Kyle Busch NASCAR 26 Tribute: What’s Actually in the Game
Kyle Busch is not coming back to NASCAR. That settled in over the past year, and it hits differently when you’re talking about a two-time Cup champion who was still competitive when the rides dried up. So when NASCAR 26 was announced, the question came up fast: is he in the Kyle Busch NASCAR 26 lineup?
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▶ NASCAR 26 AMA: Everything Matt Lewis Told Us
He is. Lead developer Matt Lewis confirmed the details in a Discord AMA this week, and the approach is more thoughtful than a checkbox licensing entry.
Lewis said the team worked directly with NASCAR, RCR, KBM, and the Busch family before finalizing how he’d appear. He’s selectable in the Cup Series for Quick Race and multiplayer. He won’t appear in the AI field, so he won’t show up in a career race or any session you don’t put him in yourself. That was a deliberate call, not a licensing limitation.
His tribute sticker is available in the car creator. Tribute elements are also in the UI, though Lewis didn’t detail exactly what form those take. Because the family was directly involved in the process, there’s likely more to it than a single screen.
Austin Hill is in the game and in the AI field. Lewis confirmed that when asked about the No. 33 car. So the number lives on in the races, just with the person currently driving it.
Lewis framed the whole inclusion around what Busch meant to the sport regardless of where fans stood on him personally. Whether you loved him or couldn’t stand him on a Sunday afternoon, the resume is what it is. Two Cup championships, the all-time wins record in the Truck Series, titles in all three national series. There’s no honest argument against him belonging in the game.
The tribute sticker in the car creator will probably show up everywhere in the online field once the game ships on September 18. That’s the kind of thing the car creator community runs with, and given the reaction every time Busch’s number comes up in chat, there will be no shortage of people putting it to use.
