NASCAR: Kyle Busch finally found what he was looking for

Kyle Busch is set to enter the 2022 NASCAR Truck Series season with a familiar driver lineup, something that he hasn’t been able to say in recent years.

Earlier in the offseason, Kyle Busch Motorsports formally announced the expected return of Chandler Smith to the #18 Toyota for the 2022 NASCAR Truck Series season.

This announcement followed the confirmation that John Hunter Nemechek is set to return to the #4 Toyota for another year in 2022, despite rumors that he would be promoted to the Joe Gibbs Racing Xfinity Series team in one of their empty seats for next year.

Before the 2021 season began, Busch had said that he wanted a sign a Matt Crafton-like guy who could compete for wins and championships at Kyle Busch Motorsports year in and year out.

While there is no guarantee what the future may hold for Nemechek or Smith, he effectively has two of those guys for as long as they stick around.

And this is quite refreshing for an organization that had lacked performance from their full-time drivers in recent years.

Before the 2021 season, Kyle Busch’s team had not won a regular season race with one of their full-time drivers since Noah Gragson won at Kansas Speedway in May 2018.

With Gragson moving to the Xfinity Series with JR Motorsports for 2019, Busch signed Harrison Burton to take his place. Todd Gilliland, who became a full-time driver for the team in May 2018 when he turned 18 years old, continued competing for the team full-time.

But the 2019 season was a disaster for Kyle Busch Motorsports, as neither driver qualified for the playoffs.

Gilliland did win a race (and we all remember his NSFW message to Busch afterwards) at Martinsville Speedway, but it came in the playoffs when it was too late. As for Burton, he finished in 12th place in the standings despite the fact that only 10 other drivers ran all 23 races.

For 2020, Busch brought in two drivers who had previously competed part-time for the team: Raphael Lessard and Christian Eckes.

Eckes did manage to qualify for the playoffs, but he was eliminated after the opening round and finished the season without a win. Like Gilliland in 2019, Lessard failed to qualify for the playoffs but won a playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway.

So 2021 marked another overhaul for Kyle Busch Motorsports, but this time around, it could not have worked out better.

Busch made out quite well after Nemechek had unconventionally opted to drop from the Cup Series with Front Row Motorsports back to the Truck Series to reunite with Toyota and effectively hit the reset button on his career.

Nemechek won a series-high five races this past season en route to a Championship 4 appearance. His title hopes were effectively derailed with an incident quite early in the race, but he still battled back to take third place in the point standings.

Impressively, three of Nemechek’s five wins came ahead of his boss in second place. Busch won the other two of his five starts.

As for Smith, his signing was a bit more conventional, given his success competing part-time in the ARCA Menards Series and the Truck Series prior to 2021.

He had a relatively slow start to his rookie season, but he was able to pick it up toward the end and show his potential.

He qualified for the playoffs and advanced to the round of 8, winning at Bristol Motor Speedway in the opening round to secure his first career victory, and he went on to win the season finale at Phoenix Raceway ahead of all four championship contenders, giving him two wins in five races to close out the year.

There is no guarantee that either one of these two drivers will be back with Kyle Busch Motorsports for the 2023 NASCAR Truck Series season, but for the time being, Busch has finally found what he has been looking for in his full-time lineup. The importance of keeping the same powerful duo together for a second year cannot be overlooked in this day and age.