Brexton Busch places 6th in first race after Kyle Busch’s death

Brexton Busch is back behind the wheel.

On Monday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the 11-year-old son of the late championship-winning NASCAR driver Kyle Busch finished sixth in the Young Lions division of the CookOut Summer Shootout.

Racing in a neon green No. 18 — the same number his dad won a pair of Cup Series championships in for Joe Gibbs Racing — the younger Busch started in 13th place and pushed his Legends Car Series machine up to sixth after avoiding a crash earlier in the 25-lap race.

Delayed by rain, the race was the first that Busch competed in since his father’s shocking death on May 21.

Brexton Busch has been racing since the age of six. Last year, he won 48 competitions in multiple disciplines of racing, from legends cars and bandeleros, to micros, bandits, late models and sprint cars. Legend cars are designed to replicate old-style cars from the 1930s on a five-eighths scale, running on Yamaha motorcycle engines. Their speeds top out between 115 and 140 miles per hour.

Legend cars are one of the many series that winds up producing drivers who go on to NASCAR. Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Bubba Wallace and Dale Earnhardt Jr. all started out in legends. And so did Kyle Busch, out in Las Vegas.

Busch, a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, died at the age of 41 after complications from severe pneumonia progressed into sepsis. His sudden death sent shockwaves through NASCAR and drivers have continued to honor him. Denny Hamlin rode around with a special stylized No. 18 flag at Michigan on Sunday during his victory lap after tying Busch, his former teammate at JGR, for ninth all-time in Cup Series wins.

Brexton raced his Legends car with a decal that featured the No. 51 — the number Kyle Busch often used in the Truck Series and Legends cars. It also read, “Rowdy 1985-2026.”

It remains to be seen how far Brexton Busch will go in racing, but if he reaches the Cup Series of NASCAR like his father, Richard Childress reiterated on Saturday that the No. 8 is retired until Brexton wants to use it.

“We’re saving that stylized eight for him,” Childress said. “For his future if he wants to run it.”

Kyle Busch is NASCAR’s all-time leader in combined victories across its top three national touring series with 234. He won his final race just six days before his death, driving into victory lane in the Truck Series race at Dover.

Monday was the first of 10 races in the CookOut Summer Shootout, which runs through July 28 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.