Kyle Busch’s sudden death turned the Coca-Cola 600 into a memorial service with 95,000 guests. His protégé pulled off the win

A general view of an LED screen displaying a tribute to Kyle Busch prior to practice for the NASCAR Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 Charbroil 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday in Concord, North Carolina. (David Jensen/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

The Coca-Cola 600, set on Memorial Day Weekend, has always had a strong element of remembrance to it. On Sunday, the world of NASCAR was still wrapping its collective head around the fact that one of its own was included in this year’s collective mourning.

A race that endured 12 caution flags over the nearly five hours of racing ended in one of Busch’s protégés – Daniel Suarez – winning a rain-shortened contest. He choked back tears as fellow drivers congratulated him, and dedicated his victory to Busch.

“The very first thing that came to my mind was Kyle,” Suarez told reporters after the race. “We all know this has been a difficult week and weekend for all of us, drivers, promoters, media, fans, most important, his family. A few days ago, I was still hoping that somebody was going to say that it wasn’t real.”

Kyle Busch’s rapid decline and sudden death left the racing world reeling and turned this race just outside of Charlotte into a memorial service with 95,000 people in attendance. The black No. 8 on the infield, the messages of remembrance scribbled on the race’s finish line, the No. 8 atop the tower before the race – indicating Busch in pole position – and the photos of the fallen legend all indicated this race was something more than just the traditional Memorial Day weekend NASCAR event at one of its signature tracks.

Instead, it was a sort of mass catharsis, a moment for the tightly knit racing community to come together and grieve. A moment to assure the family Busch left behind that they weren’t alone in the toughest moment of their lives.

And it was fitting that one of the drivers who had the deepest bonds with Busch ended up in Victory Lane.

“We used to be on the phone every single week because he was helping me, trying to understand what I needed to look for, trying to understand the research,” Suarez said of their relationship.

“He didn’t have to help me. 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, and that for me spoke very, very highly of not who he is as a driver, but who he is as a person. And most people didn’t know that side of him. I got to know that side of him, so … those are the kind of things I want to remember about him, and honestly, because of those things he made me want to want to be like him.”

Racing isn’t just a sport. For many drivers and their fans, it’s a way of life – something Busch understood in the extreme. That’s why it was also a moment for the circuit to roll on as Busch would have expected.

NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell said on Friday there was never any thought of canceling the race – the man known as “Rowdy” would have hated that idea, he said – and the tens of thousands of race fans still showed up to enjoy a few adult beverages and cheer on their favorite drivers.

“The only way you can honor his memory is to race. You don’t stop living in someone’s absence – you continue on, you be strong,” said Jason Sherrill, a fan wearing a Busch shirt outside of the track. “Kyle has dealt with loss … and Kyle said, ‘If it ever happens to me, let’s race, line up and do what I love to do,’ and that’s the best way we can go about it is to race in honor and memory of him today.”

While NASCAR never intended to postpone or cancel Sunday’s race due to Busch’s death, Mother Nature caused some concern after Memorial Day weekend showers wreaked havoc on the weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Races were delayed, qualifying was canceled and there was real concern that the centerpiece race – the longest of the year in the NASCAR Cup Series – would be affected by the weather.

But for the first time in what felt like days – much to the relief of fans and race officials alike – the sun shone over Charlotte. The gloom that had hung over the track since news of Busch’s sudden passing went public Thursday afternoon finally cleared.

Maybe that wasn’t a coincidence.

An overwhelming sense of loss

In the moments before the race got underway, Busch’s family – wife Samantha, son Brexton, daughter Lennix, parents Tom and Gaye and brother and NASCAR Hall of Famer Kurt Busch – gathered by the black No. 8 on the track’s infield.

Samantha Busch shook with tears, her grief overwhelming her as she held onto her son, who hid his emotions under a black hat with his dad’s No. 8 emblazoned across the front. Stood behind them, in a moment of deep symbolism, were all the drivers competing in Sunday’s race.

The message was clear: In the face of unfathomable loss, the NASCAR family had the Busch family’s backs.

Busch had been sick for a few weeks, notably calling for a doctor to meet him after the May 10 race at Watkins Glen, but was feeling well enough to win the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race in Dover on May 15. It seemed like the worst of it was past – until things took a sudden turn in North Carolina.

Busch was coughing up blood and experiencing shortness of breath on Wednesday while getting ready for Sunday’s race, according to a 911 call for an ambulance. The call, made at 5:30 p.m. ET Wednesday, came almost exactly 24 hours before NASCAR, Busch’s family and Richard Childress Racing announced his death.

Busch’s family said on Saturday that the 41-year-old NASCAR legend died from complications of severe pneumonia that progressed into sepsis. Sepsis is the body’s “overwhelming and life-threatening response” to an infection, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The condition can lead to tissue damage, organ failure and death. Sepsis can be triggered by any type of infection, even a minor one, and occurs when germs enter a person’s body and multiply, causing illness and damage to organs and tissues.

Many of his fellow drivers were in tears in the run-up to Sunday’s race as they spoke about trying to wrap their heads around the fact that “Rowdy” wasn’t lining up to compete. They wore his No. 8 on their hats as they walked out for introductions.

When the Charlotte Fire Department Pipe Band played “Amazing Grace,” dry eyes were hard to come by.

Suarez said that he was so emotional after the ceremony with the Busch family that he didn’t feel ready to race when he first got into his No. 7 car.

“I would say that is probably the first time or second time ever that I jump in my car, and normally, as a driver, you really need that time to be able to disconnect from everything that is happening, to focus in the car, right, to focus in the race, in the strategy, and everything,” Suarez said. “And I don’t feel like I had that moment today because they were so many emotions. Seeing Samantha today for the first time, that totally broke my heart. I saw Brexton as well, and for a split second I grabbed him and I gave him a kiss on his head.

“There were so many emotions, so many emotions. I feel like when I jumped in the car, I wasn’t ready.”

The drivers assumed the “Missing Man” formation as they drove around the track ahead of the green flag, as fans waved their caps in appreciation and remembrance – both for Busch and the members of the military who gave their lives in service of their nation.

When the engines roared and the green flag went down, it felt like a collective exhale went around the massive grandstand at this crown jewel of American car racing. Finally, the focus could turn to the racing – as Busch would have wanted.

But even still, his memory loomed over the result. Jeff Dickerson, owner of the Spire Motorsports team for whom Suarez races, said he kept expecting Busch to message him after it was cut short.

“When the rain first started falling … you just find yourself thinking, you’re just gonna get some text from him, right? Just like, ‘Lucky a*****e,’” Dickerson said.

The show goes on without one of its leads

The atmosphere at a NASCAR speedway on race day is usually more like a tailgate ahead of a big college football game, only on steroids.

Outside and inside the track, campers have been posted for days enjoying drinks and grilled meats of all kinds. The music is usually blaring, flags are waving and a festive mood fills the air.

It was a little different in North Carolina this week.

“It’s a big loss for the community because NASCAR has a history of being really on the edge, you know, and rowdy and we’ve got these drivers that just push the limit all the time,” said Michelle Tuhis, a fan at the race on Sunday. “And when they’re just pushing the limit and just being rowdy, you know, we love those drivers. We boo them but we love them at the same time, you know.

She added, “He pushed the limit. … It gave us some excitement to have somebody to boo for even though I didn’t. I mean, I loved him, loved him.”

Busch was known as one of NASCAR’s fiercest, most intense, most passionate drivers. He won more than 200 races across NASCAR’s three nationwide series, the winningest driver of all time. He hated to lose, loved to win and wasn’t afraid to fight – literally and figuratively – anyone who got in his way.

It earned him a reputation as a villain, a driver that fans loved to hate.

“We all like to go to the track and yell at him, give him the bird, but at the end of the day, it’s sad, and I think it speaks volumes that NASCAR fans are a family,” fan Hunter Teeter said before the race.

You’d never know it from the scene at the massive racing complex on Sunday.

Busch shirts were everywhere, and his name was cheered every time it was mentioned. Stories flowed as freely as those aforementioned adult beverages as drivers and fans alike remembered Busch’s growth from a hot-tempered young gun to the “generational talent,” as Denny Hamlin called him, that he became. Layne Riggs, the winner of Sunday’s truck series race, performed Busch’s signature bow after he won, wiping tears from his eyes from Victory Lane.

On the eighth lap of the race, the fans in the grandstands put up four fingers on each hand, raising them in the air in silence. When the pack passed, they broke into cheers with many pointing their fingers to the sky.

As the sun went down and day turned to night over North Carolina, it was the race that took center stage. Six hundred miles, 400 laps around the mile-and-a-quarter track, the engines roaring – it felt moment-to-moment, engrossing and adrenaline-inducing. It felt the way it was supposed to.

For at least a few hours, racing fans could go back to debating if Christopher Bell induced Austin Cindric to crash in Turn 2 (probably not), whether Katherine Legge could finish all 600 miles after crashing out of Sunday afternoon’s Indianapolis 500, how the setting sun might affect speeds on the track – racing talk.

The marathon 600-mile race rolled on without Busch, but all the while the eight flowers laid by his family on that black No. 8 on the infield remained – a silent reminder of the grief that will remain when the Cup Series moves on.

CNN’s Rafael Romo, MariaSole Campinoti and Nic Anderson contributed to this report.