NASCAR: Kyle Busch reveals ideal retirement season

Kyle Busch hopes that the end of his NASCAR career will coincide with the beginning of that of his son Brexton, effectively making it a passing of the torch.

On SiriusXM Business Radio’s show, Cars & Culture with Jason Stein, two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch discussed the ideal way in which he would want to wrap up his racing career.

Busch signed with Richard Childress Racing and ended a 15-year run with Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota after the 2022 season, following the departure of M&M’s as his longtime primary sponsor.

He has won three races already in his first season behind the wheel of the No. 8 Chevrolet after there was talk of him potentially slowing down, given the fact that he had not had a ton of success in his final few seasons behind the wheel of the No. 18 Toyota.

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While Busch has made quips about retirement before (usually after a tough race outcome), he seriously discussed how he wants the rest of his career to unfold.

Busch is the all-time winningest driver in Truck Series history (63 wins), Xfinity Series history (102), and NASCAR national series history (228), but he has never competed full-time in the Truck Series and thus never won a Truck Series title. A Truck Series title would make him the first driver to win championships in all three national series.

Busch still wants to win a Truck Series title before he retires. His ideal plan would be to do that when his son Brexton is 15 years old. Brexton, who is now eight, was born in May 2015, meaning that he would turn 15 in May 2030.

If Kyle, who just turned 38 years old in May, were to compete for Truck Series points in 2030, that would effectively make the 2029 season his final full Cup Series campaign. It would be his 25th season of full-time Cup Series competition, and he would be 44 years old upon its conclusion.

Then in 2031, after Brexton turns 16, Kyle wants to split a Kyle Busch Motorsports entry with him in the Truck Series, since Brexton would only be allowed to compete at certain tracks.

The same would hold true during the 2032 season and during the first part of the 2033 season, before Brexton turns 18 and is allowed to run the full schedule and become a championship-eligible driver.

From there, the focus would shift solely to the younger Busch and his potential path through the Truck Series and the Xfinity Series, and hopefully up to the Cup Series. It would be a true example of a passing of the torch.

Of course, there is a lot of time between now and then, and things could change. We’re talking about planning for the next decade-plus, when this is a sport in which things can and do change on a week-to-week basis.

Kyle Busch certainly hasn’t confirmed that he wants to retire in 2029; it’s far too early to make that call as well. But in a perfect world, that’s how he wants the remainder of his career to unfold.