When Kyle Busch is screaming in the car, you know it’s serious. But on one May evening in 2018, the screams were meant to celebrate the years of hard work, as Rowdy finally won the Coca-Cola 600. Exiting Turn 3 on Lap 400, Busch knew what he had done, and it showed in his words. “This one’s very special. I don’t know if there’s anything that can top Homestead (the 2015 title race), just with the meaning of what the championship is. But the Coke 600 – I’ve dreamt of this race since I was a kid. To be able to come out here and win the Coca-Cola 600, it’s a little boy’s dream come true.” Now, with the race coming close once again, Busch is rallying his fans once again.
Ahead of the Cup Series weekend at the Coca-Cola 500, Kyle Busch hosted the Rowdy Nation fan day on May 21st, as fans flocked from all over the world.
Thanking his fans, Busch wrote in the caption, “Thank you to everyone who came out for #RowdyNation Fan Day! We had folks from San Fran to the UK! It was cool seeing an #5 @starwars / Darth Vader car that @hayden.christansen had signed too! Fun way to kick off the week, Truck on Friday night then 600 miles on Sunday!”
Busch is no stranger to the fans’ grassroots gestures. Reflecting on his past fan encounters, he very gratefully once shared, “There are girls that bring cookies to the race team in Vegas; there’s this guy in Concord who always has photos of me—big 24” by 36” photos of me that I sign with a paint pen for him—and a lot of others I recognize and know .” It’s that kind of memory, that kind of connection, that still lives on when moments like the rowdy nation fan day pop-up occur, when the sport doesn’t just feel big, it feels personal.
But for Busch, there have been odd fan encounters, too! He once revealed, “This lady was walking by and didn’t even know I was supposed to be here or anything but she was a race fan and she was like, Oh my god, Kyle Busch, here sign something…I’m like I can just sign your bag and she goes no no no, you can’t sign the bag. It was a Prada diaper bag or some stuff, so can’t sign that. So she pulls out a diaper, it was clean, but she pulled out a diaper. So I was like okay, yeah I could sign the baby’s forehead, Ricky Bobby does those but I don’t know, besides that, there’s been some others that just skip my mind right now.”
Regardless of odd fan interactions, one thing to know about Rowdy is that he comes through, especially if you’re a member of Rowdy Nation. That’s why when the parent of a young boy sent out a request for Rowdy on X, Busch acquiesced. In a personalised video, Busch said, “Hey Jackson, what’s up, man? I heard it was your birthday this week. I’m sorry I’m late to wishing you a happy birthday, but better late than never. Who doesn’t love a great day full of family and friends and giving thanks for all those that are around us? So, Happy Birthday, Happy Thanksgiving, and I appreciate you being a huge fan of Rowdy Nation.” Busch even sent him a gift through a sponsor! Truly a supporter of Rowdy Nation, right?
With the adrenaline still buzzing from the fan day, all eyes now turned to the growing challenges ahead—can Rowdy carry this momentum through and maybe break his winless streak at the high-stakes race this weekend?
Redemption at the Coca-Cola 600?
Busch is determined to reclaim his former glory after a challenging 2024 season, where the number eight driver missed the playoffs and earned his first win of that season in two decades. His earlier performance in the season was quite promising, where he secured top 10 finishes at Atlanta, COTA, and Phoenix, even leading the most laps at COTA before finishing fifth.
When asked about what it meant to win the Coca-Cola 600, the RCR Driver replied, saying, “You know winning at Charlotte Motor Speedway is special because it is the Coca-Cola 600. It is man versus machine, the longest race of the year and it’s even one of the crown jewels of our sport, so obviously you want to take home that race. For me, I was finally able to accomplish that a few years ago, and it felt really good.”
But qualifying doesn’t matter as much as it does in this race, does it? It’s the longest on the calendar. Busch went on to say, “It’s a longer race so you have more time from sunlight to nighttime, and typically you don’t really worry about how your car is until you get to nighttime because that’s when the money’s paid, so you want to be fast at that time of the day.”
Bush had won it in 2018 and came close in 2020 and 2022, so he may know how to survive this race. But the two-time Cup Series Champion’s season has been really tough. With only two top-five finishes and four top-10s in the first 12 races, including a string of middling results finishing 27th at Talladega, 20th at Texas, and 21st at Kansas, the statistics aren’t as kind.
Still, fans who watched him since the early Joe Gibbs racing days know that counting out Kyle is risky business. This Sunday, as the light shines over Charlotte Motor Speedway, fans, especially the old-timers, will be hoping for a third-act twist. Maybe, just maybe, the rowdy’s long drought ends where it matters most.
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