CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — For most of his career, Kurt Busch had a tough-guy persona on and off the racetrack.
But the 47-year-old Busch showed a softer side during his NASCAR Hall of Fame acceptance speech on Friday night as he paused to honor his former Roush Racing teammate Greg Biffle, who died in a plane crash along with his wife, two children and three others on Dec. 18.
“I can’t put the words together, but you and I were like peanut butter and jelly when we raced Cup together,” Busch said, addressing Biffle. “And you were instrumental in helping me win a (Cup) championship.
“You will always be the Biff. Everyone be like Biff.”
Busch was inducted along with fellow drivers Harry Gant and Ray Hendrick.
Busch, who won the first Cup Chase in 2004, was selected in his first year of eligibility by the NASCAR Hall of Fame Voting Panel last May.
Busch got his start driving dwarf cars in his home state of Nevada and made the fast acceleration to the Cup Series after bypassing what was then known as the Busch Series because of his talent as a driver.
“It’s an amazing feeling,” Busch said. “It's a journey that this blue-collar kid from (Las) Vegas never expected. All of these trips down memory lane talking with everyone and the different teams I was with, all the great racers that I raced against. It’s been an amazing journey.”
His younger brother Kyle Busch presented him for the Hall, saying he was immensely proud.
“This award is about resilience and heart and Kurt earned every bit of it,” Kyle Busch said.
Nicknamed “The Outlaw,” Busch was known for his fiery temper and often found himself at the center of controversy.
He won his only Cup Series championship at age 26 in his fourth year on the circuit. It was the first championship contested under the 10-race Chase format, and it came in dramatic fashion.
Busch's right front tire broke loose from his No. 97 Roush Racing Ford and rolled to the right of the pit wall as he steered to the left of the barrier. He managed to finish fifth and secured the title.
“There was this weird vibration happening with the right front,” Busch said in a video he posted on social media before his induction. “So, I was coming down on the access road, and it’s starting to vibrate bad like it’s coming apart. Something’s going down.
“It broke right there. I know I’m wrecking, and I’m like, ‘My day’s done.’ Something took my left foot off the brake pedal to allow that left front tire just to gain a little bit of turn and to stay away from the barrels and the embarrassment of running into the end of the pit wall.”
Busch won 43 races across NASCAR’s three national series, including 34 at the Cup level. He won the 2017 Daytona 500 and retired in 2023 after sustaining a concussion following a crash at Pocono.
Gant, 86, known as “The Bandit,” joined Busch as a Modern Era selection in his seventh year of eligibility.
“I was hoping to get in here sooner or later,” Gant joked.
Gant raced late into his career. The Taylorsville, North Carolina, native, had 18 victories, with five of them — including four straight wins at Darlington, Richmond, Dover and Martinsville — coming after he turned 51.
“I have been able to take a car and make it win,” Gant said. “I have had several cars. To make a car that becomes a winner, it's like a person — it becomes your best friend then. Not your wife, but your best friend.”
Gant also won 21 races in the O’Reilly Series, captured the IROC Series title in 1985 and finished second to NASCAR Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip in the inaugural All-Star Race.
Hendrick, known as “Mr. Modified,” accumulated more than 700 victories in modified and late model sportsman racing from 1950 through 1988. He was chosen from a group of five Pioneer Ballot nominees.
Although he never won a modified championship, Hendrick finished in the top 10 nine times from 1960-69.
“He was almost unbeatable on short tracks,” said Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick, who is unrelated to Ray Hendrick but worked on Ray's cars as a teenager.
Hendrick's son Ronnie accepted the award for his father, who died in 1990.
“If my dad was here tonight he would be so honored to be recognized with so many other great drivers,” Ronnie Hendrick said.
Track promoter H.A. Wheeler was honored with the Landmark Award for contributions to the sport.
The longtime president and general manager of Charlotte Motor Speedway, Wheeler became know for his over-the-top promotional events, including a staged battle in the infield with giant “Robosaurus” breathing fire and devouring cars during pre-race ceremonies.
Speedway Motorsports CEO Marcus Smith called him “the P.T. Barnum of motorsports.”
Wheeler died last August at age 86.
NASCAR presented team owner and motorsports innovator Jack Roush with the Bill France Award of Excellence this week, making him the first two-time winner of what's considered the sport's most prestigious award. He was recognized for his decades-long impact on the sport and his commitment to competition, innovation and leadership.
He also won the award in 2001.
“For decades, Jack Roush has helped move NASCAR forward while staying true to what makes the sport special,” NASCAR Chairman and CEO Jim France said. “He has built championship-caliber teams and developed generations of drivers and leaders.”
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FILE - Former driver Harry Gant is introduced to fans as an inductee into the Hall of Fame class of 2026 prior to a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025, in Concord, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley,File)
FILE - Driver Kurt Busch acknowledges fans before a NASCAR Cup Series auto race, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2023, in Bristol, Tenn. (AP Photo/Wade Payne,File)
DALLAS (AP) — Almost 10,000 flights across the U.S. set to take off over the weekend were canceled as a monster storm started to wreak havoc Saturday across much of the country and threatened to knock out power for days and snarl major roadways with dangerous ice.
Roughly 140 million people, or more than 40% of the U.S. population, were under a winter storm warning from New Mexico to New England. The National Weather Service forecast warns of widespread heavy snow and a band of catastrophic ice stretching from east Texas to North Carolina.
The Texas Department of Transportation on Saturday posted images of snow-covered highways in the suburbs north of Dallas.
“It’s happening!” the agency’s post said. “If anyone asks you... yes... we do want you to stay in and avoid unnecessary travel as the winter storm moves through North Texas this weekend.”
By mid-morning Saturday, ice had formed on roads and bridges in a third of Mississippi’s counties, according to Scott Simmons, a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.
Little Rock Arkansas was dusted with snow.
Forecasters say damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival that of a hurricane.
Ice and sleet that hit northern Texas overnight were moving toward the central part of the state on Saturday, the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said. Expecting ice and hazardous conditions, officials said all schools in Houston will be closed on Monday.
“Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X. Low temperatures will be mostly in the single digits for the next few nights, with wind chills as low as minus 12 degrees Fahreinheit (minus 24 Celsius).
More than 95,000 power outages were reported across the country Saturday morning, about 36,000 of them in Texas and 10,000 more in Virginia. Snow and sleet continued to fall in Oklahoma.
Governors in more than a dozen states sounded the alarm about the turbulent weather ahead, declaring emergencies or urging people to stay home.
As of 10 a.m. ET, more than 3,400 flights were canceled Saturday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. Nearly 6,200 flights were called off for Sunday.
Angela Exstrom was supposed to fly back to Omaha, Nebraska, from a trip in Mexico, but she learned her Saturday flight out of Houston had been canceled. So instead, she is going back via Los Angeles.
“If you live in the Midwest and travel in the winter, stuff can happen,” she said.
After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping about a foot (30 centimeters) of snow from Washington through New York and Boston, the weather service predicted. Temperatures reached minus 29 F (minus 34 C) just before dawn in rural Lewis County and other parts of upstate New York after days of heavy snow.
Utility companies braced for power outages because ice-coated trees and power lines can keep falling long after a storm has passed.
The Midwest saw wind chills as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 40 Celsius), meaning that frostbite could set in within 10 minutes.
In Bismarck, North Dakota, where the wind chill was minus 41 (minus 41 Celsius), Colin Cross was bundled up Friday in long johns, two long-sleeve shirts, a jacket, hat, hood, gloves and boots as he cleaned out an empty unit for the apartment complex where he works.
“I’ve been here awhile and my brain stopped working,” Cross said.
The storm has been a popular topic of discussion for days at Saint Paul Mini Market in Baltimore.
“Every single person that walks in talks about the storm,” said owner Ayaz Ahmed.
“Somehow, this time around, they did a good job letting people know that here’s a storm coming their way, and everybody knows about the storm, but how to deal with that is another thing,” Ahmed said.
The federal government put nearly 30 search and rescue teams on standby. Officials had more than 7 million meals, 600,000 blankets and 300 generators placed throughout the area the storm was expected to cross, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
President Donald Trump said via social media on Friday that his administration was coordinating with state and local officials and “FEMA is fully prepared to respond.”
Nine states have requested emergency declarations, according to a FEMA briefing document released Saturday. The declarations can unlock federal emergency resources. Trump on Friday approved emergency declarations for South Carolina and Virginia, and requests from Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia were still pending as of Saturday morning.
After the storm passes, it will take a while to thaw out. Ice can add hundreds of pounds to power lines and branches and make them more susceptible to snapping, especially if it's windy.
In at least 11 Southern states from Texas to Virginia, a majority of homes are heated by electricity, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
A severe cold snap five years ago took down much of the power grid in Texas, leaving millions without power for days and resulting in hundreds of deaths. Abbott vowed that will not happen again, and utility companies were bringing in thousands of employees to help keep the lights on.
Churches moved Sunday services online, and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, decided to hold its Saturday night radio performance without fans. Mardi Gras parades in Louisiana were canceled or rescheduled.
Philadelphia announced schools would be closed Monday. Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. told students, “It’s also appropriate to have one or two very safe snowball fights.”
Some universities in the South canceled classes for Monday, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Mississippi's main campus in Oxford.
At the University of Georgia, in Athens, sophomore Eden England stayed on campus to ride things out with friends, even as the school encouraged students to leave dorms and go home because of concerns about losing power.
“I’d rather be with my friends,” England said, “kind of struggling together if anything happens.”
Megnien and Amy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers around the country contributed.
Sea smoke rises from Casco Bay at sunrise on a 1-degree F. morning as a ferry boat makes its way to Portland, Maine, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Island commuters are bundled against the cold as they disembark from a ferry on a 1-degree F. morning, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026, in Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Emma Nadeau, of North Yarmouth, Maine, photographs the pre-dawn scene overlooking Casco Bay on a 1-degree F. morning, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026, in Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Emma Nadeau, of North Yarmouth, Maine, is bundled against the cold as she watches the sunrise on a 1-degree F. morning, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026, in Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Ice crystals form inside a kitchen window in Lowville, New York, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Cara Anna)
Strong winds kick up snow in Lowville, New York, on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Cara Anna)
A person walks by a vehicle that was plowed in by snow in Grand Rapids, Mich. on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. (Joel Bissell/Kalamazoo Gazette via AP)
Work crews stage with de-icing materials in their trucks ahead of expected inclement weather in Plano, Texas, Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Doug Kunde watches as steam is seen over Lake Michigan as frigid temperatures for the day are not expected to reach zero degrees Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
People walk on an ice covered beach along the shore of Lake Michigan, Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)
