[autotag]Kyle Busch[/autotag] made the shocking move to leave Joe Gibbs Racing at the conclusion of the 2022 NASCAR season and join Richard Childress Racing. In the end, it worked out well for Busch, who won three races with his new team after winning three combined races in his last two years with Joe Gibbs Racing. Looking back, it was the right move.
However, did Joe Gibbs Racing sell Busch hard enough to potential sponsors after Mars announced its intentions to leave NASCAR? According to Busch, through an article from Jordan Bianchi at The Athletic, it doesn’t appear that was the case. In fact, the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion’s former team apparently put all of its eggs in one basket.
“Did (Joe Gibbs Racing) try hard enough to sell me?” Busch said. “My answer to that is no. I’m being frank, and it might bite me in the butt, but they put all their eggs in one basket with the Oracle deal. And the way the Oracle deal got introduced to us was really, really weird…(Oracle) had just signed a contract for $500 million or something with (Formula 1 team) Red Bull. So I’m like, ‘There’s no way they’re going to do a NASCAR deal.'”
RETWEET TO CONGRATULATE KYLE BUSCH ON HIS WIN AT WWT RACEWAY! pic.twitter.com/uST2d8U8Wz
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) June 5, 2023
“So I told those guys, ‘Look, you got to look elsewhere. You got to look outside. We got to call everybody else.’ (Instead) they offered me a contract to race there, and they weren’t going to have sponsorship on the car, but I didn’t feel like that was fair for the 15 years that I was there; I didn’t want Joe putting his own money into the program.”
Maybe, if Joe Gibbs Racing pursued other potential sponsors, Busch would be driving the No. 18 Toyota. Instead, the 38-year-old driver now enters his second season with Richard Childress Racing as the organization looks to return to the Championship 4. We never got the storybook ending of Busch at Joe Gibbs Racing, but it’s fascinating to see how it could’ve taken place.
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