Kyle Busch’s death forced Ryan Blaney to say something he’d never said before. Blaney sat down for an interview this week that started as most do: a few warm words, a quick acknowledgment of recent news. It ended somewhere far more personal. The questions were really about Father’s Day. The answers turned into something else entirely.

“He was somebody I admired, somebody I watched, and somebody I wanted to be like.”

That’s Blaney talking about Busch, the NASCAR legend who died on May 21 at age 41. It’s a simple sentence, but it’s not one you hear often from a driver about a rival he raced against every weekend for years.

Busch’s death was sudden and without warning. He’d been fighting what looked like a bad sinus cold for weeks. Two weeks before he passed, the heat and strain of a road-course race at Watkins Glen made things worse, bad enough that he needed a doctor at his car right after the checkered flag. He kept racing anyway.

On May 15, he won at Dover, his 234th career national series win, and his last. Five days later, he collapsed inside a racing simulator in Concord, North Carolina. By the next afternoon, he was gone.
Doctors later confirmed bacterial pneumonia had triggered sepsis, which led to hemorrhagic shock.

His team, Richard Childress Racing, pulled his No. 8 car from competition and is holding the number for his son, Brexton, for whenever he’s old enough to race. Blaney didn’t shy away from how strange the last few weeks have felt.

“It’s been kind of surreal not having Kyle at the racetrack every week because ever since I started racing, he was there,” he said.

He talked about Busch’s family, his wife Samantha, his sons Brexton and Lennox, and admitted he couldn’t fully picture what they’re going through.

“Our sport is unique in the way we all bond together,” he said. “Even though we compete against each other every weekend, we’re still one big family.”

That family is about to gather somewhere that makes this all feel even closer. NASCAR’s Cup Series heads to San Diego this Sunday for the first race ever held in that part of the country.

For a driver like Busch, whose fanbase ran deep across the West Coast, that location would’ve automatically aligned. It’s also exactly four weeks after his passing, and drivers including Kyle Larson and Joey Logano have said the loss still hangs over the garage as they head into it.

“Seeing the fan support is something you can’t look away from. Everybody wearing their Kyle Busch shirts and hats and showing their support for Kyle, that’s hard not to notice.” He hopes it continues. “He’ll never be forgotten.”

A Different Kind of Sunday for Ryan Blaney

Father’s Day means something new for Blaney this year, too. He and his wife, Gianna Tulio, welcomed their first child, a son named Charley Bennett Blaney, in November. The timing worked out almost perfectly, right in NASCAR’s offseason, giving them a few months together before the 2026 season began in February.

Ryan Blaney has said becoming a dad changed how he handles the sport’s bad days. A rough finish doesn’t follow him home anymore, not the way it used to. He’s also started noticing the small stuff more, the kind of wins that don’t show up in a standings sheet.

That shift showed up clearly in March, when he fought back from 28th place at Phoenix to win his first race as a father. He said the moment he crossed the line, his first thought was getting home to Charley and Gianna.

He’s not figuring this out alone, either. Bubba Wallace, who became a father a little over a year before Blaney, has become something of a partner in all of it. The two have been photographed walking through the garage with their sons more than once, including during Daytona 500 week earlier this year.

Two competitors on track, and now two new dads figuring out the same thing off it.