Fans reinforce need to visit doctor after sudden death of NASCAR driver Kyle Busch

CONCORD, N.C. — Race weekend in Charlotte has been overshadowed by tragedy following the death of Kyle Busch.

The two-time NASCAR Cup winner’s number eight is standing out in the infield of Charlotte Motor Speedway, where Busch was set to race in both the Education Lottery 200 Truck Series, and the Coca Cola 600.

Saturday morning, the Richard Childress Racing Team unloaded Busch’s car at the track, but out of respect for him, they changed the number to 33.

Rain pushed the Lottery 200 back to Saturday night, but fans are still out in support of the Busch family, and NASCAR.

Because of the weather, it has been a gloomy few days at the track, and that certainly describes the mood of fans as they mourn the loss of Busch.

“So I was never really a Kyle Busch fan,” said Andrew Connor-Smith. He came to the track to load up on Busch merchandise because this weekend, everyone is a Busch fan.

“You see how much he meant to the sport after he’s gone,” Connor-Smith said. “You don’t know how much someone means until they’re gone.”

On Saturday, the family released the cause of Busch’s death. He contracted a severe case of pneumonia which turned into sepsis.

Fan Lorie Kingry said that if Busch was feeling that poorly he should have gone to the doctor.

In 2024, we did story about Tomara Leverington, a long-time educator and coach at Monroe High School who out of nowhere caught pneumonia which progressed to acute respiratory distress syndrome, which has a fatality rate of more than 40%. She barely survived and spent three months on a ventilator.

“There was a couple of times where I wasn’t so sure and it was scary to have those thoughts,” Leverington said.

Randy Paine bought a Busch shirt Saturday. He’s still trying to wrap his head around the fact that a larger-than-life figure could be taken by a microbe.

“Drivers race sick all the time and you don’t think anything of it,” Raine said. “But honestly, it’s really scary for the regular folks to think something so small and insignificant can sometimes turn into something much bigger, which is something you never expect.”

Nothing has come from the family about what kind of treatment Busch may or may not have received.

A lot of fans are using this as an opportunity to think about their health and reinforcing the need to go to a doctor if they are not feeling well.

According to ABC, Busch experienced shortness of breath, felt overheated, and was coughing up blood the day before he died.

During a race earlier this month, he was thought to have a sinus cold, and was heard on his team radio asking for a shot from a doctor. We don’t know what that shot was for.

Doctors say the most common cause of sepsis is pneumonia.

Sepsis can also be caused by urinary tract infections, stomachs infections, skin and wound infections, and even some medication.

The CDC says about 1.7 million people develop sepsis every year, and hundreds of thousands die from it.

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