“I can’t thank you enough, KB. You are the ultimate racer and my favorite teammate and driver of all time. I always felt like I had your back and you had mine,” Austin Dillon said in a lengthy, and immensely touching post on Instagram, where he remembered his Richard Childress Racing teammate Kyle Busch, who passed away on Thursday at the age of 41.
Of all the tribute posts that have come out, so far, honoring and remembering the fierce and tenacious racer who hailed from Las Vegas, NV, Dillon’s may be the most touching.
Toward the end of the letter, Dillon vowed that he would always be there for Busch’s widow, Samantha, and their two children, Brexton and Lennix.
“My favorite conversations with you were our conversations about Brexton and his abilities on the race track. I know how happy and excited he made you. You raised one of the nicest, well-mannered kids, and that is a direct reflection of his parents,” Dillon said. “Sam is one strong woman and the best MOMager in the business. I promise to always be there for Sam, Brex, and Lennix. They are RCR family for life.”
In the tribute letter, Dillon reveals that he always admired Busch’s racing talent and that he secretly was a Kyle Busch fan, while his Richard Childress Racing team saw Busch as a fierce rival for the majority of his racing career.
“It was clear every race who had the most talent and who hated to lose the most,” Dillon said. “For obvious reasons, my family was never the biggest fan of this guy. He was the enemy at the time, and he was hard to beat. I could never really show my fandom, but secretly I was a fan.”
The bad blood between Busch and the Richard Childress-owned race team was so intense that at Kansas Speedway in 2011, Childress took exception to how Joey Coulter, an RCR NASCAR Truck Series driver at the time, was raced by Busch. After the race was over, Childress, 65 years old at the time, took off his wristwatch, handed it to Austin Dillon, and proceeded to put Busch in a headlock and began wailing away on his face.
12 years later, Kyle Busch had lost his ride at Joe Gibbs Racing, and it was Austin Dillon, who got the ball rolling on bringing Busch in as the driver of the team’s No. 8 Chevrolet. When Dillon contacted Busch to gauge his interest in joining Richard Childress Racing, Busch had the same reaction to the question from Dillon that his grandfather, Richard Childress, had.
“When you became available in 2023, it was a no-brainer that we had to go after you,” Dillon recalled. “When I made the call, your response was hilarious. You asked, ‘Do you think your Grandpa would want me?’ I had already checked with my Grandpa, and his response was the same as yours, ‘Do you think he would want to come to RCR?’ I said, ‘Yes. You both are the same people. You are RACERS.'”
Dillon recalls his grandfather becoming so excited to add Busch to his race team, and he heard Childress say, ‘He’s the only guy I’ve ever seen drive like Dale. He takes no prisoners.'”
That’s high praise coming from a man who once clocked the other in the face.
And Busch’s signing with Richard Childress Racing in 2023 signaled that no matter how angry Busch could make people with his intense driving style, he had earned massive respect within the industry. And over the years, Busch had found better ways of showing that he reciprocated that respect.
As a result, a once-hated villain of the sport had become one of the top-five most popular drivers in the sport over the last few years. Busch had more talent than you could ever expect a person to have, and he had finally earned the adoration that he deserved. Unfortunately, the legend was taken from us far too soon.
