For the last several months, people have continued to ask just where, oh where is Kyle Busch going to be driving next season. Will he return to Joe Gibbs Racing? Will he go to another team? Will he retire? Will he hold up in his Truck Team?
Like so many other things in life, the answer is simple once you ask the right question. The problem is that everyone is asking the wrong question. The question isn’t where WILL he go, it’s where CAN he go?
For over a decade, NASCAR and it’s associated media has touted Kyle Busch as perhaps the greatest and most talented driver the sport has ever seen. A modern-day Earnhardt with better stats – supposedly – than even Richard Petty. He dominates every Xfinity and Truck race he competes in. Heck, in the few races Kyle loses in the lower series, the real story is that the winner “beat Kyle Busch” as if defeating the other competitors is nothing to hang your hat on. No matter how he may treat his crew, competitors, media and others, that’s just Kyle being Kyle and he’s to be at the centre of the NASCAR universe.
No wonder the guy has an ego the size of Talladega.
Unfortunately, that’s caused the issue that Busch finds himself wrestling with. For many a driver finding himself without a contract, there are some options. However, Kyle Busch’s ego is not going to allow him to sign with even a mid-level team. The rumours that Busch is going to sign with Richard Childress Racing or Kaulig Racing are ludicrous. You wanna talk fake news? There it is, and this is coming from someone who loves RCR and is a fan of Kaulig Racing, especially at the Xfinity level and really hopes they build to the same success at the Cup level. However, currently neither RCR nor Kaulig is considered one of NASCAR’s top Cup teams.
While Busch is lauded as the most talented driver in the sport today and many would want to rank him as perhaps among the most talented of all time, there is nothing in his history that would prove that. He has never had to take subpar equipment and had to use his skills to improve, especially at the Cup level where his resume only lists two employers: Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing. In neither instance did he have to prove his ability to take a mid-pack car to the front. (And yes, I am sure someone will tell me how he ran a few races for some underfunded late model or Bandolero car when he was 14 and did amazing things.)
If anything, COVID-19 and the brief foray into eNASCAR iRacing Invitational proved that, all things being equal, perhaps the Kyle Busch hype isn’t as real as Joe Gibbs Racing, NASCAR and some media outlets would have you believe. The series was set up to give NASCAR fans something to watch while the season was put on hold. As Mike Joy said, the cars have identical set-up and horsepower. That would indicate that the skill of the drivers would be the deciding factor, not the amount of money their teams could put into the cars. In the thirteen races between two seasons, Busch had three top 10s (and none in the inaugural season in 2020). Timmy Hill, who is lucky to even finish on the lead lap in the Cup series, had ten Top 10s, including a win.
Now one could certainly argue that Timmy Hill has more iRacing experience than Busch. However, the results make you wonder just where Kyle Busch’s career might be if he was not running top level equipment. (Also, where would Timmy Hill’s career be if he was?)
And thus, the question remains: where CAN Kyle Busch go? There are only so many teams out there that Busch would deem up to his standards, and unlike Brad Keselowski, Busch doesn’t strike me as the type of person who is going to take on the task of elevating a mid-level team.
And as an aside, may I just say that Brad Keselowski is not getting enough credit for the courage to embark on the career path he has taken in 2022 and going forward. Brad wanted to take on an ownership role in the Cup level. My understanding is that he approached Roger Penske about the opportunity and was rebuffed. Many a driver in Brad’s situation would have decided it wasn’t in the cards, at least at this time, shrugged off the disappointment and climbed back into the #2 Penske Ford and been a threat to win week in and week out and be a threat for the championship year in and year out.
Instead, he approached Roush-Fenway, at least a decade past the glory years of having five cars (back when NASCAR allowed that) and top drivers like Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth, Mark Martin and others. Back in the mid-2000s, Roush-Fenway was definitely a team that Kyle Busch would have considered signing with. In 2022, even if Keselowski wasn’t a part-owner (given the history between them), Roush Fenway would not even be on Busch’s radar.
In leaving Penske for Roush-Fenway, however, Brad Keselowski saw an opportunity to become involved with something bigger than himself. He saw the opportunity to bring RFK Racing (as it is now known) back to the forefront of NASCAR but had to know that it wasn’t going to happen overnight. He had to know that it would mean sacrificing a long period in his own career to bad finishes, DNFs and struggles for the betterment of the team as a whole.
I don’t see Kyle doing that. He’s used to winning and he wants to keep winning. To do so, he needs to compete for a top-level team. What are his options?
Hendrick Motorsports – which has no room at the inn. NASCAR Cup teams are only allowed to have four full-time cars. So, another question: who does Rick Hendrick kick to the curb to take on Busch? Chase Elliott? Kyle Larson? William Byron? Alex Bowman? I don’t really see Hendrick getting rid of any of those drivers, especially for someone with the baggage Busch (ego, temper, etc.) would be bringing. Heck, the world figures Hendrick has to bring out the milk and cookies if Elliott and Larson trade a little paint, can you imagine how many people Busch would rub the wrong way.
Penske Racing – Sure, there would be a spot for Busch with Penske as there are only three cars in their stable (the Wood Brothers car doesn’t count, any more than 23XI’s two cars count towards JGR’s total). However, I really don’t see Penske wanting to have Joey Logano and Kyle Busch sitting next to each other at the competition meetings. However, maybe that’s why Penske signed Logano to a long-term deal, so he doesn’t jump ship if and when he finds himself with Busch as a teammate. I’m not buying it though.
Stewart-Haas Racing – The weird part is that even as the door to Stewart-Haas Racing looked to be opening, it was slammed closed. For the past couple of years, it appeared that SHR was no longer to be considered a front-runner for the likes of Busch. Then, in the last month, SHR’s top driver, Kevin Harvick broke a long dry spell and the team had already put a driver in the playoffs with Chase Briscoe. And with Aric Almirola retiring, the #10 ride opened up. Harvick was on record that he’d be happy to have Busch as his team-mate. But then…Almirola decided he was sticking around for a couple more years, and just like that, no ride for Busch with Stewart-Haas Racing.
23XI Racing – With Michael Jordan and JGR teammate Denny Hamlin as co-owners and with a lot of hype surrounding the team, maybe Busch is like a lot of us, drawn to the new and the shiny. The fact that his brother Kurt drives (or drove, depending on how you want to look at it) for 23XI probably doesn’t hurt either. Hamlin even said that a third 23XI team is a possibility. There is just one issue: 23XI Racing is, for all the hype, a satellite team for Joe Gibbs Racing. There’s another article coming that will delve into this but all one needs to prove this point is that, when Joe Gibbs wanted some Cup seat time for grandson Ty (a 19-year-old just over a year removed from making his full-time ARCA series start), it was 23XI he went to. Would Kyle Busch be willing to drive for JGR’s farm team? Yeah, I don’t think so either.
And so, I will ask the question once again – where CAN Kyle Busch go in 2023?
There’s another question that needs to be asked: What happens with Kyle Busch Motorsports? I sincerely doubt that Toyota is going to support a race team owned by a guy driving for a Ford or a Chevy. At the same time, on the off-chance that Busch does sign with a mid-level team, are they going to have the resources to rehaul the team, since they’d have to basically start from scratch in 2023.
At the same time, where does that leave JGR and their development team? Sure, argue all you want 23XI is a satellite team for Gibbs but they would still need a place to develop young drivers to take over as older ones retire. Remember that Martin Truex, Jr. toyed with the idea of retiring at the end of the year. If Busch is gone for 2023 and Truex leaves before 2024, there’s two spots they need to fill. As I said in an earlier article, Ty Gibbs can fill one and perhaps Brandon Jones could get called up, but where does that leave their Xfinity program?
Some might argue that Busch needs JGR more than Gibbs needs Kyle. I’m sure that JGR would have no problem signing other talent from the Trucks and ARCA to fill spots in the Xfinity Series. However, one has to think that things might progress a lot more smoothly if they just brought in drivers from KBM rather than having to waste time scouting.
Meanwhile, perhaps all of this leads to the fact that the answer to the question of where CAN/WILL Kyle Busch go in 2023 probably needs to be “right back to where he is now.” Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota will figure out a way that Busch is back in the #18 car in 2023.
Unless…well, that’s another story.
johnmilner.ca 