Kurt Busch Net Worth: What His NASCAR Career and Records Show

Editor’s note: This article was first published on May 23, 2022. Its original text was lost when Focus Hillsboro rebuilt its website, so it was rewritten and re-checked against the primary sources linked below on Oct. 24, 2026.

Kurt Busch’s net worth is not a public number. The NASCAR and team sources reviewed for this article do not disclose his salary or personal finances, so the figures that circulate online are estimates.

What is on the record is his racing. As of May 23, 2022, the 43-year-old had 34 Cup Series wins, a 2004 championship, a 2017 Daytona 500 victory and a career earnings line that covers only part of his time in the sport.

A win at Kansas, eight days earlier

His 34th Cup win was also his newest. On May 15, 2022, Busch drove the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota to victory in the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway, finishing 1.413 seconds ahead of Kyle Larson, NASCAR’s race report said. It was his first win at Kansas and his first of the season. His younger brother, Kyle Busch, finished third.

The same report noted that Busch had now won Cup races for five different car owners and with four different manufacturers. A week later, on May 22, he started fifth and finished 13th in the non-points All-Star Race at Texas Motor Speedway, according to Racing-Reference.

How he got to the No. 45

That ride was new for 2022. On Aug. 27, 2021, 23XI Racing, the team co-owned by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin, announced that Busch would drive its second car, NASCAR.com reported. The number 45 is one Jordan wore in basketball and minor league baseball, and Monster Energy signed on as primary sponsor.

Busch had spent the three previous seasons with Chip Ganassi Racing, and the move put him in Toyota equipment for the first time. “Racing to win is what I live for,” he said in the team’s release.

His path to the Cup Series started in the West. Racing-Reference lists his birth date as Aug. 4, 1978, and his home as Las Vegas. It shows him winning the NASCAR Southwest Series title in 1999 with six wins, then four Truck Series wins and a second-place finish in the 2000 standings.

He made seven Cup starts for Jack Roush that same year. NASCAR’s account of his career says his full Truck season earned him Rookie of the Year honors and that he moved to a full-time Cup ride in 2001.

The record behind the name

Busch’s Cup totals, as listed by Racing-Reference in late May 2022, before the Coca-Cola 600:

The 2004 championship was the first decided under NASCAR’s 10-race Chase format. NASCAR says he won it by eight points over Jimmie Johnson, after his right-front tire broke loose in the season finale at Homestead and he rallied to finish fifth.

His Daytona 500 win came on Feb. 26, 2017, in the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. Racing-Reference’s race results show he led only the final lap and beat Ryan Blaney by 0.228 seconds.

By our count from Racing-Reference’s season rows, he had won at least one Cup race in 19 of his 23 seasons through May 2022, including every season since 2014.

What his race earnings show

Racing-Reference lists $90,042,780 in Cup Series earnings for Busch. That total comes entirely from his seasons from 2000 through 2015. The site lists his earnings as zero for every season from 2016 on, so the figure leaves out more than six seasons of racing, including his Daytona 500 win.

His largest listed season was 2004, his championship year, at $9,677,543. The site also lists smaller amounts from other series, including $966,143 in what is now the Xfinity Series and $423,889 from his one start in the 2014 Indianapolis 500.

These are race purse figures recorded by a stats site. They are not a salary figure, and they are not a net worth. Online net worth estimates for Busch vary, and we could not confirm one from an archived copy dated to May 2022, so this article does not give one.

Away from the track, Busch announced his engagement to Ashley Van Metre in August 2015, NBC Sports reported. Fox News reported that the couple married on Jan. 7, 2017, on the Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy.

Update, Oct. 24, 2026

Busch suffered a concussion in a qualifying crash at Pocono on July 23, 2022, did not race again that season, and announced on Oct. 15, 2022, that he would step away from full-time Cup racing in 2023, NASCAR.com reported.

He announced his retirement from Cup competition on Aug. 26, 2023, with 776 career starts, 23XI Racing said. He was elected to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in his first year on the ballot and was inducted on Jan. 23, 2026, in Charlotte.

Top image: File photo, May 2022: Kurt Busch drives the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota at Dover Motor Speedway. Photo: Zach Catanzareti Photo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).