Last year, we learned that Kyle Busch had always dreamed of attempting the Coke 600-Indy 500 Double. He nearly had a deal put together with Andretti in 2017 and again with McLaren in recent years.
Unfortunately, his Indy 500 dream never came to fruition before Busch’s sudden and tragic passing this past week. The two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion was only 41 years old.
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After the NASCAR legend’s abrupt passing, there has been an outpouring of tributes as the entire motorsport community remembers the ‘Rowdy’ Busch.
Dale Coyne Racing has joined in on the tributes, memorializing Busch through Romain Grosjean’s No. 18 Honda that is set to compete in the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500.
Grosjean is driving the No. 18, the same number Busch drove from 2008 through the 2022 NASCAR Cup season. 56 of Busch’s 63 Cup wins came while driving the No. 18, and so, Coyne has changed the font on Grosjean’s 2026 Indy 500 challenger to mirror the font used by Busch for those 14 years at JGR.
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Sports Business Journal’s Adam Stern confirmed this, noting that FOX Sports and JGR assisted Coyne in making the font tweak as accurate as possible.
IndyCar on FOX commentator and former racer Townsend Bell was the first to suggest the change, and he has his own connection with KB. They were co-drivers for the 2020 edition of the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona
“Thanks to Dale Coyne Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing for making it happen,” said Bell in a social media post. “I’m still struggling to process this tragedy. Kyle Busch was a teammate Lexus. He couldn’t have been more generous when my son first arrived in Charlotte. He was a friend and I got to see his true character.”
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Grosjean, who started 181 Formula 1 races throughout his career, is making his fourth appearance in the Indianapolis 500. He qualified 24th in the No. 18 DCR Honda, and is hoping to better his career-best result at the speedway, which is 19th in 2024. He skipped last year’s Indy 500, but is back racing IndyCar full-time this season.
Despite over a century of Indy 500 history at the Brickyard, the No. 18 has never won the iconic race.
IndyCar and IMS have already recognized Busch in various ways since Thursday, including a tribute on the frontstretch scoring pylon. Busch is a two-time winner of NASCAR’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, winning back-to-back there in 2015 and 2016.
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Indy 500 pays tribute to Kyle Busch
Indy 500 pays tribute to Kyle Busch
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