NASCAR: Did Joe Gibbs Racing even try to keep Kyle Busch?

Kyle Busch’s tenure at Joe Gibbs Racing will end after the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season. Looking back, how hard did the team try to actually keep him?

When the 2023 NASCAR Cup series season rolls around, fans will see two of this year’s playoff drivers piloting a new car.

After 15 years, Kyle Busch will no longer drive the #18 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR). He is set to move to the #8 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing (RCR), reuniting with the manufacturer with which he started his Cup Series career. Tyler Reddick, the current driver of the #8 Chevrolet, is set to move to a third Richard Childress Racing entry.

Lack of sponsorship was reportedly the biggest factor in Busch’s free agency process and lack of a deal with Joe Gibbs Racing, with longtime partner M&M’s set to leave the sport after a three-decade-plus relationship.

While JGR tried to sign Oracle to sponsor the two-time Cup Series champion, the deal fell through, and the Toyota organization was comfortable letting Busch sign with another team which could compile a portfolio of sponsors.

With an obvious replacement of Ty Gibbs, grandson of JGR team owner Joe Gibbs, waiting in the wings, there are questions as to whether or not JGR tried to keep Busch as much as they led on.

Given the approaches which both teams took to signing the same driver, one looked a lot more eager to have Busch.

Last month, right before the official announcement that Busch would be moving to RCR, the team’s sponsors were reportedly eager to work with the 37-year-old.

While sponsorship has still not yet been announced for the #8 Chevrolet, the idea that companies weren’t willing to sign the veteran at JGR, but are his at new team, is an intriguing one.

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While budgeting might have allowed the Chevrolet team to consider more options than JGR could, their open approach largely contrasted with JGR’s.

A harsh business move now sets Busch in a direction to show JGR just what they’ll miss out on for years to come, and it raises doubts surrounding how much the organization truly tried to keep him.

Busch said at some point it became clear that the #18 Toyota was not an option for him in 2023, and with that decision having come well before the end of the season, it seems that JGR were comfortable in letting him go.

Time will tell who truly made the right call, but for now, it seems that the team did not try as hard to keep the Las Vegas, Nevada native as many would have thought.