Overview
- The award was announced Tuesday at NASCAR’s postseason banquet in Miami and was accepted on Busch’s behalf by his wife, Samantha Busch.
- Fellow drivers publicly urged their fan bases to vote for Busch during the late-October voting window, driving a coordinated online campaign.
- Chase Elliott removed his name from the ballot to encourage his supporters to back Busch, and other drivers such as Carson Hocevar and Kyle Larson also promoted the vote.
- Busch died on May 21 after pneumonia progressed to sepsis and entered the record books with 234 national-series wins, including a Truck Series victory days before his death.
- The win makes Busch only the second posthumous Most Popular Driver after Dale Earnhardt and the first winner not named Earnhardt or Elliott since 1990 while prompting fresh public reassessments of his legacy.