Even weeks after Kyle Busch’s passing, it is difficult for fans to wrap their heads around the tragedy. What made the loss even harder to digest was the uncertainty surrounding it, as he had been hospitalized with a “severe illness.” Multiple drivers came forward to pay their tribute to the driver, and one among them was Denny Hamlin. Their bond stemmed from a decade-long partnership at Joe Gibbs Racing, and even today, their shared legacy as teammates is enough to make Denny Hamlin emotional.

“I knew my career was going to end before his career was going to end. We didn’t know what was going to happen, but I kind of resigned to the fact that I thought we weren’t going to overtake Kyle,” Hamlin said as he mused over the recent debate of him winning more races than Kyle Busch.

“We still might not; we don’t know if this is the last one; we don’t know. But it just shows how good he was for so long. Yeah, I saw the stats online, where we raced 500 races together, and he finished ahead of me 10 more times. Then I beat him with the same equipment. He certainly taught me a lot.”

Sitting at the 62-win mark currently, there is no doubt that Denny Hamlin will end up surpassing Kyle Busch in the number of wins in the NASCAR Cup Series. In fact, for the greater part of this season, the story revolved around his progress in the Cup Series compared to Busch. But for the two individuals involved, this story had two completely different aspects.

On one hand, Kyle Busch was ready to relinquish his spot atop the wins list to someone like Hamlin. Busch appeared content with his career total; his focus was no longer on adding to that number but on returning to Victory Lane and getting his career back on track.

Meanwhile, the aggressor, Denny Hamlin, couldn’t care less about the number of wins. He was more interested in claiming the championship and retiring from the Cup Series. And as fate would have it, Hamlin didn’t get a chance to earn himself a pat on his back from his old friend when he reached the magic number.

But when Hamlin heard what Busch had been saying about him, he couldn’t help but take a trip down memory lane and reflect on the many years they spent together as teammates at JGR.

“You see so many tributes, and people have stories that you just didn’t know, and then I didn’t realize just a few months ago he had a QnA,” Hamlin recalled. “They asked him, ‘Who has he learned from the most teammate-wise?’ and he said me, and I was like, ‘That made me feel good.’ I didn’t realize that he had said that, and it just was an honor to be his teammate for 15 years. And he just raised my game. Without him as a teammate, there’s no way I would have won the races that I did, especially I did today.”

When two people work together for that long, they run the risk of ending their partnership on a sour note. Take Daniel Suarez and Ross Chastain, for example. Earlier this year in Las Vegas, Chastain made pointed remarks about Suarez’s departure from Trackhouse Racing, despite the two having been teammates just months earlier. It speaks volumes about the mutual respect between Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch.

Eternal frenemies pushing each other hard and fighting along the way

Even though the duo was competing feverishly right from the get-go at JGR, they never stopped having appreciation for each other’s racecraft. Between the two of them, they brought JGR 104 wins in the Cup Series. The only real differentiator between the two was the two championship titles Kyle Busch won at JGR, but they never held it against each other.

“Way to ‘pound ’em into the ground,'” was Hamlin’s message to Busch after ‘Rowdy’ won his first title in 2015.

Even though they went head-to-head in 2019 during the Championship Four race, and Busch came out on top, Hamlin graciously accepted his defeat, claiming he did his best. In fact, they established that dynamic years ago when they participated in their first test as Joe Gibbs Racing teammates at Atlanta in 2007.

“I think that that right there sort of just solidified our relationship for one another, like I’m going to push you and you’re going to push me and we’re going to make JGR as great as we can,” Busch said at the time.

It’s not like they did not trade blows and were buddy-buddy every day. In fact, in the 2020 NASCAR All-Star Race, Hamlin made such a block on Kyle Busch that ‘Rowdy’ was ready to risk it all after the race. Later on, they had to be physically separated by team owner Joe Gibbs.

How did Hamlin react to that? Only days later, he brushed it off like some good old fight among married couples.

“That’s Kyle in the moment, and he’s said worse things about me for sure at other times. I told him my job as the leader is to do everything I can to win that race. This race, in specific, is a much different beast than what a points race is, and I think he understands that,” Hamlin said in an interview.

So it’s no wonder that even years after Busch left JGR, Hamlin always considered their rivalry a friendly competition.

Even recently, when things started going wrong between the two of them, Hamlin and Busch had no trouble settling their differences. A poorly phrased comment about Rowdy’s performance on Denny Hamlin’s podcast was enough to stir up Busch. Once again, Rowdy reverted to his old ways, jokingly threatening Hamlin that he could easily take it out on him on the racetrack.

But Hamlin, being Hamlin, simply called it ‘tough love’ and, during a pre-race show with FOX, reiterated his genuine concern and appreciation for Busch. He further emphasized it by crediting Busch for making him a better driver at racing mile-and-a-half-long intermediate tracks.

In retrospect, they ended the feud and reignited their friendship on a better note right before tragedy struck ‘Rowdy.’

“Being on my podcast, saying maybe this, maybe that. And, like Kyle Busch, he takes it personally, as he should. He says, ‘See, I can still get it done.’ And I said, ‘I’m proud of you.'” Hamlin revealed the conversation he had with Kyle Busch during a promotional shoot for the Dover Motor Speedway.

Hamlin was more than happy for Busch after ‘Rowdy’ claimed victory during the Truck race in Dover, insisting that his ‘Swagger’ is back and that NASCAR needs Busch talking in the third person again. And even though he couldn’t pay homage to his friend at Charlotte, Hamlin didn’t forget to bow in his remembrance at Nashville, grateful for all that Busch taught him while competing with him over the years.