Kyle Busch's chilling message after final NASCAR win a painful ending for mourning fans

Fox News correspondent Kevin Corke reports on the sudden death of legendary NASCAR driver Kyle Busch on ‘The Ingraham Angle.’

Twenty-five years ago, then-NASCAR president Mike Helton stood in front of the entire world in the Daytona International Speedway media center and announced the unthinkable.

"We've lost Dale Earnhardt."

Those words — that press conference — are burned into every NASCAR fan's brain. We can still hear the cameras clicking. We can still see Helton's face. We can still feel the pain, and the loss, and the anger.

It was a seismic moment, for all the wrong reasons. It changed the sport forever. It changed everything.

Thursday, with the pain and the suffering and the anger seemingly gone — finally — after nearly three decades, the NASCAR world was rocked again.

There was no big crash on the final lap. No press conference. No B-roll of an ambulance racing toward Halifax Health. Frankly, there was no warning.

But the words hurt just the same. They hurt a new generation of NASCAR fans, and an old one still trying to recover.

"We've lost Kyle Busch."

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Kyle Busch stands with his wife Samantha Busch and son Brexton Busch before the Pennsylvania 400 at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pa., on Aug. 1, 2016. (Matthew O'Haren/Imagn Images)

Busch, a two-time Cup Series champion, died unexpectedly at 41. His family announced earlier in the day that he would miss Sunday's race in Charlotte after being hospitalized with a "severe illness." That's all we knew.

Five hours later, the most decorated driver in the series was gone. Just like that. Busch became the first Cup driver since Earnhardt to die while still racing. He became the second driver since December to die in gut-wrenching fashion.