On Saturday, a typical FOX Sports broadcast was forced to pay tribute to one of the greatest legends of American motorsports. While Corey Day won the pole for the Truck race, FOX broadcaster Michael Waltrip had a reflection on the late Kyle Busch.

“What I love is what Mike Joy said, ‘talent and bravado.’ That was Kyle Busch,” Waltrip explained. “He was tough from the beginning. He showed up, and he was going to beat you. He knew he was going to beat you and he was going to tell you about it.”

But Waltrip then was quick to shift to Busch’s softer side. “He just lit up like a Christmas tree,” Waltrip recalled from a recent conversation. “What I loved was recently the Kyle I met on pit road,” Waltrip said.

“Talladega, we're getting ready to do the grid walk, and I say, ‘Kyle, you mind if I talk to Samantha and Braxton about what's going on?’ He just lit up like a Christmas tree. He said, ‘I love that. I love when my family's here and my family's involved.’”

An emotional pitch-in was then made by Joey Logano, who recalled, “Kyle and I, let’s be honest, we never saw eye to eye,” he added. “We're playing basketball out there, just the four of us, Brexton and him and me and my oldest son,” Logano recalled. “And it was just like we were old friends.”

Logano then closed with a heartbreaking memoir. “It's incredible how quickly things have changed,” he said. “It reminds us to take every day and live it to the fullest. I think the whole industry is in complete shock and very, very sad right now. We're just completely heartbroken.”

The segment then ended with possibly the night’s most powerful line, reminding us of what we had lost, “We race to heal.”

Meanwhile, practice and qualifying for Trucks were canceled due to rain. As of now, the Truck race has been pushed to 9 p.m. ET.

Despite us missing Busch a lot, it’s quintessential that we look at what famed rivalry Logano was referring to and how it all started.

Joey Logano and Kyle Busch’s rivalry went beyond the racetrack

Joey Logano and Kyle Busch have shared one of NASCAR’s most longstanding and fierce rivalries in recent times. This bad blood started way back during the 2017 Las Vegas race, when Logano slid up entering Turn 3 on the final lap, spinning Busch onto pit road while they were battling for a top-five finish.

Busch then walked down the lane and had a physical altercation with Logano, initiating a massive crew fight that also left Busch injured.

Busch then, post-race, also dropped the infamous comment, “I got dumped. Flat-out dumped.”

Despite such incidents, both drivers continued to build respect for each other as avid racers and mates around the track. And maybe that’s exactly why Logano admitted and ended by saying he will deeply miss Busch.

You can read more on the Daytona Racing Digest!

Written by

Uday Jakhar

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason