NASCAR: Why Chip Ganassi Racing’s focus should shift to 2022

With Kyle Larson gone, Chip Ganassi Racing’s long-term NASCAR Cup Series focus should shift to 2022 and retaining Kurt Busch.

In the latter stages of the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season, it wasn’t clear what the future held for 2004 champion Kurt Busch, who had signed with Chip Ganassi Racing ahead of the season on a one-year deal.

Busch, now 41, had been rumored to retire after the season. He even traveled to the 2019 24 Hours of Le Mans, sparking rumors that he may be interested in other forms of racing following his NASCAR career, perhaps as early as 2020.

But in November, he signed a two-year contract extension with Chip Ganassi’s organization to continue driving the #1 Chevrolet through the 2021 season.

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Kyle Larson, meanwhile, was only under contract through the 2020 season. But while he was set to become one of the hottest free agents on the market, there was not any sort of overwhelming urgency from anybody; he had never driven full-time for a team other than Chip Ganassi Racing since becoming a full-time driver in 2014.

There had already been talks of the team signing Ross Chastain, who remains tied to Ganassi despite having only made a limited number of starts for the team, to replace Busch. The pairing of Larson and Chastain seemed inevitable at some point in the next few seasons.

But now here we are, and Ganassi’s current driver lineup consists of Busch and an empty #42 Chevrolet that will need a driver whenever the 2020 season starts back up again.

Larson’s use of the N-word during a livestreamed iRacing race on Twitch resulted in him being fired, something nobody could have predicted heading into 2020 — or even heading into Monza Madness, the virtual event in which he used the racial slur.

In a split-second, his career was derailed, and Chip Ganassi Racing’s future, while it remained somewhat normal in that they retained the many big-name primary sponsors which quickly cut ties with Larson after his racial slur made its rounds, became a lot more unknown than anybody thought it possibly could.

That is why their focus needs to turn to 2022. It may be two years away, but beyond meeting their immediate short-term needs, this is the year they need to focus on.

Obviously, replacing Larson for 2020 is a tall task, and it is the first thing on the checklist now that their sponsorships for the #42 Chevrolet have at least been somewhat salvaged.

Chastain is clearly the most likely option. But even if that happens, there is no guarantee that he would shift his points eligibility from the Xfinity Series, where he sits in fifth place in the championship standings driving for Kaulig Racing, to the Cup Series.

The #42 Chevrolet would end up being a wasted entry from a 2020 championship standings. Larson sat in a seventh place tie before he was fired.

But in 2021, they may have had to replace Larson anyway because of his contract. Now, at least, they know they’ll have to replace him for 2021, and they know they have Busch shored up through next year as well. That doesn’t make the 2021 any less uncertain, of course, since the #42 Chevrolet remains vacant. But there is nothing they can do about that now.

That’s why the true focus needs to shift to 2022: they need to do everything in their power to keep Busch from retiring after next year.

Having Busch walk away with an already shaky situation within the #42 team could result in playing catch-up for several years down the road. Busch provides a veteran presence who can be paramount in the development of whichever new driver Chip Ganassi Racing bring in.

Bringing in a new, young driver and then needing to bring in another new, young driver right away could be disastrous, especially if the first new driver has only one year of championship experience when the other one is brought in.

But perhaps above all, the Las Vegas, Nevada native can be paramount in the development of the Next Gen car, which is now slated to be introduced in the 2022 season as opposed to the 2021 season due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Fortunately for them, one of the things Busch said before signing with the team through the 2021 season was that he wanted to be around to drive the Next Gen car for at least one season. This would have been the 2021 season before the pandemic, so based on that alone, things are already heading in the right direction for 2022.

For Chip Ganassi Racing’s sake, let’s hope they continue in the right direction. Because if they don’t, the team that had the stoutest two-driver lineup in the garage will have become a team asking “What’s next?” without any clear answers for several years because of one person’s inability to refrain from using a six-letter word.