Eleven years old, started fourteenth, and drove to the front. That’s the kind of story that’d make a grown man put down his beer and just sit there for a minute.
Brexton Busch — son of two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch, who died May 21 at age 41 — won a Restrictor Micro dirt race at Port City Raceway in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Friday, July 17. He started 14th in a field of 9-to-16-year-olds and carved his way through traffic to take the checkered flag. He also won the seventh heat in the Non-Wing Micro class and finished sixth in that division’s feature.
Nearly two months have passed since Kyle Busch died of hemorrhagic shock and disseminated intravascular coagulation — complications from sepsis brought on by presumed bacterial pneumonia he’d been fighting for what his death certificate described as “days to weeks.” The man raced 762 Cup Series events over 24 years, won two championships, and racked up more combined victories across NASCAR’s top three divisions than anybody in history. And now his kid is out there in a micro sprint car, running the same kind of short-track dirt his old man cut his teeth on.
Samantha Busch, Kyle’s widow and Brexton’s mother, described the moment on Instagram. “This is his very first win since Kyle’s passing,” she wrote. “There was a lot of emotions to say the very least. Beyond proud of him not just for winning but all that he’s navigating at young age, beyond shattered Kyle isn’t here to be part of this, beyond grateful for all the support and amazing people we have around us.”
Brexton posted his own remembrance of his father after the race.
The kid has been racing since he was 6. Last year alone he won 48 competitions across Legends cars, bandoleros, micros, bandits, late models, and sprint cars. Forty-eight. Most grown men in this sport don’t see victory lane 48 times in a career, let alone a season. He’s got a Legends season wrapping up at Charlotte Motor Speedway later this month.
In August, Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem — the same quarter-mile bullring NASCAR just returned to for its preseason Clash — will host the first Kyle Busch Invitational, a night of Legends and Bandolero racing. Whether Brexton competes hasn’t been announced.
Drivers across the Cup Series garage have continued honoring Busch throughout the season since his death. The No. 8 Richard Childress Racing team and competitors across the field have paid homage in various ways, keeping the memory of a driver who won 63 Cup races and never met a lap he didn’t think he could lead.
Fourteenth to first on a dirt track in Tulsa, two months after burying your dad. Some things don’t need analytics to explain, pal. Some things you just feel in your chest.
Sources
- Yahoo Sports / USA TODAY — Brexton Busch, Kyle Busch’s son, wins first race since father’s death
- Wikipedia — Kyle Busch