Kyle Busch: NASCAR star Chase Briscoe played key role in stunning tribute to Cup legend

NASCAR star Chase Briscoe played key role in stunning Kyle Busch tribute

NASCAR Cup Series star Chase Briscoe was the driver to come up with the idea of forming a missing man formation to honor the late great Kyle Busch at Charlotte on Sunday.

Busch tragically passed away at the age of 41 last Thursday after suffering severe pneumonia which developed into sepsis, plunging the entire NASCAR community into grieving.

Despite that, the Coca Cola 600 went ahead as planned, with several tributes made across NASCAR both pre-race and during. This included a moments silence on the infield, with Busch's wife Samantha and two children, Brexton and Lennix, present, along with the wider Busch family.

Once the cars hit the track, they also formed their own version of a missing man formation, leaving the pole spot clear in honor of Busch.

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Missing man formation was Chase Briscoe's idea

After revealing a pre-event call took place between drivers, teams and wider industry personnel on how to best honor Busch, NASCAR Vice President of Racing Communications Mike Forde revealed that it was Briscoe’s idea for the Cup stars to make that tribute.

“Behind-the-scenes note, I don't think has come out yet, but the missing man, so after that call, Chase Briscoe called Steve O'Donnell pretty much immediately," Forde explained on the Hauler Talk podcast this week.

"And said, ‘Hey, you know, it just feels feels that we're gonna have this moment of silence probably and then we're just going to get to racing and we take the green flag and that’s it and I feel like there needs to be something between the moment of silence and then something probably on lap eight,’”

“In the dirt world we do this missing man tribute...maybe we do something like that,’ and it became that. [NASCAR said] ‘No, that’s perfect’.

“So credit to Chase Briscoe on that idea, and I thought that was really, really cool. I had not seen that; I've never seen that, but I thought that was really moving when that happened.”