NASCAR: Could Kyle Busch have replaced Kurt Busch?

With Kurt Busch officially announcing his retirement from full-time NASCAR Cup Series racing, could 23XI Racing have been a landing spot for Kyle?

Kurt Busch recently announced that he will not return to 23XI Racing as a full-time driver for the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season, an announcement that many expected given the fact that he still hasn’t returned since his accident at Pocono Raceway.

That accident, a single-car qualifying crash, left him with concussion-like symptoms back in July, and he has been sidelined ever since. This coming weekend’s race at Martinsville Speedway is set to mark his 15th consecutive missed start.

Tyler Reddick, who currently competes for Richard Childress Racing, is set to replace Busch behind the wheel of the #45 Toyota full-time next year.

Richard Childress Racing had initially picked up an option in Reddick’s contract for 2023, just before Reddick announced that he had signed with 23XI Racing for 2024.

While 23XI Racing team co-owner Denny Hamlin had stated that the team had a contingency plan in place if Busch couldn’t return and that this plan did not include Reddick, all parties agreed to let Reddick out of his Richard Childress Racing contract a year earlier than planned for him to move to 23XI Racing next year.

It was a move that many had speculated was possible, given how Richard Childress responded to how the whole Reddick to 23XI Racing situation went down.

Even when Childress stated that Reddick was going to be back with the team in a third car next year when pressed about the matter during the announcement that Kyle Busch would be joining the organization in 2023, there were serious doubts.

That leads to another question: could Kyle have been Kurt’s replacement for the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season?

Kyle Busch is in his final season with Joe Gibbs Racing, and while a contract extension was once seen as a mere formality, it became clearer and clearer as the season progressed that a deal wasn’t going to get done with longtime primary sponsor M&M’s set to leave the #18 team after the 2022 season.

Before Busch had signed with Richard Childress Racing, 23XI Racing had been floated as a possibility. Toyota had stated that they were exploring all possible options to retain Kyle for the 2023 season, and considering the fact that 23XI Racing is the only Toyota team in the Cup Series other than Joe Gibbs Racing, they were surely included among those options.

At this point, Kurt was still unsure about what his future may hold, and Hamlin had been very clear that the decision was up to him and that there was no timetable. Kurt’s contract to drive the #45 Toyota extended through 2023 and contained an option for 2024.

Would Kurt, in deciding to put his health first, pave the way for his younger brother to remain with Toyota and tied to Joe Gibbs Racing?

It’s certainly possible, though there are three things that make it not likely. First of all, Kyle appears beyond ready to end his 15-year relationship with Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing, and that gets clearer and clearer every week, if not every day. So why make that move?

Secondly, before he signed his Richard Childress Racing deal, Kyle had said that he needed to make a decision soon because he needed to be the first “domino” to fall into place.

That is the complete opposite of Kurt’s situation, since Kurt could take all the time he needed to make up his mind. So while technically Kurt could have decided sooner, we’re talking about more than a month sooner, which simply wasn’t on the table.

And finally, Busch most definitely wasn’t a part the “contingency plan” which Hamlin discussed. This plan was likely to have involved John Hunter Nemechek.

Before Ty Gibbs ultimately stepped in for the injured Kurt Busch this season, Nemechek was the team’s original emergency driver, and he remains close with the organization, having just filled in for the suspended Bubba Wallace at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The former Front Row Motorsports Cup driver competes full-time for Kyle Busch Motorsports in the Truck Series and is likely to remain with Toyota in some capacity next year, even with Kyle Busch Motorsports set to switch to Chevrolet amid Busch’s move to Richard Childress Racing.