It was a beautiful day in Charlotte. I woke up in uptown, poured a fresh cup of coffee, and stood at the window the way you do when the weather finally turns and the city decides to show off. There is no way — no way — I thought I'd be writing this.
Kyle Busch is gone. He was 41.
Richard Childress Racing, NASCAR and the Busch family confirmed it Thursday afternoon. He had been hospitalized with a sudden and severe illness. They didn't say more than that, and they asked for privacy, and they should have it.
Let me tell you something, folks. I have spent a lot of years describing the things Kyle Busch did on a racetrack, and I never once had to reach for the words. He gave you the story every time. Two Cup Series championships. Sixty-three Cup wins, ninth on the list of everybody who ever did it. Two hundred and thirty-four wins across NASCAR's three national series — more than ANY driver who has ever strapped in. Records in the O'Reilly Series and the Trucks that I'm not sure anybody touches again.
They called him Rowdy. The fans took the name and made it their own — Rowdy Nation — and it was never quiet. You either loved the guy or you loved booing him, and he was just fine with both. That was the genius of it. He made you feel something every single week.
And here's the thing I keep coming back to this morning. He was still doing it. Six days ago he won a Truck race at Dover — led most of it, took a bow, looked like a kid who'd just figured the sport out for the first time. Forty-one years old and still the best on the property. You're not supposed to lose somebody in the middle of a sentence like that.
He leaves his wife, Samantha. He leaves Brexton, who's eleven, and Lennix, who's four — and if you followed Kyle at all, you watched those two grow up in victory lane and on the grid, right there beside him. He leaves his brother, Kurt, a champion in his own right. And he leaves a garage full of people who came up because he handed them a ride and a chance.
He leaves it this week, of all weeks. Sunday is the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway — the longest day on the calendar, right here in this town, with the whole sport in one place. It is going to be a hard one. There will be a lot of people in that garage who knew him, who raced him, who got beat by him and respected him for it. This city is going to have to say goodbye in front of a full house.
Look. I don't have a clean way to end this, because there isn't one. The coffee next to me has gone cold. It's raining in Charlotte now — rolled in gray and quiet while I was writing this. Maybe the day knew after all.
Rest easy, Rowdy.