NASCAR: A new ‘elephant in the room’ has emerged
By Randy Smith
Brad Keselowski moving to Roush Fenway Racing felt like the worst kept secret in NASCAR, but now there may be another one involving Kurt Busch.
Throughout the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season, plenty of free agency news has already hit. The least shocking announcement was Brad Keselowski confirming that he is set to move from Team Penske to Roush Fenway Racing and become a partial owner of the Concord, North Carolina-based team.
While this isn’t to say that the move itself wasn’t shocking, the announcement wasn’t a surprise when it finally came. Keselowski and Roush Fenway Racing kept their best to keep the move internal, but the deal was believed to be reached in March before it was first reported in May.
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From there, NASCAR fans still had to wait around two months for the 2012 series champion and Roush Fenway Racing to finally confirm the news, at which point Team Penske had already confirmed his departure anyway.
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Silly season has seen plenty of other news as well, with the highlight being the fact that Trackhouse Racing Team announced that they will acquire the entire Chip Ganassi Racing Cup Series operation after the 2021 season ends in early November.
There was some speculation regarding who would fill the additional car that came along with this acquisition, but that question was answered last week, with Ross Chastain set to move to the #1 Trackhouse Racing Team Chevrolet in 2022 alongside Daniel Suarez, who is slated to continue driving the #99 Chevrolet for the team.
But with Chastain’s move, the elephant in the room has become his current teammate, Kurt Busch. His future might also not be much of a secret.
As of this moment, Busch doesn’t have a ride for 2022 announced, but the 2004 series champion seems to have one in the works, and this has seemed to be the case for quite some time.
It has been reported that Busch is the top candidate to move to 23XI Racing, should they expand to two cars like they have aspirations to. Busch himself confirmed that both Trackhouse Racing Team and 23XI Racing had reached out to him about a potential 2022 seat, and now the former is out of the picture. Could that be the effect of ongoing talks with the latter?
Kurt’s brother Kyle has even said that driving for Toyota, the lone manufacturer for which Kurt has never driven in the Cup Series, is “his prerogative”.
So while 23XI Racing still need to obtain a charter for a potential second car for the elder Busch brother, the move itself doesn’t feel like much of a secret at this point.
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With Ross Chastain having landed the second Trackhouse Racing Team seat, Kurt Busch seems to be in a position just like Brad Keselowski. The move is still a “rumor”, but for all intents and purposes, NASCAR fans will simply have to wait until the “official” announcement is made for that to change.