NASCAR: JGR, Toyota in for a Kyle Busch ‘surprise’?

Kyle Busch remains without a deal to compete for Joe Gibbs Racing in the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season, and they aren’t the only team interested.

Back in April when Kyle Busch made several cryptic comments about his contract situation with Joe Gibbs Racing and the associated sponsorship search, with M&M’s set to leave the #18 team following the conclusion of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season, many chalked it up to Kyle Busch being Kyle Busch.

Skip ahead to more than four months later, and the sport’s most successful active driver is still without a deal to compete for Joe Gibbs Racing in 2023, which would be his 16th consecutive season with the team.

Everybody is working hard so that the two-time champion and 60-time race winner can return to the Toyota powerhouse in 2023, but all involved have admitted that there is no guarantee that they will turn what once seemed like a mere formality into a reality, especially after a recent promising development fell through.

And time isn’t on their side.

Busch has admitted that he has had talks with — and offers from — other teams, and this is more significant than one might think.

With the only other Toyota Cup Series team being the Joe Gibbs Racing-affiliated 23XI Racing, a team switch could potentially produce a manufacturer switch, two things Busch did back in 2008 when he left Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet. At least one Ford team and at least two Chevrolet teams have reportedly made contact with Busch about potential openings.

With Busch’s Kyle Busch Motorsports team, one of the top feeder teams in the sport, also affiliated with Toyota, a team and manufacturer switch for the 37-year-old Las Vegas, Nevada native as a driver would inevitably have to produce a manufacturer switch for his organization, and there would be a massive financial aspect involved in making that happen.

And while replacing Busch behind the wheel is one thing, this might even be the more significant long-term aspect for Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota as a whole.

So the fact that Busch has been open all along about the fact that he has been looking elsewhere is massive, and it proves that, while he would surely love to remain where he is, the sport’s highest paid driver never wanted to wait until the 11th hour to start working on a new deal.

His April comments — and August comments — about wanting to have a deal done “yesterday” back that up.

As a result, could Joe Gibbs Racing be in for somewhat of a “surprise” at some point in the near future?

In July, Tyler Reddick shocked the racing world when he announced that he had signed with 23XI Racing and Toyota for the 2024 season, an announcement that came just after Richard Childress Racing confirmed that they had picked up the option in his contract for him to continue driving the #8 Chevrolet in 2023.

Richard Childress Racing were seemingly blindsided by the move, but Reddick responded by saying that they really shouldn’t have been.

While an option was picked up, a contract extension was not signed, and Reddick responded by shoring up his future elsewhere, a move that many others would have made if given the opportunity to do so.

So what’s going to happen if we all wake up one day to the news that Busch has signed a multi-year deal with (insert non-Toyota team)?

Even having reportedly presented him with an offer to return, certainly Joe Gibbs Racing shouldn’t be shocked, given the circumstances. But it still may come as quite a surprise to them and to everybody who has been following NASCAR for at least the last decade and a half.

After all, he did say publicly that he would be willing to take a pay cut to remain where he is.

What’s interesting to point out is that, despite the fact that the clock is ticking, nobody has pointed to a specific timetable in terms of when the team need to find sponsorship to keep Busch behind the wheel of the #18 Toyota for 2023, aside from Busch saying back in April that he would have liked to have had things done “yesterday”.

That’s a lot of yesterdays at this point, as we are more than twice as far from that moment as we are to the end of the 2022 season, the season that could very well be Busch’s 15th and final season behind the wheel of the #18 Toyota.

Bottom line, there is no such thing as “no timetable”.

If Busch gets a solid opportunity from another respectable organization, whether that already happened or it’s happening now or it’s about to happen, why should he wait on Joe Gibbs Racing to maybe get something he likes and maybe not?

Busch has admitted that he has contract offers from multiple teams on the table, including Joe Gibbs Racing, but has given no indication as to who the “winner” might be.

If he waits even longer for a better offer from his current team, maybe his other opportunities get filled. He has, after all, been told by multiple parties that he is the first domino who needs to fall, meaning that they will need a decision to be made by him in the near future.

Then what happens if Joe Gibbs Racing can’t offer anything better?

At this point, they aren’t even viewed as the favorite to sign him, and nobody should be surprised. But they did make him an offer, so they still believe they can keep him.

At this point, if Busch gets a better opportunity, Joe Gibbs Racing — and really all of Toyota — could end up in a Richard Childress Racing-esque situation — even though they may have seen it coming, not only because of the apparent openness Busch has shown about his talks with other teams but because of the obvious predicament they are now facing.