Kyle Busch gets his Valentine’s shopping done for beau Samantha during media day

Kyle Busch, two-time Cup Series championship winner, went on a SiriusXM NASCAR Radio interview during media day for the upcoming Daytona 500 race on Sunday.

Despite a wildly decorated career, 2024 was a difficult year for Busch. With zero wins, it was his first winless season since his debut in 2005. He also missed the playoffs for the first time since 2012 and amassed only 10 top-10 finishes and five top-fives. His closest calls came in Daytona, Darlington, and Atlanta, in all of which, he was the runner-up by a miniscule margin.

During this interview, he played with two candy-shaped boxes with the legend "wife" and "hubby" written on the side. Then, as a joke, SiriusXM posted on its X account that Kyle had procured his wife, Samantha her Valentine's Day gift, and even tagged her.

"Psst Samantha Busch, your husband may have something for you. Kyle Busch getting his Valentine’s Day shopping done during media day," the post was captioned.

By the time of this publication, neither Kyle nor Samantha had responded to the post.

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Kyle Busch reflected on his tough 2024 season

Last December, Busch told Cameron Winstanley of The Express, that it was a "character-building" season and that those three losses could have given his team a completely different start to the season.

"Just not at all what we had hoped it to be after some success last year, especially early in the year having those three wins and then struggling a little bit on and off," Kyle Busch said.

To put into perspective, in Atlanta, Busch finished third only 0.004 seconds behind winner Daniel Suárez. That's less than a 1000th of a second later, coming in two places behind first. Likewise, Daytona and Darlington were near-wins for the legend but both saw him overtaken close to the finish line in dramatic fashion.

Later during that same interview he recognized the difficulty of having sustained success year after year, and reflected on his change to RCR.

"Things changed for me a couple of years ago (moving to RCR), and I was grateful to be able to extend the streak last year and make it my own. But honestly … it’s hard to put that many good years together in a row. It’s difficult."

Separately, Austin Dillon, Busch's partner in RCR made similar remarks when asked about the team's results in 2024. He said that had those three races gone differently, the overall season for RCR would've been one of note:

"Kyle Busch was close at multiple races. (In) Kansas, he's got it pretty much in the bag, he's made a pass for the lead. Then in Atlanta lost by a foot or so... If you take three of those and make them point wins, it's a big season for RCR," Austin told Bob Pockrass.

Next up, The Great American Race will kick off the new season and a new start for the Busch, Dillon, and RCR.