NASCAR: Will Kyle Busch retire from Xfinity competition after 2020?

Kyle Busch has a chance to notch his 100th career NASCAR Xfinity Series victory in the 2020 season. Will he retire from the series after this year?

A few weeks ago, Joe Gibbs Racing confirmed that full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver Kyle Busch is slated to compete in five races throughout the 33-race 2020 Xfinity Series, which is the maximum number of races in which he is allowed to compete at NASCAR’s second highest level.

Busch is slated to drive the #54 Toyota in these five races, and he is set to compete in the first of these five events this afternoon at Phoenix Raceway.

The 34-year-old Las Vegas, Nevada native enters his five-race slate of Xfinity Series races as the all-time winningest driver in series history with 96 victories.

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Could that mean the 2020 season will result in his retirement from the series?

Busch has stated on multiple occasions that he will be done competing in the Xfinity Series once he secures his 100th victory.

Needing four wins in five starts this season to secure the century mark in 2020, the two-time Cup Series champion could very well be about to enter his final season of Xfinity Series competition. What are the chances that he notches four victories?

Suffice it to say that they aren’t as high as they would be if not for the stricter limits.

Late in the 2019 season, after NASCAR had announced a reduction from a maximum of seven Xfintiy Series races to five for drivers with five or more seasons of full-time experience in the Cup Series, Busch discussed reaching 100 wins and his plans to retire at that time.

Here is what he had to say, according to Jayski.

"“Yeah, I’ve said it over and over again. I would be there by now and I would have been out of it by now but apparently NASCAR and the fans love me there so much they keep make limitations on keeping me there. I’ve also said that I’ll get to 100 and then I don’t need to be there. That’s just kind of a number I would like to get to.”"

Four wins in five starts is no easy task, even for the driver who has dominated the Xfinity Series as of late. He has never attained an 80% winning percentage in any single season in his Xfinity Series career, and he last won four races in a five-race span back in the 2017 season.

He started off last season hot with three wins and a second place finish in his first four starts, but it took him until start number seven to notch his fourth win of the year.

He would effectively need to win five races in a six-race span this time around, as he enters the season having won his most recent start at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in September of 2019.

What are the chances that he gets the job done and can officially step away from the Xfinity Series after 2020?

In addition to Phoenix Raceway, where he has collected 11 wins in 23 starts, he is also set to compete at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Chicagoland Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway at Watkins Glen International.

At Charlotte Motor Speedway, he has eight wins in 25 starts. At Chicagoland Speedway, he is four for 13, and at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, he is six for 12. But at Watkins Glen International, he is just 1 for 11.

These numbers make him the favorite to win at pretty much every venue, even Watkins Glen, as his lone victory there came just two starts ago. But the fact is, average finish means nothing; it’s all about winning, and his win rate isn’t over 50% at any of these venues.

So going four for five will be tough, even for Busch, and even in a series that lost the three full-time drivers who combined for 21 wins in 33 races last year. He can only afford not to win one of these five races. Otherwise, it looks like he’ll be back in 2021.

Fortunately for him, the “fans love him there so much”, and he won’t have an additional two attempts like he had in 2018 and 2019, even after NASCAR reduced the limit from 10 races to seven following the 2017 season.

Don’t expect a retirement just yet.

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Will the 2020 NASCAR Xfinity Series season see Kyle Busch secure his 100th career victory and then retire from competition in the series? While he can only afford not to win one of his five races this year, it is certainly a possibility given how well he tends to perform when he competes. But it won’t be easy.

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