Kyle Busch introduced his new drivers and a new manufacturer for his Kyle Busch Motorsports team at … [+]
Kyle Busch Motorsports will live on. Friday at Phoenix Raceway Kyle Busch announced that the team will switch to Chevrolet next season and field two entries in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
The news is somewhat significant as the future of his truck series team, founded in 2009, has been up in the air as Busch has had to navigate his own contract issues and secure a spot for himself in the NASCAR Cup series.
The two-time Cup champion will be parting ways with his longtime team, Joe Gibbs Racing, at the end of this season and for much of this year Busch’s future was uncertain. In September however, Busch revealed a move to Richard Childress Racing starting in 2023 which left only the Kyle Busch Motorsports team with an uncertain fate.
Busch said his goal all along with the team was to keep it running and keep his 55 employees. The process the eventually led to a two truck team was at times a gut-wrenching experience.
“Trust me. If you can dream of an idea or a concept, we certainly have had that on the whiteboard, no question,” Busch said laughing. “You know, there was times where it looked like none it, it was as many as four, you know?”
The entire process was a stressful one on top of trying to find a Cup ride next season. But Friday Busch was able to final introduce his new drivers for next season, Chase Purdy, and Jack Wood.
“There were a couple, you know, sleepless nights where it just kind of was like, oh man, are we sure of just the decisions that were, that were being made,” Busch said. “But also, then just being able to have the stability of Kyle Bush Motorsports again and to be able to rely on these two drivers to work with for the future and to take us to that next level.”
Not only is the stability important for the team, but the continued employment of his 55 person staff too. They are no just workers who perform a job for a paycheck.
“There’s a dream and a passion that others share with me at Kyle Bush Motorsports as well, “Busch said. “And you know, one of those is going to be our inherited new fearless leader with Danny Stockman. You know what I mean? He asked me that exact same question probably four or five months ago. He was like, ‘Why are, why are you putting yourself through this? Why are you still doing this? Like, if you just told us all what we needed to do, we would go do it like go find other work’. And I was like, ‘Nope, that’s not who I am. That’s not what we’ve been and that’s not who we’re going to be.’”
Busch said making the switch from Toyota to Chevrolet has been pretty seamless, adding that they already have new sponsors lined up, and none of the sponsors, new or old seem to mind the swap from Toyota to Chevy.
“It’s all about the relationships,” Busch said. “Obviously there are certain sponsors that we’ve had that have had really, really good relationships with Toyota. But if we’re able to still facilitate those same B2B relationships with the new manufacturer… I don’t see any reason why they would turn that down.”
Now that the deal is done, Busch revealed that there were several times along the way that the possibility of the team closing down for good was very real.
“There was a lot of sleepless nights on this front as well too,” Busch said. “I met with everybody at KBM. We had a couple of group sessions, team meetings; talking to everybody and just letting them know kind of where we were at and what we were doing and, just stick with me believing me, I’m doing this, I’m telling you everything, every step of the way and kind of keeping them up to up to date on what was happening.”
Busch said during the process he tried to keep everything positive, and in the end it all worked out.
“Never had to have that doom and gloom meeting where it was like, ‘Hey, I don’t know if you guys want to look, you can look’ like it was always ‘I got it. We got it. We’re getting closer, so don’t worry. And you know, here we are.”
Greg Engle, Contributor
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