It was supposed to be just another vacation in Cancun for Kyle Busch and Samantha Busch back in 2023. But the trip suddenly turned into one of the most stressful moments of the couple’s life. At the airport, Mexican authorities found a gun inside Busch’s bag during the security clearance. The NASCAR star later admitted that he had forgotten it was there. So suddenly all the vacation excitement went, and in came the dread of being detained in a foreign country. At that moment, he knew he needed to reach out for help, and he did. Except, it was not his family or anyone from Richard Childress.

The one he reached out to was Daniel Suarez. The Mexican driver was hugely emotional about the sudden passing of the 41 one year old driver, and he shared about this one incident, when Busch reached out to him.

“One time he got in trouble in Cancun; he called me. Samantha called me,” Suarez recalled with a smile during his emotional press conference. “I mean, some of you guys know what happened there. And then after the race in Mexico City, we partied together; he came to my party.”  It was one of the deeply personal stories that Suarez shared to show fans that there is indeed a version of Rowdy that people don’t know and see.

“Most people knew Kyle as the villain, right? As that guy that fans either love him or hate him,” the Spire Motorsports driver explained. “But he had a huge heart. And he was one of those people that was always willing to give you a hand.” For Suarez, that helping hand changed his career completely.

Because long before Suarez became a Cup Series winner, Busch was one of the very few stars who was willing to invest their time in the young Mexican driver who was trying to survive in America’s stock car racing. In 2015, when Suarez moved to the United States full time to race for Joe Gibbs Racing, he barely even spoke the language and knew only a handful of people. Busch, meanwhile, was one of the bigger stars, but even then, Suarez says that Busch checked on him anyways.

“He didn’t know who I was, he didn’t know anything about me, and he took the time to always answer the phone and helped me literally for the entire year of 2015,” Suarez said emotionally. “He didn’t have to help this Mexican kid that could barely speak English.

That relationship further developed when Suarez raced for Kyle Busch Motorsports in the Truck Series. He joined a long list of drivers Busch mentored through KBM. Drivers like Christopher Bell, Erik Jones, William Byron, John Hunter Nemechek, Harrison Burton, Noah Gragson, Todd Gilliland, Riley Herbst, and even former Formula 1 champion Kimi Räikkönen. And maybe that’s why Sunday night at Charlotte Motorsport Speedway felt way more than just another race.

Kyle Busch was missing from Charlotte, but Daniel Suarez ensured he was never forgotten

This Coca-Cola 600 had Kyle Busch missing, and it just came after days after his shocking death due to complications from pneumonia that worsened into sepsis. Everyone’s faces said how deeply it affected them. Black No. 8 decals sat on every car, and Busch’s signature was stretched across the frontstretch grass. But in the race, when the rain delay came, somehow, as if by divine timing, Suarez was standing in the victory lane.

After climbing out of his car, Suarez pointed towards the sky and placed a black No. 8 hat on his head. “This one really means a lot,” Suarez said afterward. “Kyle, he was special, man. This one is for Kyle. For Samantha, for Brexton, for Lennix, for his whole family.”

Ironically, his victory itself kind of mirrored the kind of gritty opportunism Busch built his career around. The Mexican driver led only 17 laps all night, while drivers like Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, and Denny Hamlin controlled most of the race. However, a bold two-tire strategy call suddenly put Suarez out front late. And then, rain came and officially ended the race.

This win became the third Cup Series win of Suarez’s career and made him the first Mexican-born driver to ever win NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600. But no matter how much this feat meant to him, he ensured the spotlight on this day was always on Busch.

“I want to make sure that the focus and the most important thing about this victory is not Spire Motorsports, it’s not Daniel Suarez, it’s Kyle Busch,” he said.

And through all those late-night phone calls, the mentorships, and even the Cancun chaos, Suarez might have managed to show NASCAR fans a side of Busch that many are not familiar with.