Almost three months after the shocking death of NASCAR’s Kyle Busch, his fellow drivers are remembering him both as a legend and a cautionary tale for many in the profession.
“There’s a flaw in the driver’s DNA,” former driver Kyle Petty told ESPN in a feature published Wednesday, August 19. “Somewhere in our DNA, we never, ever, ever believe it’s going to happen to us. It’s always somebody else. It’s denial.”
He continued, “In the larger picture of what the sport is, you have to have that denial, because if you don’t have that denial, that ability to come out the other side of it, then you can’t crawl through that window and drive a car.”
Busch died on May 21, one day after he was found unresponsive in a racing simulator in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was later revealed that he was suffering from pneumonia, which progressed into sepsis. He was 41.
The two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion appeared to be ill in the days before his death, according to those who knew him, but they didn’t think anything of it.
“He just sounded like he had a stuffed nose or something,” driver Daniel Suarez recalled. “I didn’t think anything was wrong with him. I was talking to my wife about it. I’m like, ‘Man, there’s no way he was sick.'”
Kyle Larson, who has two Cup Series championships to his name as well, agreed that Busch didn’t sound his best.
“From what I understand, he was seeking out and getting tested for whatever,” he said. “I don’t want people to think that he wasn’t taking care of himself.”
And as Kyle’s brother, Kurt Busch, said, doctors told him the circumstances that led to Kyle’s death were “one in a million.”
“That’s what makes all of this so frustrating and difficult to accept,” said Kurt, 48, a NASCAR Hall of Famer himself.
What makes it harder still is that at 41, Kyle was nearing the end of his career. He and his widow, Samantha Busch, shared son Brexton, 11, and daughter Lennix, 4. Brexton is an aspiring driver himself, who returned to the race track just weeks after his father’s death.
“My brother’s mentality was perfect for the end of his career to try to time it out to where his racing would coincide with Brexton,” Kurt said. “And that way Brexton’s getting the utmost attention from a current driver to develop him faster, quicker, stronger.”
Brad Keselowski, a driver only a year older than Kyle, said he could relate to his late colleague, thinking about the ailments he has tried to push through.
“I drove through concussions, through a broken ankle, broken leg, broken ribs, colds. I ran a race when I had the flu and won it,” he said. “I personally don’t feel like driving the race car was a mistake for Kyle.”
