BROOKLYN, Mich. — Richard Childress had hoped to announce a contract extension for Kyle Busch this weekend at Michigan International Speedway.
Instead, the longtime owner of Richard Childress Racing held a news conference Saturday at the track to publicly address the unexpected death of the veteran NASCAR driver for the first time. Busch, a two-time Cup Series champion, died May 21 in North Carolina after severe pneumonia progressed into sepsis for the 41-year-old Las Vegas native.
For Childress, whose NASCAR team weathered the loss of seven-time Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt at age 49 after his fatal crash at the 2001 Daytona 500, the ache was all too familiar.
“You lose two of the greatest drivers that’s ever driven a car in NASCAR and to have to go through it again, I just feel so bad for the family and the employees and everybody,” Childress said. “But yeah, I mean, I haven’t slept very good lately.”
Childress said he spoke to Busch the night before he was hospitalized after becoming unresponsive while testing in the Chevrolet racing simulator in Concord, North Carolina.
Busch, who was in the final year of his contract with RCR, which he joined ahead of the 2023 season after a 15-year run with Joe Gibbs Racing, died the next day. His death certificate cited hemorrhagic shock and disseminated intravascular coagulation.
Busch was in a 105-race drought without a Cup Series victory after winning three of his first 15 starts since joining RCR. However, he had finished a season-best eighth on the road course at New York’s Watkins Glen International on May 10 after a crew chief change, and Childress said there were positive discussions about Busch returning to the No. 8 Chevrolet next year.
“He said, ‘You give me cars like you gave me the last three weeks, I will make the Chase this year,'” Childress said of NASCAR’s postseason to determine the Cup Series champion. “We were that confident.”
With RCR switching to the No. 33, Austin Hill has driven Busch’s car the past two races: the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 24 and last Sunday’s Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway. Childress said the 32-year-old Hill, who finished 27th in both races, will remain behind the wheel the rest of the season.
“We don’t want to put a burden back on everybody trying to go from one driver to the other,” Childress said.
The team is safeguarding the No. 8 for the possible Cup Series career of 11-year-old Brexton Busch, even if Kyle’s son races for another team. Kyle and Brexton had been on hunting trips recently with Childress, who watched the father and son race at a dirt track in the Charlotte area.
“Talking to Kyle at different times, knowing his plans and what he had in the future for Brexton and his family, the many things that we all could have done together, that was probably the toughest part of this whole thing,” Childress said.
Childress, 80, founded his team in 1969 and has been leaning on grandsons Austin and Ty Dillon — both are Cup Series drivers — to guide the organization along with RCR president Mike Verlander and team executive Mike Dillon, Childress’ son-in-law. Ty Dillon drives for Kaulig Racing, while Austin Dillon drives for RCR in a Chevrolet sporting the same No. 3 that once belonged to Earnhardt, who was not only a driver for the team but a close friend of the owner.
“It’s never easy,” Childress said. “They just gave me a little bit of time to get my head right.”
He believes Busch should go immediately into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, which elected its 2027 class last month. In addition to his Cup Series titles from 2015 and 2019, Busch earned a record 234 combined wins across NASCAR’s top three national circuits: 63 in the top-tier Cup Series, 102 in the second-tier car series currently sponsored by O’Reilly Auto Parts, and 69 in the third-tier Truck Series.
Whenever he is honored at the Charlotte shrine, he will join his older brother Kurt, who was inducted earlier this year, with Kyle speaking as his presenter during the ceremony.
“Kyle will go down in history as one of the greatest race drivers that’s ever been,” Childress said. “His legacy is that he was a man that a lot of people thought he was tough to deal with, and that he wouldn’t last long. He is a man that loves his sport. He loved it so much he wanted to see his family carry on in it. To see the enjoyment in Kyle’s eyes watching his son race was just unbelievable.”