Kyle Busch starting to show frustration about lack of 2023 sponsor

By Bob Pockrass
FOX Sports NASCAR Writer

TALLADEGA, Ala. — Kyle Busch often gets frustrated with his car or his position during races, though more often than not, he still leaves the track with a solid finish.

Now he needs that to happen off the track.

Earlier this month at Bristol Motor Speedway, he earned his 60th career Cup victory. He’s a two-time champion. He’s still one of the best talents in the sport.

But at the moment, the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 car is mostly unsponsored for 2023, as M&M’s announced late last year (after notifying JGR in summer 2021) that it would not return as a NASCAR sponsor after the 2022 season.

That left Busch in limbo as far as next year and whether he will have a deal at JGR for 2023 and beyond. 

In some ways, it seems ridiculous to think he wouldn’t return. But Busch knows the realities. He is one of the highest-paid drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series, and to pay the big salaries, teams need significant sponsorship. When a team can’t generate sponsorship revenue, it either tries to get a driver to take a pay cut on the next deal or opts to go with a driver it can more easily afford.

With the stability of the M&M’s deal, Busch was able to avoid the "haircuts" that other Cup drivers have had to accept in recent years.

Busch showed his frustration Saturday at Talladega during NASCAR’s required media session. The banter with reporters was cryptic:

Q: Do you have any sort of timeframe for when you want your plans to be decided for next year?

Busch: Yesterday.

Q: You getting antsy about it?

Busch: I’m not getting antsy about it. If It happens, it happens. If it don’t, goodbye.

Q: So goodbye is an option?

Busch: Ask Joe Gibbs.

Q: Have you been knocking on his door?

Busch: Not my problem.

Q: It’s their problem?

Busch: You’ve got to sell it. If you don't sell it, then nothing to sell or nothing to have.

Q: So it's all about the sponsor?

Busch: Correct.

Q: That's got to be frustrating now, in this day and age.

Busch: Yeah. Truck Series is probably 95 percent kids with money.

Q: They're not going to let you go. They'll figure out something, won’t they?

Busch: Ask Joe Gibbs.

Q: Would you retire rather than leave JGR?

Busch: Really, what are we doing?

In other words, Busch is frustrated. And those answers didn’t likely please those trying to finalize a sponsorship deal for him. 

JGR has appeared to be close to a deal over the past four weeks, as sources indicated they need just one or two more approvals from the potential sponsor’s management.

"We're confident we're going to get things done," Gibbs told FOX Sports when asked for comment Saturday. "So we're just working hard at it. It takes a while." 

The best thing Busch can do in the meantime is run well on the track. The second-best thing he can do is avoid a public firestorm with his team.

He is at least doing the first piece. He rallied from ninth entering the final lap Sunday at Talladega to finish third. A week earlier, he rallied from third on the final lap to win at Bristol, securing a spot in the playoffs. Even though this hasn’t been a banner year for Toyota thus far, Busch sits fourth in the Cup standings, the best of any Toyota driver.

Toyota has long been aligned with Busch, whose Camping World Truck Series team serves as a place for young drivers under contract with Toyota. Toyota suppliers are most of the sponsors on Busch’s truck team, as the car manufacturer leverages those suppliers to support their driver development program. 

Busch knows that it would be tough to operate a truck team without Toyota's support, and Toyota knows that Busch’s team helps lure drivers into the Toyota fold.

But Busch, Toyota and JGR have also been in the sport long enough to know that relationships do end, contract talks do go south, and there are times when it's best to move on. As Busch indicated Saturday, though, there might not be another team out there willing to write the check he wants. 

At 36 years old, Busch could continue racing for several years. And he most likely will. The talk about not racing next year seems silly. In fact, Busch responded with a silly answer when asked if he could go to another racing series, as he said he could just end up as his 6-year-old son’s hauler driver.

The ridiculous, though, occasionally happens. In NASCAR, nothing is done until there is ink to paper. For Busch and for Gibbs, the sooner they can get ink to paper, the better.

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Thinking Out Loud

As teams unveil paint schemes for the Darlington race weekend, there has been some frustration from fans over the fact that NASCAR isn’t allowing teams to move the car number back to the center of the car for that race.

While it is unfortunate, the decision makes sense.

Teams shouldn’t be required to change paint schemes for that race if they don’t have a throwback paint scheme. And having some cars with numbers near the front (a change for this year) and others with numbers in the middle wouldn’t look good.

As strange as it sounds, for spotters, officials and drivers who need to know where to look, moving the numbers could be confusing. NASCAR probably made the right decision on this, even though it doesn’t seem like the right one when viewing these throwback paint schemes.

Social spotlight

Stat of the day

Ross Chastain’s pass of Erik Jones for the win was the 30th last-lap pass for the win in Cup at Talladega.

They said it

"I’ve probably got a watermelon seed [on my face]." — Ross Chastain, after his Talladega win, referencing his COTA win celebration a month earlier

Pockrass has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s. He joined FOX Sports in 2019 following stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bobpockrass. Looking for more NASCAR content? Sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass!