Hosted by Mike Joy, the Kyle Busch Celebration of Life immediately followed Friday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race, and featured several of those closest to him.
Among them was Joe Gibbs, who was Kyle Busch’s team owner from 2009 through the 2022 season. Together, they won 56 Cup races, as well as the 2015 and 2019 NASCAR Cup Series championships.
Kyle remains the team’s most recent champion in Cup, and is second only to Denny Hamlin on JGR’s all-time wins list.
In case you missed the ceremony, here’s a full transcript of Coach Gibbs’ time up on stage, where he remembered ‘Rowdy’ in his own way:
Joe Gibbs full speech remembering Kyle Busch
Joe Gibbs speaks onstage during the Kyle Busch Celebration of Life at Charlotte Motor Speedway
Photo by: David Jensen / Getty Images
“Our very first year with Kyle, it’s 2008, so the first year for him, it was the first year for our manufacturer Toyota in Cup. I got to tell you, it was our first year for Mars. Think about this — Mars, our sponsor, signed on with Kyle, had been in NASCAR 10 years. They had two wins, so we kicked that year off, Kyle’s very first win was in Atlanta, and can you believe it? He won eight times that year — our very first year. I got to tell you, that was something for all of us, at least in our race team, to always remember.
“You think about his career, okay, 234 wins. Think about the sweeps. He actually goes to Bristol, he wins in a Truck, he wins in Xfinity in those days, he wins in Cup, and so his talent eventually led him to two championships in our sport, and so as I think about that, in a sport where we have greats driving race cars, Kyle was special. The second area that I always think about with Kyle was his passion for what he did and the way he dealt with it.
“Now, that wasn’t so nice for a lot of us around him at that point — the way he handled things. I’ll give you an example. We’re in Loudon, New Hampshire, and after the race, Kyle had finished second, and so as everybody knows, the media had him on pit road, and so I kind of slid over there to listen to the interviews because sometimes Kyle can be a challenge. So, I’m kind of listening, everything was great, so I figured, yeah, hey, he finished second, he’s probably okay.
“After the interview, I was standing 10 feet away, he walked to me, he pointed to me, and he said, ‘your cars suck.’ So anyway, a challenge every now and then. The other thing, though, I got to tell you, the thing I love about Kyle, which a lot of people didn’t get to see, in a social event, or you got him out having a good time, and he’s away from the racetrack … I got to tell you, he was funny, he had a great sense of humor, he didn’t mind laughing at himself, and he really was a lot of fun. Where it really showed up, just to give you a different side of him, at Christmas time, at our race shop, we do skits, and we video those, and then we play them at our Christmas dinner, and so all of our drivers kind of chip in on that. You know who was the number one person that loved it? It was Kyle Busch. I don’t care what you asked him to do, crazy stuff.
“One time, on one of the skits, we had him put on a glove, and he looked like a big rooster, you know what I mean? Loved it. It was him and Sam, singing in the car, doing any crazy thing, but I think my favorite skit with him was one where we had him positioned, looking down at some of our young Xfinity drivers, and he was giving them a lesson in anger management (laughter).
“I think we can say, in a world where special people are racing race cars, Kyle Busch was a giant, he was great, and I know he captured all of you guys. It’s a thrill for me to be here tonight, and everybody here, just to honor him and what he did for our sport. Thank y’all.”
Watch: Kurt Busch remembers brother Kyle: ‘He was going to go to the stratosphere’
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