-best finish of 17th in the first race of the season, the Daytona 500. Since then, he hasn’t had a finish better than 23rd, which came during this summer’s race at Nashville, and he’s finished 30th or worse 16 times. The result is that Ware has only scored 201 points this season, 16 fewer than Busch despite competing in 14 more races.
Busch also finished the regular season just 54 points behind Connor Zilisch, who’s had an abysmal year during his first full-time season in the Cup Series.
Of course there’s no way to know what would have happened if Kyle would have been able to compete in the full season, but his average of 18.08 points per race would have put him at 470 points for the regular season, just ahead of Todd Gilliland in 22nd in the final regular season points standings.
It’s still tough to think about Kyle Busch not being around anymore, and there’s no doubt that he would have pushed his Richard Childress Racing team to improve throughout the season. Busch was a fierce competitor, and despite his team’s struggles, there’s no doubt that he would have returned to the Chase before he decided to hang up his helmet for good.
