Richard Childress knew Kyle Busch had big plans, just like Dale Earnhardt Sr. did
Richard Childress thought this would go differently.
The six-time NASCAR Cup Series champion owner had planned to have Kyle Busch by his side on the Saturday before the Cup race at Michigan International Speedway. It’d be celebratory. Childress was supposed to share good news: that the driver of the No. 8 car — the 41-year-old legend of the sport who’d been gaining momentum as of late — was going to be back at Richard Childress Racing for at least one more season, in 2027.
“We wanted to do it up here in Michigan, with our GM friends, with Chevrolet,” Childress said. “And it didn’t happen. This is a different type of media availability.”
Indeed it was.
Kyle Busch was not by his side. There were no balloons or photo ops with fake paper and sharpies and ceremonial hoopla. Busch was gone — a reality the sport of American stock car racing, particularly those closest to Busch, is still coming to grips with.
“I talked to him Tuesday night before everything went down Wednesday night and Thursday,” Childress said of Busch. “And we had a great conversation. He said, ‘You give me cars like you gave me the last three weeks, and I will make The Chase (10-driver playoffs) this year. We were both that confident.”
He continued: “We haven’t had the year that any of us expected or wanted. We started out like gangbusters (winning the pole at the Daytona 500). It just didn’t go. ... That’s the tough part of today. Even walking in here, I was thinking: ‘What if he and I were walking in here together?’”
Busch died on May 21, a few days before the Coca-Cola 600. The official cause of death was severe pneumonia, which devolved into sepsis and caused multiple other complications. Busch’s death certificate, on file at the Mecklenburg Register of Deeds Office and obtained by The Charlotte Observer, states that the sepsis lasted “one day,” and that caused abnormal clotting throughout blood vessels in his body and eventually “hours” of hemorrhagic shock.
And throughout the days-that-have-felt-like-months outpouring of shock and sadness and love and more sadness, Childress has been by the Busch family’s side. He was there standing with them at the Coke 600, when they made their first appearance since his death. He also made a profound promise to the Busch family — that Busch’s number, No. 8, is “reserved and ready” for Brexton Busch, Kyle’s 11-year-old son, when he’s ready to go NASCAR racing.
Childress has been everywhere, doing nearly anything to help, he said.
But the Cup car owner and fixture in the sport can’t shake something in particular. He can’t stop dwelling on all these unfinished plans, all these unimaginable roadblocks. It’s the same way that he felt in February 2001, when Childress was a close friend and the car owner of Dale Earnhardt Sr., The Intimidator, the titan of the sport whose greatness couldn’t be embodied by a statue in his hometown or the seven Cup championships to his name.
Earnhardt had big plans, too, before he suddenly died on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. Childress remembers them.
“The sad part for me, looking back, is knowing what Dale Earnhardt had in mind, and the plans he had for him and his future,” Childress said. “And sitting and talking to Kyle at different times, and knowing his plans and what he (saw) in the future for him and Brexton and his family and the many things that we all could’ve done together. That was probably the toughest part of this whole thing.”
‘Two of the greatest drivers’ to ever be in NASCAR
It’s tough to quantify Busch’s contribution to NASCAR. In fact, in many ways, the easiest way to contextualize Busch’s career is to compare his to Earnhardt’s.
The 41-year-old racing icon had 63 Cup Series wins as a driver to his name, ninth-most all-time. Busch also won 234 NASCAR races across all three national series — the most in NASCAR history — and added two Cup championships. He did it for a long time, too: He won his first Cup race in 2005 as a 20-year-old and won his last in 2023, notching a win at least once in each of those 19 seasons.
He had skirmishes along the way, no doubt. One of those skirmishes, in fact, involved Childress himself, in 2011 at Kansas Speedway, when the then-65-year-old car owner for an opposing team got into a physical altercation with Busch after an on-track incident. The tussle has since been canonized in NASCAR lore because of what Childress said to his grandson, Austin Dillon, before swinging on Busch: “Hold my watch.”
But Busch and Childress made amends in 2023, when they needed each other. Busch needed a race team after not re-signing with Joe Gibbs Racing at the conclusion of 2022; Childress needed another driver. Childress was in the market for a certain driver in particular — one that reminded him of his late friend and champion, Earnhardt Sr. And Childress got an Earnhardt descendant in Busch — a driver who some considered a villain for his take-no-prisoners style, a father, an all-time great who for the longest time couldn’t win the biggest race of them all.
And, tragically, a legend of the sport who died too soon.
Childress sat up on the Michigan International Speedway media center stage having provided the rides for two of the sport’s generational superstars, and, now at 80 years old, outlived both.
He couldn’t shake the reality Saturday — and he didn’t hide from it.
“You lose two of the greatest drivers who’ve 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. “I haven’t slept real good lately; I’ll leave it at that.”
Austin Hill and Kevin Harvick
Childress continued on about Busch on Saturday, and with every comment, you could tell Earnhardt was on his mind and heart. Among the other things he said: He’d like to see Busch put in the NASCAR Hall of Fame “right away” and have the sanctioning body waive the two-year post-retirement hiatus for such an occasion. He hopes to see Brexton have a long and fulfilling career in NASCAR like Big E’s son did. He also planned on Austin Hill running in RCR’s second full-time chartered Cup entry for the rest of the season, running in the No. 33 car.
Hill, like Kevin Harvick 25 years ago, is in a difficult position.
Replacing a legend, with a new number, a new scheme, same sponsors, unbearable circumstances.
It’s a product of two breathtakingly difficult changes of plans — both of whom Childress has had to navigate through.
“Back then (in 2001), I told Bobby Hutchins to call NASCAR and get the lowest number available, and it happened to be No. 29, when we put Harvick in it,” Childress said. “And we talked about it, and we decided that Austin Hill was the one we needed to put in it at this time.”
This story was originally published June 6, 2026 at 1:42 PM.
