NASCAR race days won’t be as exciting without Busch, drivers say

The personal stories and opinions on the life and legacy of Kyle Busch have not been hard to find since Thursday, and will undoubtedly continue to be shared for the foreseeable future.

Busch’s absence was felt immediately at Charlotte Motor Speedway when weekend activity began for the Cup Series. A renumbered car. An eerily quiet garage area. And weather that perfectly fit the mood.

It will take time to see how Sunday races will be different without Busch in the field. Or how things change for his competitors, who had to fight for every inch against him.

“They won’t be as exciting,” William Byron said. “One of the more recent memories on track that I can think of was at Texas, off of Turn 4, he got kind of checked up. He was side by side with somebody and it was a restart coming to, I think, one of the ends of the stages, and knowing Kyle, I knew how he is, I knew he wanted all the help he could get. He’s like, ‘Give me the push, I’ll handle it.’ So, I pushed him through the dogleg at Texas, and he’s like sideways, and I’m like, ‘Man, maybe I should lift a little bit,’ and he just keeps going and makes the pass.

“He was always on the edge, and moments like that stick out on track that you’re like, he was just a badass.”

Rivals knew that somehow, some way they would always have the 8 to contend with on race day. Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

Ross Chastain has already seen what racing without Kyle Busch will be like, at least on a Friday night. He’s not sure how it will feel on Sundays. But at Charlotte, it was hard for Chastain not to get caught up thinking about how the Spire Motorsports entry is “his truck,” still branded as it was when Busch last drove it just a week ago.

Usually, Chastain doesn’t find himself thinking about anything other than what he has going on in the moment. Are his tires prepped? Is the water temperature right for the start of the race? But when he glanced up and saw Busch’s truck on the pace laps, those thoughts changed.

“And probably for an entire lap, I just stared at Corey (Day), at the truck,” said Chastain. “I don’t normally think about anything else. I don’t know that I was really thinking about anything; I was just staring at it and still in disbelief.”

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The visual absence of Busch is what Ryan Blaney immediately thinks about.

“It’s going to be different just not seeing the 8 out there and knowing that’s him,” Blaney said. “It’s just visually going to be different. It’s always weird when you race people a long time and they retire or something, and you’re like, ‘Man, the guy’s not out here anymore.’ Then in this scenario, you’re not going to see that guy anymore, just around the track and things like that, and be able to talk to him. That definitely is going to be sad. So, it’s definitely going to be different.

“It’s going to take a while for everybody to get used to not seeing the 8 out there and competing with Kyle every single week as someone you have to run with. It’s going to be tough for everybody.”

A series without Busch has not fully soaked in for Brad Keselowski. The two are long-time rivals as both drivers and Truck Series owners.

“I’ve been racing or going to racetracks and competing against Kyle Busch since 2001, so that’s 24, 25 years,” said Keselowski. “It certainly will be different. He brought a lot of different things to the sport, and specifically on track. A lot of different ways of looking at it, fresh ideas, that were things that I at least learned from. So, he was a really dedicated racer and innovator, especially in the strategic moves he made on the racetrack.

“I was just watching a video of him from Dover last week, where he had some kind of issue and was smart enough to realize he could speed down pit road, and it would be better for him. And those are the types of things that were quintessential Kyle, and so that’s irreplaceable.”

Said Chase Elliott, “It’ll be emotionally different, first and foremost. I’ve been racing and doing the Cup thing for the past 10 plus years, and I got to race against Kyle for many years before that, probably over 15-plus years of my life racing against him. So, it really doesn’t seem right going on and being on track without him out there, and I think that emotion is something that is not just going to go away.

“'Unfortunate' I don’t think really describes it. It’s kind of hard to put thoughts to words with all of it, but very appreciative and grateful to have memories I’ve had with Kyle and the lessons that he’s taught me throughout my career – good, bad, and certainly will do my very best to carry those things forward.”

Daniel Suarez was among those who struggled to find the words when talking about Busch on Saturday. Suarez considered Busch a friend and said his wife, Julia, is friends with Samantha. And Busch’s stature in the sport was someone that Suarez could consider superhero-esque.

“I don’t really know,” said Suarez of how Cup Series races will be different. “All I know is that for now, it’s going to be completely different because the 8 is not going to be on the track and a Busch is not going to be in the Cup Series, and that’s very, very difficult. I think time fixes things. That doesn’t mean we’re going to forget it, but things are going to get better. But today is obviously very impactful.”

Busch made 762 starts in the Cup Series, which had led active drivers.