Austin Dillon on Kyle Busch’s death and a hard 10 days for Richard Childress Racing

LEBANON, Tenn. — Standing before a company-wide meeting at Richard Childress Racing earlier this week, just days after Kyle Busch’s sudden death, Austin Dillon took inspiration from country singer Red Steagall in what he wanted to say to hundreds of people experiencing unyielding sorrow.

Dillon, grandson of NASCAR team owner Richard Childress and driver of RCR’s No. 3 car, said they needed to “Ride for the Brand,” invoking the name of a Steagall book that is a collection of songs and poetry about the cowboy lifestyle, which in many ways epitomizes the culture within RCR.

“Kyle Busch’s character would have wanted all of us to do what we could to get back to victory lane and to work as hard as possible,” Dillon said Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway, site of Sunday night’s Cup Series race. “I knew what he cared about, and that was being here on Sunday, racing hard as he could for his guys and for himself and for his family and to try and create history in this sport. And we have a great opportunity to do that here at RCR, to go back out there and make him proud.

“That was the big speech this week for me; just ‘ride for the brand,’ man. … I played that for our whole entire company and said, ‘Kyle, he rode for the brand, and now it’s our time to go do that.’”

Busch, a two-time NASCAR champion and one of the sport’s all-time greatest drivers, died May 21 at age 41. According to a death certificate obtained by The Athletic, Busch had bacterial pneumonia for “days to weeks,” eventually leading to sepsis.

His unexpected death shook the close-knit NASCAR community, and the impact was especially deep within the team that had employed Busch since 2023, one that prides itself on having deep loyalty to one another.

“It was obviously one of the toughest weeks (in) RCR history,” Dillon said. “And being a part of that from my side, for the first time, really being able to understand what everybody’s going through, it was hard, and it’s going to be hard. But the people that we have at RCR are the ones that I would want to go through this with.”

RCR is one of NASCAR’s most acclaimed teams, winning six premier Cup championships with the late Dale Earnhardt and Childress earning induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

However, RCR has also experienced its share of tragedy, most notably Earnhardt being killed on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. His death still reverberates within RCR, something that forever changed the team owned by his close friend.

After Earnhardt was killed, Childress was often asked why he and RCR continued in the wake of such a devastating loss. Childress has maintained that he and Earnhardt once made a promise to one another that should either of them die, the other would continue to race.

This is what Dillon said he has thought about over the past 10 days. While Childress and other members of RCR’s leadership team were at the hospital, he stayed at the shop, where he shared updates and made plans on what the team would do in Busch’s absence. Then, when he got home that night, he sat down and penned an open letter, which he posted on social media.

Saturday was the first time he had spoken publicly.

“I just told Whitney (his wife), ‘Look, I got to write him a letter,’” Dillon said. “That was the biggest reason I feel like I could go forward, because it was from the heart and it’s how I felt about Kyle, and it’s going to hurt for a long time, but I know the character he was, he’d want us to go kick butt. And so that’s what I wanted.”

Childress, 80, has not spoken publicly since Busch’s death. The team announced this week that he will do so next Saturday at Michigan International Speedway.

“Obviously, it’s been very hard for him,” Dillon said when asked how his grandfather was doing. “But he’s a very resilient person, as everyone knows, and he’s got that cowboy brand that he likes to show everybody — but he’s also got a soft side. We flew up here, and my daughter jumped in his lap, and that was just nice to see them hanging out together. She’s never done that before.”

Last week at Charlotte Motor Speedway and again this weekend at Nashville, RCR named Austin Hill to drive Busch’s car, renumbered from No. 8 to No. 33. Dillon was noncommittal on whether Hill, who drives for RCR in NASCAR’s second-tier series, would remain in the car for the rest of the season, but made it clear Hill has the full support of everyone within the RCR organization.

“Look, Austin Hill, he’s a grizzly bear, man,” Dillon said. “You’ve seen what he’s been able to do in the (O’Reilly) Series; he’s won 23 times in NASCAR, between the O’Reilly Series and the Truck Series, and he doesn’t take any crap out there on the track. …

“We’re going to do what we can to make everybody proud. We owe it to the 8 team, now the 33 team. Those guys have been through a lot this year, and so I’m excited to help them as best I can.”