In a move that many Cup Series competitors wanted to happen, Kyle Busch has been named the posthumous winner of the Most Popular Driver Award.
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The announcement took place on Tuesday night in Miami, Florida, as part of the awards banquet honoring the champions of the three national NASCAR series, as well as the Rookie of the Year winners.
NASCAR confirmed that Busch, who passed away on May 21 at the age of 41, has won the National Motorsports Press Association Most Popular Driver Award for the first time. He is first driver not named Elliott or Earnhardt to win the award since Darrell Waltrip in 1989-90.
Samantha Busch attended the NASCAR Awards and accepted the honor on her late husband's behalf.
"I want to cry thinking about it," Samantha told media members on the red carpet. "He wanted that award so bad for so many years, and I'm so thrilled that he got it. But I think the coolest thing about it is just how the other drivers came together in order to rally their fans behind them.
"I think a lot of people see they're competitors or they don't like each other, but at the end of the day, NASCAR is a big family. And just seeing Chase (Elliott) and (Kyle) Larson and all of them being like, 'No, give this to Kyle. Give this to Kyle.' Like I know he's up there being like, 'Well, I finally got it.'"
For Kyle, and all of Rowdy Nation. pic.twitter.com/XYK7vrCUDP
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) November 11, 2026
As Samantha explained, Busch thought that he had won the award at the end of a previous season. He didn't see Elliott in attendance at the NASCAR banquet, so he became very excited until he heard the bad news.
"He was like, 'I got it, I got it,' and he was so excited, and then he didn't (win)," Samantha said. "He was like, 'Really?' Call NASCAR!' And he's like, 'I want to see the numbers. Like, how far off was I? Was I close?' And he... you know, Kyle is very competitive."
Elliott, the eight-time winner of Most Popular Driver, had previously taken himself out of consideration for the award. He worked out a deal to have his name pulled. Other drivers such as Chase Briscoe, Larson, and Carson Hocevar simply told their fans to vote for Busch.
Elliott drew inspiration from his father, Bill, who took his name off the ballot in 2001 so that the late Dale Earnhardt could win.
"I had been asked about it a few times throughout the course of the year since we lost Kyle," Elliott said at Talladega last month. "I certainly thought about that some, and then also kind of thought about what Kyle meant to my career and just the relationship that we had. And also, just how much noise I think our fans have made for him over the course of his career.
"I know that he, certainly, kind of embraced that villain role. And maybe people totally didn't like him, but they sure did make a lot of noise for him, and I think we can all agree to that.
"I just felt like because of that, and because of a lot of the things that I've got the chance to see behind the scenes of things that he did for his fans and how much he cared about the sport and for his supporters; I felt like he deserved to win that vote."
