Rowdy Forever: The Unforgettable Legacy Of Kyle Busch

There will never be another Kyle Busch.

This is the hardest thing the sport has seen since the passing of Dale Earnhardt Sr.

The legacy of Busch goes far beyond the numbers, and those numbers are incredible.

He was a two-time Cup Series champion, the 2009 O'Reilly Auto Parts Series champion, and leaves behind 63 Cup Series wins, 102 O'Reilly Auto Parts wins (most all-time), 69 Craftsman Truck Series wins (most all-time), and 234 total NASCAR wins (most all-time). He was the first driver to ever win on every Cup Series track he competed on and was named one of NASCAR’s top 75 drivers of all-time.

The list goes on and on.

But throughout all the victories and championship moments, it will be the person Kyle was that we remember most.

Kyle earned the nickname “Rowdy,” and he wasn’t afraid to make enemies.

From the day he entered the sport to his final race, he never backed down.

You may have hated him. He probably wrecked your favorite driver at some point, maybe even intentionally, but you had to respect him.

What made Kyle so refreshing was that he wasn’t afraid to be himself.

He won the first race in the Car of Tomorrow in 2007 at Bristol, and what did he do? He pulled into victory lane on national television and complained about how much NASCAR’s new car sucked.

That same year, he wrecked his own brother Kurt in the All-Star Race, and the two didn’t speak to each other until their grandma forced them to make peace at Thanksgiving.

In 2009, after winning an O'Reilly Auto Parts race at Nashville, he smashed a custom hand-painted guitar designed by Sam Bass during his celebration so he could give a piece of it to every member of his crew. The guitar was valued at around $25,000, and Bass wasn’t too happy about it.

Even as he got older and wiser, the fire never left him.

Just last month, he told FOX News’ Sean Hannity that he still had a “hate list” that included Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski, and Carson Hocevar, the same driver many have compared to a young Kyle Busch.

Kyle’s impact went far beyond what he did behind the wheel.

He and his wife Samantha openly shared their struggles with fertility issues before welcoming their two children, Brexton and Lennix. Rather than keeping it private, they created the Bundle of Joy Fund to help countless other families with IVF treatments.

While Kyle was one of the fiercest competitors in NASCAR, a softer side showed when he became a father.

In his later years, he was just as invested, if not more so, in helping Brexton build his own racing career.

The two even raced together on track for the first time last year at Millbridge Speedway. Brexton is already well on his way to following in his father’s footsteps.

Personally, I got to see this other side of Kyle firsthand.

After he won the 2019 Cup Series championship, I sat down with him for a one-on-one interview. The very first person he mentioned wasn’t a crew member or even himself, it was J.D. Gibbs.

He said winning that title was in honor of his former boss, who had tragically passed away earlier that year.

It wasn’t just inspiration Kyle gave other drivers, it was opportunity.

His Kyle Busch Motorsports team dominated for 14 seasons, winning 113 races, two Truck Series championships, and launching the careers of stars like Christopher Bell, William Byron, Bubba Wallace, Erik Jones, Daniel Suarez, Noah Gragson, John Hunter Nemechek, and Corey Heim.

Kyle leaves this world better than he found it.

We should all be grateful we got to watch a man who gave everything he had in every single thing he did, on the track and off it, while reminding us not to take ourselves too seriously and to have fun doing it.

Kyle will be missed, but he will never be forgotten.