Inside Kyle Busch’s Lasting NASCAR Legacy and the Shocking Illness That Ended His Life at 41 (Exclusive)

Busch's family announced his passing on May 21, hours after he had been hospitalized.

NEED TO KNOW

• Kyle Busch, a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, was widely regarded as one of the sport’s most talented drivers
• Busch’s sudden death at 41 shocked fans and the racing community, leaving a significant void in motorsports
• He and his wife Samantha founded the Bundle of Joy Fund, which has helped over 100 families through IVF grants

Like nearly everything in Kyle Busch’s life, his death happened quickly. On May 10 the man who lived for speed — and possessed an otherworldly ability to control his car while roaring around a racetrack at more than 200 mph — radioed his crew during the final laps of New York’s Watkins Glen International, requesting that a doctor meet him on his bus. “Tell him I need him after the race, please,” Busch said. “I’m gonna need a shot.” Ten days later Busch, who still hadn’t shaken the severe sinus cold that began as a persistent cough, collapsed while practicing in a race simulator. “I’ve got an individual,” one of Busch’s coworkers told a 911 operator, “that [has] shortness of breath, very hot, thinks he’s going to pass out, and is . . . coughing up some blood.”

Busch, who was rushed to an undisclosed hospital in Charlotte, N.C., died 24 hours later on May 21 at age 41 after his sinus infection progressed into severe bilateral pneumonia and sepsis. The sudden death of the NASCAR legend, considered one of the most talented, respected and accomplished drivers in the sport, not only came as a shock to his family, millions of NASCAR fans and fellow drivers but also left an irreplaceable void in the world of motorsports. “Kyle is the Michael Jordan of NASCAR,” champion driver Daniel Suárez tells PEOPLE, summing up the impact of the wheelman known by the nickname Rowdy because of his intense work ethic and, especially early in his career, his hard-charging driving style. “His legacy is going to live forever.” 

Chances are, even if someone didn’t know anything about NASCAR, they probably knew Busch’s name. Over the course of his 25-year career, the married, doting father of two notched the most wins of any driver, with 234 total victories across NASCAR’s top three national series, paired with two Cup Series championships. His insatiable push for perfection was still in high gear in the days before his tragic death when, hours after his final victory, at the Ecosave 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race on May 15, he told a reporter that he was more focused on embracing each win than on worrying about career stats: “Take whatever you can get, man. You never know when the last one’s going to be, so cherish them all.” 

By all accounts Busch was born to race. A Las Vegas native, his father, Tom, worked as a mechanic at a Ford dealership before becoming a stock-car driver and winning several local championships. By the age of 6, Busch could often be found driving a homemade go-cart around the family’s neighborhood, and at 16, he made his professional racing debut in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series. “You think I’m a pretty good race car driver?” Busch’s older brother Kurt, a NASCAR Hall of Famer, said in 2001. “Wait until you see my brother.” Before long, Busch’s raw talent, outspoken nature and seemingly endless string of victories had earned him legions of fans — and ­plenty of vocal critics. “He had a ridiculous amount of God-given talent,” fellow driver Joey Logano told reporters on May 23 ahead of the Coca-Cola 600, a race Busch was expected to compete in before his death. “He was fiery, he had the will to win—he was going to do whatever he had to do to make that happen.” 

Busch met his future wife, Samantha, a Purdue University undergrad who was working as a promotional model—and had no idea who the famous driver was — at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2007. They married in 2010 and five years later became parents to their first child, Brexton, now 11. “Kyle has always been my rock,” Samantha, a 39-year-old lifestyle blogger and IVF advocate, previously told PEOPLE while discussing the couple’s infertility journey as they tried to have their second child, Lennix, 4, who was born via a surrogate in 2022. “So many people only know the aggressive and strong-willed side of him. . . . But the Kyle that I know is so different than that. Every time I feel like I’m falling apart, he picks me back up again.” The couple’s path to having their second child—described by Busch as “a trying and a painful journey”—inspired them to launch their nonprofit Bundle of Joy Fund, which has provided more than $2 million in grants since 2015and has helped other parents welcome 111 babies through IVF. 

Busch was still at the top of his game when he was hit by his sinus infection. By then the man who once stopped speaking to his older brother for more than a year — after the two crashed during the 2007 NASCAR All-Star Race — had toned down his win-at-all-costs persona and become increasingly focused on his family, who cheered him on at ­races. But longtime rival Brad Keselowski could tell something was off when he saw Busch on a plane days before his death. “Kyle is normally a fairly gregarious person, very outgoing — and he wasn’t,” Keselowski tells PEOPLE. “He sat down one row behind me and next to me and fell asleep right away, and I could tell he wasn’t feeling well.” Kese­lowski “didn’t really think that much of it,” but it would become the last time they were face-to-face. 

Describing how rare it is for sepsis — an extreme immune-system reaction to an infection—to kill someone Busch’s age, Dr. Todd Rice, ICU director at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who did not treat the late driver, tells PEOPLE, “My guess is that he hadn’t felt well for a few days but he was in general doing okay, and his body was kind of compensating. And then he kind of got to that point where his body couldn’t compensate anymore, and everything kind of fell apart at once.”

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On May 24, three days after Busch’s death, the suddenness of his passing was palpable amid the exhaust fumes and roaring engines before the start of the Coca-Cola 600 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Thousands of still-reeling fans packed the stands and watched as Busch’s family gathered in the grass near pit stall No. 3 while Kurt laid eight (Busch’s longtime race car number) white roses on the ground. “There were people who were saying we shouldn’t be racing,” says NASCAR driver AJ Allmendinger, admitting he could feel the celebrated driver’s presence at the massive stadium. “Can you imagine if we didn’t race this race? Kyle would have, excuse my language, basically lost his s—.”

With reporting by Tricia Despres, Eileen Finan and Sean Mandell

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