Kyle Busch death: Brad Keselowski details final encounter with NASCAR legend on a plane

Brad Keselowski revealed that Kyle Busch, who died last week, was acting differently during their final encounter. While speaking with PEOPLE, Keselowski detailed what he noticed about Busch when they were traveling for a race.

“I was flying to Dover last week with Kyle,” Brad Keselowski began. “It was probably more by chance than anything else. …Kyle is normally a fairly gregarious person, very outgoing, and he wasn’t. He sat down one row behind me and next to me and fell asleep right away, and I could tell he wasn’t feeling well.”

“And that was pretty much the last time I saw him. We were in a race, and you get in a race, and you don’t really see each other. So I saw him on the racetrack.”

Keselowski mentioned that he “didn’t really think much” of Busch not feeling well. At Dover, Busch competed in two races and won the Truck Series event. The following week, Busch died from severe pneumonia that progressed into sepsis.

Brad Keselowski shares more on Kyle Busch

Keselowski and Busch were rivals on the track, competing against each other in the NASCAR Cup Series for over 15 years. Keselowski also spoke to PEOPLE about how he had thought about putting their rivalry aside one day.

“I guess I had visions before his death of… actually, I thought about this multiple times: What’s it going to be like when we’re both in the Hall of Fame, and we’re doing some kind of ceremony together, whatever that might be? Will the hatchet be buried? I think so,” he said. “And will we actually be able to share a laugh about it? I guess in my mind, I hope so, and now obviously not.”

Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski have put together Hall of Fame careers. Busch won the NASCAR Cup Series championship twice and collected 63 race victories. He also won 102 races in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and 69 races in the Truck Series.

Keselowski has won 36 Cup Series races and won the Cup Series championship in 2012. Some of his notable victories are the 2018 Southern 500, the 2018 Brickyard 400, and the 2020 Coca-Cola 600.