Kyle Busch, one of the purest racing talents NASCAR has ever seen and winner of more national series races than any driver in history, has died after falling severely ill, NASCAR announced Thursday.

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Busch was hospitalized this week with an unspecified illness and never recovered. He was 41.

“We are saddened and heartbroken to share the news of the passing of Kyle Busch, a two-time Cup champion and one of our sport’s greatest and fiercest drivers,” NASCAR said in a statement posted to X.

For more than two decades, the man who fittingly called himself “Rowdy” captivated and divided NASCAR fans like no other. He combined his skill with an unapologetic swagger that entertained, outraged and, most of all, won a whole lot of races.

Busch won 234 NASCAR national series races — combining the top-tier Cup Series, O’Reilly Series and Truck Series — which is the most of any driver in history. He won two Cup Series titles, in 2015 and 2019.

Now, shockingly and suddenly, Busch is gone. He is survived by his wife, Samantha; 11-year-old son, Brexton, himself a promising young racer; and 4-year-old daughter, Lennix.

“Kyle was a rare talent, one who comes along once in a generation,” Busch’s family, his race team (Richard Childress Racing) and NASCAR said in a joint statement. “He was fierce, he was passionate, he was immensely skilled, and he cared deeply about the sport and fans.”

Busch appeared to be ill two weeks ago at Watkins Glen, when he radioed his team during the race and asked for Bill Heisel, a veteran sports physician assistant who has worked with NASCAR drivers and crew members for years, to meet him at Busch’s motorhome after the checkered flag.

“I’m gonna need a shot,” Busch told his team then.

Asked by The Athletic last week about whether he was feeling better following that radio message, Busch waved his hand to motion toward his face.

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“You can kind of hear it — I’m still not great,” he said. “The cough was pretty substantial last week.”

Earlier Thursday, a post on his social media account announced that Busch would miss this weekend’s Coca-Cola 600 as he was undergoing treatment for a “severe illness.” Richard Childress Racing said that Busch’s health was “our utmost priority and he and his family have the full resources of RCR behind them.”

Busch, knowing his talent and potential, always carried the grandest of ambitions and was public about his desire to be known as the best.

“The first thing they’ll remember me by,” he once said, “will be my on-track success.”

But the second thing, he added, was how he grew up in the limelight. He struggled to adapt to scrutiny as an unrefined and brash teenager.

“They’ll see the whole transition of my life and how I made it through — and it was all under skeptics’ (eyes),” he said in 2011, when he was 26. “Certainly, I know I wasn’t the best coming in and I’m not now; we’ll see how it turns out when I’m 40.”

That 40-year-old was a far different Busch. Fatherhood gave him a different perspective, and the lack of regular wins in later years seemed to mellow him.

Remarkably, Busch kept winning all the way up until his final race weekend. On May 15 at Dover Motor Speedway, even as he was still dealing with what he thought were the remnants of an illness, Busch had a classic Rowdy performance in NASCAR’s Truck Series — he was fastest in practice, won the pole, led the most laps and won the race.

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