On Nov. 22, 2015, as the laps wound down at the Ford Ecoboost 400 in Homestead, the entire No. 18 M&M’s Toyota team — owner Joe Gibbs, crew chief Adam Stevens, half a dozen yellow-firesuited crew members — paced and fidgeted, their nerves raw, their hopes battling their dread. The championship was on the line here, and everyone on the team was an anxious, sweating mess.
Everyone, that is, but the driver, Kyle Busch, who was singing a cartoon theme song.
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As he drew closer and closer to a championship, Busch sang the theme to “VocabuLarry,” the favorite show of his then-6-month-old son Brexton. It kept him calm, it confused the hell out of his crew chief … and it worked.
On that night, Kyle Busch claimed his first Cup championship. On that night, he proved he was as great as he’d always claimed he was. On that night, his deeds finally caught up to his words.
Kyle Busch died on Thursday afternoon, a devastating shock to a sport once accustomed to them. He was a throwback driver, a charismatic pain in the ass who’d beat you on the track and then insult you off of it. But he was also thoughtful and intelligent, happy to play the role of the heel before the cameras and the crowds, more happy to focus on children — those who asked for his autograph, and later, his own — when the cameras focused elsewhere.
Busch was so good so early that he didn’t really need to learn anything approaching humility. He was racing at the national level at 16, winning poles and Cup races for the esteemed Hendrick Motorsports when he was 20. You pile up the victories that fast, it’ll go to your head, and Busch was such a monumental headache that Hendrick cut ties with him in 2007.
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He toured the garage, looking for an offer, and found an unexpected ally: Gibbs, the Super Bowl-winning former NFL head coach who had more than a little experience dealing with high-strung, emotional 22-year-olds.
“You’re kinda this fireball of emotions-type kid, and you’re kinda in trouble a lot,” Busch later recalled Gibbs saying. “Why should we hire you?”
“You probably shouldn’t,” Busch conceded. But Gibbs did anyway, and their partnership became one of the most successful in NASCAR history.
Wheeling Gibbs’ yellow M&M’s No. 18 Toyota, Busch won 56 Cup races and two championships. Over the course of his career, he won at least one Cup race every year from 2005 through 2023, and no driver has ever won more races across all of NASCAR’s three national series than Busch’s 234. When Richard Petty is 34 career wins behind you, you’re racing right.
Kyle Busch celebrates with his son Brexton and wife Samantha after winning the 2015 Cup championship.
(Sarah Crabill via Getty Images)
That 2015 season marked the pivotal point in Busch’s career. Back in February, he suffered broken bones in both legs in an Xfinity Series race at Daytona, his car skidding through the infield grass to collide with a still-unprotected wall in Turn 1 of the massive track.
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Doctors said Busch would be out for six months; he was back behind the wheel in three. He won in his fifth race back, then won three of the next four after that. The rest of the field had a three-month head start on him, and he ran them down in a matter of weeks.
Life off the track changed him in 2015, too. Wife Samantha gave birth to Brexton on May 18, at the same time as Busch was recuperating from his Daytona injuries. Suddenly, the race-obsessed kid got a look at life beyond the high banks and finish lines, and realized that there was more to living than just speed.
“The recovery process, I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re trying to achieve a championship,” Busch said at the time, “but it made us mentally stronger and physically stronger.”
He won that 2015 finale, and a whole lot more races after that, too. But just as importantly, he’d won respect — from his fellow drivers, from the fans, from the entire sport. Like Dale Earnhardt and Tony Stewart before him, he grew into his talent, and outgrew his attitude.
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Well, most of it, anyway. Busch still loved to do the mocking bows at booing fans after he won yet another race, but he smiled through it all. Everyone knew the game, everyone knew this was part of the show.
Kyle Busch takes a bow after winning at Bristol in 2009.
(John Harrelson via Getty Images)
The difference between a show and a race, though, is that races aren’t scripted ahead of time. You’ve got to go out and win them yourself, lap after lap, track after track. And year after year, long after his championship-winning days, he just kept on racing, and kept on winning.
His most recent victory came just six days ago, when he captured the Truck Series race at Dover. He was wearing a Hendrick Motorsports firesuit — yes, he and Rick Hendrick long ago made up — and he filled it out a little more, as we all do eventually. He was a little slower in his movements than he’d been as a cocky teenager, and the fans were now applauding rather than booing him, but as he stood on the track, basking in yet another victory, he was right where he belonged.
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“Why do these moments never get old, Kyle?” Fox Sports’ Amanda Busick asked him.
“Because you never know when the last one is,” Busch said, smiling.
He didn’t know it at the time — who could even imagine it? — but that was Kyle Busch’s final points race. How right, how perfect, how fitting that he won it.
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