Las Vegas native Kyle Busch was posthumously voted the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series most popular driver at the season-ending awards banquet Tuesday at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami. Busch, who died in May at age 41 after severe pneumonia progressed into sepsis, received the honor for the first time in his 25-year career spanning all three national series.
Busch's widow, Samantha, accepted the trophy on his behalf. "There has been so much love for Kyle from this sport over the past several months, and I wish more than anything that he could be here to see it," she said. "He gave so much of his life to racing and I know it would mean the world to him to see the impact he had on NASCAR and the people who love it."
Samantha Busch described her husband as passionate, outspoken, and fiercely competitive. "Kyle never changed who he was to make people like him... Whether you cheered him or booed him, he gave you something to make noise about and he loved that," she said. She thanked drivers who encouraged fans to vote for Busch and addressed fans directly: "There was no Rowdy without the fans... There will never be another Rowdy because there is truly no one else like Kyle."
The award ended a streak of eight consecutive wins by Chase Elliott, who removed himself from consideration for 2026. Busch became the first driver not named Earnhardt or Elliott to win the fan vote since Darrell Waltrip in 1990. The two-time series champion (2015, 2019) holds the record for most wins across NASCAR's top three national series with 234 and is considered a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Sources: Las Vegas Sun
Original reporting: Las Vegas Review-Journal →
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