“I can’t thank you enough, KB. You are the ultimate racer and my favorite teammate and driver of all time. I always felt like I had your back and you had mine…” Those were the words Austin Dillon chose when he sat down to write Dear KB, his emotional tribute to Kyle Busch. It wasn’t a short social media post or simply some sentences crafted together, but read more like a heartfelt letter from someone who was still trying to process that sudden loss. Now, nearly two weeks later Dillon is still carrying the grief with him.

Yet again, Dillon came up to talk about the loss and this time not just for him but for the team that almost spends the entire year together. From traveling together, racing together, celebrating victories together to even weathering those heartbreaks together. When you spend that much time around the same people, they become more than coworkers. They become family. Dillon came up to say how dark of a week it was for them.

“I’m really proud to be part of RCR and proud of our employees for, you know, doing what they can. And it was obviously one of the toughest weeks of RCR’s history,” Dillon said in a press conference ahead of the Cracker Barrel 400. For Dillon, the hardest part was seeing firsthand how deeply the loss affected everyone around him.

“From my side, for the first time, really being able to understand what everybody’s going through. It was hard, and it’s going to be hard, but the people that we have at RCR are the ones that I would want to go through with this,” he added. Those words carried extra weight because Dillon had a front-row seat to what was happening behind the scenes.

While Richard Childress and several other executives, including Mike Dillon, went to the hospital in Charlotte, where Busch was battling pneumonia, Dillon stayed back at the RCR shop. In Rowdy’s absence, he communicated updates, supported staff, and worked through difficult decisions about the team’s future. But nobody had it harder than Childress, who was holding it together only for the Busch family.

Since Busch’s passing on the 21st of May, he has been very silent in public. The 80-year-old team owner stood next to Samantha and Brexton Busch at NASCAR’s memorial ceremony at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and he hasn’t spoken to the media till now. For those who know Childress that silence speaks volumes.

“You see him standing next to Samantha and Brexton supporting them, and as bad as he hurts, he’s going to put them first. And that’s you know who Richard Childress is. He’s the guy who’s going to make sure that everybody else is taken care of before he is. And sometimes, you know, that is not the right thing to do, but that’s the way he’s going to do it,” Kevin Harvick said on his Happy Hour podcast.

Harvick knows that side of Childress better than most. He has watched the team owner as he was heartbroken by Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s tragic death at the Daytona 500, back in 2001. Things got to a point that he even considered walking away from racing altogether.

“I’ll never forget walking in… Richard was sitting behind his desk looked like he hadn’t slept in, you know, three days. Kevin Hamlin had a bottle of Jack Daniels in a cup and just sitting there, and he, obviously, had plenty of cups of Jack Daniels,” Harvick recalled.

Childress only continued at the highest level because of a promise he had made to Earnhardt not to quit the sport. Now, 25 years later, he finds himself in another gut-wrenchingly similar situation. And he is powering on, albeit silently, for now.

Hill has replaced Busch at the team for the time being, driving the No. 33 Chevrolet at Charlotte and now Nashville. However the organization has decided to retire the No. 8, reserving it for Busch’s son, Brexton, should he eventually reach the Cup Series. As for whether Austin Hill will become Busch’s permanent replacement, there is no word yet. For now, the entire organization remains focused on healing.

NASCAR’s biggest names honor Kyle Busch’s legacy

The tributes to Kyle Busch have continued pouring in from every corner of the garage, with many drivers using race weekends not just to compete, but to honor a man who impacted so many careers. Daniel Suarez made it apparent who was on his mind following his victory at the Coca-Cola 600.

“It’s been a very tough week,” Suarez said in Victory Lane. “Kyle was a special man. I did this one for Kyle, Samantha, Brexton, and Lennix, for his family. It was very special. Every win is special, but this one definitely is special because it’s for Kyle… this one is for him.”

These comments carried extra meaning for Suarez. Busch was one of the veteran drivers who welcomed him into the garage and helped him adjust to life in the United States when he moved from Mexico to chase his NASCAR dream. Suarez’s tribute at Charlotte is especially emotional because he has often spoken about the support and guidance he received during those early years.

Chase Elliott, meanwhile, has considered honoring Busch differently. Following the example set by his father, Bill Elliott, after Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s death in 2001, Elliott admitted that he had thought about removing his name from NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver ballot, an award he has won eight consecutive years.

“I’ve certainly thought about it,” Elliott admitted when discussing the possibility.

Denny Hamlin’s tribute was equally heartfelt, but also highlighted the competitive side of Busch’s legacy, and even called him a generational driver.

“There’s no way that I would have the wins that I have had had I not had Kyle Busch as a teammate pushing me to be better,” Hamlin said.

At Joe Gibbs Racing, the two worked together for years and were constantly measuring themselves against each other. With each driver pushing the other to improve every week, their internal competition became one of NASCAR’s most intriguing teammate rivalries.

Busch influenced a whole generation of drivers, whether through friendship, mentorship, rivalry, or inspiration. The recurring theme throughout the tributes is that NASCAR lost more than just a champion. It lost someone who helped shape the careers of many of today’s racing stars.