Kyle Busch Focused on Performance, Not Next Contract
Silly season is always an exciting time in motorsports, hence the name. While people talk and rumors swirl, some deals do actually get done. That was the case last weekend when Martin Truex Jr announced that he would be returning to Joe Gibbs Racing next season. Ricky Stenhouse Jr also signed a multi-year extension with JTG Daugherty Racing.
There are a few seats that remain a mystery, but the biggest domino has yet to fall.
Kyle Busch is the only multi-time champion in the Cup Series, but the 20-year veteran still has not solidified his future driving plans. While it seems almost a foregone conclusion that he would also return to JGR next season, sponsorship needs to be found for the No. 18 Toyota Camry after longtime sponsor Mars Inc will not be returning after this year.
There is little doubt that Busch still has plenty left in the tank. He has already locked himself into the Playoffs this season after his win in the Bristol Dirt Race. A third Cup title is the ultimate goal, but Kyle doesn't plan to ride off into the sunset even if that comes to fruition.
Busch is tied with Richard Petty for the most consecutive seasons with a race win. That is an impressive feat, and a record that Kyle would love to have all to himself. While the Next Gen car has brought some parity to the sport, the cream will always find a way to rise to the top. Although he hasn't been the dominant driver that we have seen in the past, Busch remains a premier talent behind the wheel.
Had it not been for some rotten luck, Busch might have a handful of victories this season. Flat tires, pit road problems, ill-timed cautions, weather, the wrong strategy, and just being in the wrong place at the wrong time have all contributed to some frustrating moments this season for the No. 18 team.
Getting back to being a consistent race winner is obviously the goal for Rowdy, and would go a long way in helping secure his next contract. It was another disappointing ending last weekend in Nashville where he finished 21st. Busch had arguably the fastest car in the field but a decision to come to pit road before the final restart backfired. He enters today's race at Road America with plenty of motivation.
While it may seem like Kyle has been great on road courses, he has just four victories on his resume. In fact, his last road course win came in 2015 when he won for the second time at Sonoma. His other two wins came at Watkins Glen, in 2008 and 2013. He does have 15 top-five finishes in his 43 road course starts, but his 15.0 average finishing position tells the whole story.
Toyota has had a rough time with the non-oval races this year, so it's not just Kyle. The highest-finishing Camry at Sonoma was Kyle's brother Kurt, who finished 18th. The first road course this season at Circuit of The Americas didn't go much better as the six Toyota drivers combined for a 21.0 average finish.
“We struggled at COTA with raw speed and being able to be good there,” Kyle said. “In the early stage of the race, I think we were running eighth, we were fading, I got spun out by Chase Elliott running 12th. So we weren’t great at COTA either, but we were able to get through some of the restarts and get positions on guys to get ourselves up front. Christopher (Bell) was third or fourth. I was right with him on the last lap there. And so you know, felt like with everything that kind of ensued on the last lap, we would have had a shot to run in the top two or three, for sure.”
“But I would say both road course events so far this year were not our strong suit. Why we missed it? I don’t know. If I could answer that, we wouldn’t struggle, we wouldn’t have been bad. But talking to Truex, who tested for us at Watkins Glen, certainly not looking forward to going to The Glen either. They weren’t very fast there.”
The addition of more road courses on the schedule has definitely changed Kyle’s approach to these weekends. "I’ve always enjoyed the road racing. Back when we had two on the schedule, it was kind of fun because it was like an off-week. You would go and enjoy the experience and try to learn and get better at it each time that you would do it, but now that there are five of them on the schedule, it’s definitely more loaded towards needing to be good at it; not wanting to but needing to.”
Another opportunity awaits this afternoon at Road America, where the Gibbs cars struggled on Saturday. The four JGR drivers qualified 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th with Kyle as the top Camry. He will be starting today’s race from the back of the field though, as the team changed the engine in his No. 18 car yesterday.
Hendrick Motorsports has been the class of the field on these tracks, having won nine of the last 13 road course races. Both JGR and 23XI Racing will try to turn things around today at Elkhart Lake as the regular season winds down. Time is dwindling for Busch and the team to come to an agreement, but neither side seems to be in any sort of panic right now.
Finding sponsorship has been the biggest hurdle for most teams and drivers over the past couple of decades, but if anyone can warrant being worth every penny, it is Busch and the Gibbs team. This combination of driver and team will provide the ultimate dollar-for-dollar value that companies are looking for.
Busch has won 60 Cup races over the course of his career. The 37-year old may be the complete opposite of this younger generation that is vanilla and unwilling to express their emotions in front of the camera. That is part of what draws people to Kyle, and what makes him so polarizing. Some may not like his antics or his aggression, but those are some of the ingredients that have made him a two-time Cup champion.
