The spoils of victory for winning the Coca-Cola 600 are heading back to Kyle Busch Motorsports.
Technically, Daniel Suarez of Spire Motorsports won the rain-shortened classic on Sunday night at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on a gutsy two-tyre call by crew chief Ryan Sparks but so much of their identity runs through the late Kyle Busch.
Spire’s Connection to Kyle Busch
Spire now races out of the old Kyle Busch Motorsports shop, which it acquired as part of an acquisition in 2023. Busch also continued to drive those trucks to Victory Lane as recently as last weekend at Dover Motor Speedway just six days before dying of a severe pneumonia that progressed into sepsis.
Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson was the first sports agent Busch utilized as a Cup Series driver. Dickerson was also his spotter for several years. Suarez spoke adoringly of Busch on Saturday during his media availability for all the ways the two-time Cup Series champion helped him acclimate to life in the United States.
“He didn’t have to help me,” Suarez said. “He didn’t have to help this Mexican kid that can barely speak English. He was already a legend of the sport and he took the time every single week to help me.
“That for me spoke very, very highly of not who he is as a driver, but who he is as a person. Most people didn’t know that side of him. I got to know that side of him.
“I just — those are the kinds of things I want to remember about him. Honestly, because of those things, he made me want to be like him, wanting to help others, want to go give a hand to those upcoming drivers that need a hand. He was a role model.”
A Victory Aligned With Fate
It was very fitting that a team with so many identity threads to Busch won this weekend. Spire cars and trucks carried the Kyle Busch Motorsports stickers this weekend.
“Not only is Kyle in the fabric of our place going all the way back to the MMI days but certainly we’re in that shop, a lot of his former employees came along,” Dickerson said. “I hope it’s rewarding for them too. It’s been a tough couple days. It’s still kind of hard to believe it.
“I was for sure he was going to walk out of that (hospital). I’m still just — I can’t believe it. It means a lot.”
Suarez said that their team winning was ‘no coincidence’ and that the stars aligned.
Dickerson on Busch’s Competitive Spirit
Dickerson said that the competitive spirit linking Busch and Spire even predates the acquisition of Kyle Busch Motorsports but what they experienced together at Hendrick Motorsports and the No. 5 car over two decades ago.
“Kyle had just a maniacal desire to win and just set a high bar and just did not give a shit,” Dickerson said. “You had to meet it. He just had like this crazy curiosity.
“I remember being here (at Charlotte) and spotting him here, and we were following (Kevin( Harvick. … I just remember him like driving around telling Alan (Gustafson) exactly where the track bar was on (Harvick’s car) and how much rake was in it, and you’re just l