Kyle Busch finally won the Most Popular Driver Award after his death, securing a record 261,612 votes according to the National Motorsports Press Association. This total shattered previous marks and placed the driver ahead of Kyle Larson and third-place finisher Carson Hocevar. Fans cast these ballots to honor a man who spent 25 years in the national series as a figure many loved to boo. The award was presented at the season-ending ceremony in Miami on Tuesday, where his wife Samantha accepted the trophy on his behalf.
Busch had spent decades chasing this specific honor while dominating the sport in every other way. He secured Cup championships in 2015 and 2019 and earned 63 victories at NASCAR’s top level. His career also included a record 234 wins across all three national series. Despite those numbers, the popularity trophy remained out of reach until 2026. Samantha Busch recalled how much the award meant to him before the ceremony even began.
“Winning the Most Popular Driver, he wanted it so bad. He would try to rally the fans, and there was one year, I think, either he didn’t see Chase [Elliott] out here, or maybe Chase didn’t come, and he was like, ‘I got it. I got it,’ and he was so excited. And then he didn’t. And so he called NASCAR, and he was like, ‘I want to see the numbers. How far off was I? Was I close?’ Kyle was very competitive, and he took this no differently,” Samantha said before Tuesday’s ceremony, according to Fox Sports. She noted that he had once called NASCAR officials just to find out how close he had come to winning.
A Shift in the Fan Vote
The result marked a major shift from how fans viewed Busch during his life. For years, his aggressive driving and honest personality made him one of the most divisive stars in the sport. Spectators would pack the stands just to see what he would do next, often cheering when his rivals beat him. Yet he never changed his approach to please the crowd. While maintaining his true character, Samantha recalled that history during her acceptance speech. “Kyle never changed who he was to make people like him.” This win proved that popularity does not always require universal approval.
Chase Elliott played a key role in making this outcome possible. Elliott had won the award for eight straight years from 2018 to 2025. He asked his fans to vote for Busch instead after withdrawing his name from the 2026 ballot. This move mirrored what Bill Elliott did in 2001 after Dale Earnhardt’s fatal crash. That year, Earnhardt earned his sole Most Popular Driver award, which was also his first. Following his death, Busch became only the second driver to secure the Cup award. The last time a driver won posthumously was when Earnhardt won, and before that, only drivers with the surnames Earnhardt or Elliott had won since 1990.
A Different Kind of Legacy
The story of this vote highlights how the sport has changed since Busch’s passing. The trophy fit, Samantha explained simply as she concluded the acceptance. “There was no Rowdy without the fans.” The nickname Rowdy captures the energy he brought to every race, whether fans were cheering or booing. Even when people disliked him, they never ignored him. Busch always got a reaction from the crowd. A career demonstrating that universal approval and popularity are not identical preceded his initial Most Popular Driver Award.
While Busch received this posthumous honor, Kyle Larson was busy celebrating his own third NASCAR Cup Series title on the track. Larson clinched the championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday, November 8, 2026. He finished fourth in the first stage of the race and did not realize he had won until later. Although the seven stage points, the point Larson secured for completing the race, and the tiebreaker he possessed over Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin clinched the championship with 189 laps remaining, no one had informed Larson that the mathematics had resolved so quickly. “I thought I had to run third to get the points I needed,” Larson said, according to Kickin the Tires. The heavy trophy weighed 68 pounds and stood 37 inches tall, nearly as big as the driver himself.
