Kyle Busch embodied motorsports’ greatest compliment: He was a racer

Here’s all you need to know about Kyle Busch, the race car driver.

Have you ever seen that not-good movie “Driven”? The one-star-rated flick about IndyCar racing starring Sylvester Stallone? The most unbelievable scene in the film is when Sly’s character tosses quarters onto the racetrack and then uses them as targets for his racing machine as he wheels around the course at full speed, using only his eyes, nerve and computerlike car control to hip check all that loose change.

The idea of it is so insanely preposterous, so unrealistic, that it has long been the cinematic evidence presented by Earth’s most talented drivers as something that is physically and scientifically unattainable.

Well, Kyle Busch used to do that all the time. In a Las Vegas cul-de-sac in front of his parents’ house, behind the wheel of a tricked-out go-kart. But he didn’t use quarters. He used tiny soda can pull tabs.

He was also 6 years old.

Barely a decade later, he made his NASCAR national debut, a Truck Series race — think AAA baseball — at Indianapolis Raceway Park. He was so young that a few weeks later, he was told he’d have to go away until he turned 18 because cigarette sponsorship still paid for everything in NASCAR back then, and he wasn’t yet old enough to buy one.

When he returned to NASCAR, from that day until a day less than a week ago, when he stood in Victory Lane for the final time … until Thursday, May 21, 2026, when he died at age 41 … he became the embodiment of the compliment that every driver dreams of earning. That one word that every speed demon desires to hear others use when describing them.

“Racer.”

If you had five laps to go with a checkered flag and a trophy to win, you know who you’d want…