Two-time Cup champion Kyle Busch still doesn’t have a contract for next season.
Busch’s longtime sponsor, M&M’s and Mars Inc., is pulling out of the NASCAR game at the end of this season. If Joe Gibbs Racing is unable to find a replacement, Busch may need to look elsewhere for his 20th season.
Busch won both of his Cup titles (2015 and 2019) and all but four of his 60 career Cup Series victories after joining Joe Gibbs Racing in 2008. He provided an interesting analogy for how “crazy” his current situation is.
“It’d be like Dale Earnhardt in 1998, three or four years after winning his last championship, being on the free agency market and not having a ride. That just sounds crazy,” Busch said, per ESPN. “I don’t know what to do, how to fix that.”
There is one way he can fix this situation.
Busch says he’s willing to accept a pay cut if it means he can find a new sponsor for the upcoming NASCAR season.
“You talk about what you want, and I think you are insinuating that I’m asking for the sky on salary or something like that, and I’ve already admitted I’m willing to take concessions,” he said. “I feel like the market is different than what it was years ago, and I’m willing to race for under my market value.
“You gotta have sponsorship in this sport to go forward. It’s not as simple as being a basketball player and being Michael Jordan or LeBron James and being a really good player and then the team losing a sponsor and then saying, ‘OK, Michael, LeBron, we gotta let you go. We can’t afford you.'”
All this drama aside, Busch hopes to be driving his No. 18 Toyota with Joe Gibbs Racing in 2023.
“My first goal is to be at Joe Gibbs Racing and be with Toyota and have nothing change,” Busch said. “If the musical chairs music stops and I’m still standing and I don’t have a seat, I’m screwed. So I have to continue to talk and evaluate each place and each situation and find something.”