Kyle Busch death shocks and delivers harsh reality to NASCAR
In older times, the racing community was no stranger to death but it never came like this. Kyle Busch's sudden death has delivered shock waves.
It’d been over 25 years since the NASCAR world was dealt the most severe of blows. And from the time man first stretched the limits of dangerous speed through that Dale Earnhardt tragedy of February, 2001, shock and sorrow came in less-than-surprising ways. Race cars and airplanes were the usual suspects.
This, however — the sudden death of Kyle Busch, a seemingly healthy 41-year-old father, husband and racing legend — is something we can’t comprehend, even though we know 41-year-old men sometimes die without warning. In short order we’ll likely learn what happened and how it all went south so quickly. But it won’t matter much, if at all.
With the breakneck speed of today’s world, the tributes, accolades and (of course) shock were pouring in literally within a minute of the announcement. You might say we’ve come to process these things in quicker fashion than ever before, but frankly we’ve been done processing things for a while now. Many instead jump beyond the natural progression in order to suggest they’re ahead of the game: What’s Kyle’s racing legacy?
Where does he rank all-time? What happens now with a race team and a team owner, Richard Childress, who’s no stranger to grief and, given his 55 years around the game, probably thought he’d seen the worst his way of life can deliver. As for that legacy question, it’s slightly complicated.