The NASCAR Xfinity Series’ winningest driver will have a different schedule come 2016. Kyle Busch will return to NASCAR’s second-tier division next year, but running approximately half the races.
Losing Monster Energy, which has been Busch’s primary sponsor since taking Kyle Busch Motorsports into the NXS in 2012 and continuing the partnership with Joe Gibbs Racing in 2013, he is unsure of his plans for 2016. The energy drink company announced in early October that it will be partnering with Busch’s brother Kurt as his primary sponsor for 18 races.
“Those plans are being worked out right now. We’re going to try to continue to run in the Xfinity Series next year, yes,” Busch said in a teleconference on Tuesday. “It’s looking as though it’ll be somewhere around 15 or 18 races, and it will not be in the Monster Energy car. It’ll be something else, so we’ll hope to be able to come up with all of that here soon so we can get the announcement out and to everybody”
However, as discussed in a NASCAR Fan Council poll sent by an anonymous member to USA Today’s Jeff Gluck, NASCAR is exploring the option of banning full-time Sprint Cup drivers from competing in the NXS. If that becomes the case, it might force JGR to scale back to two cars unless a driver with sponsorship joins the team. In 2015, the team competed with rookie Daniel Suarez full-time, with seven drivers in the No. 20 car and three in the No. 54 car.
As of now, the plan for JGR is to run Suarez and Erik Jones full-time in the NXS for 2016.
Busch has run at least 19 NXS races each season since he started running full-time with Hendrick Motorsports in 2004 until this season. He ran a career-low 15 NXS events, but won six races in the No. 54 car this year after sitting out until Michigan in June due to suffering multiple leg injuries in a crash during the division’s season-opener at Daytona. He did not comment on whether or not the injury played a role the decreased schedule.
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Joseph started with Fronstretch in Aug. 2014 and worked his way up to become an editor in less than a year. A native of Whitestone, New York, Joseph writes for NASCAR Pole Position magazine as a weekly contributor, along with being a former intern at Newsday and the Times Beacon Record Newspapers, each on Long Island. With a focus on NASCAR, he runs our social media pages and writes the NASCAR Mailbox column, along with other features for the site.
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Around 15 or 18 races THATS CUTTING BACK!!!! Kyle Busch don’t need to be running in the Xfinity Series let the younger guys moving up show what they got. Lots of races this year I seen racers go home in the Xfinity and Truck Series because there was at least 5 Cup Drivers got in the race but these drivers that don’t have anything else going for them end up going home, NOT FAIR GIVE THEM A CHANCE . I hope they forbid the Cup Drivers from driving in the Xfinity Series or Truck Series, or maybe they can GIVE UP THEIR CUP RIDE to run FULL TIME IN EITHER XFINITY SERIES OR TRUCK SERIES. I’m for sure there are plenty of younger drivers that would take their Cup Ride …
Still too many times….
Rod, I’m really tired of “fans” like you whining about whichever drivers you don’t like entering and winning races. To a true race fan, the best possible racing is when the the 43 (or 40 or 36 as the case may be) fastest drivers show up with a legal car and entry fee and go out and race and put on a good show. Anything less and you are buying a ticket to see the B main and you don’t get to see the feature because you don’t want those guys to race to keep it “fair”. Fair is everybody has the same rules. Period. We don’t award participation trophies at the races, whiners need not show up.
Now, I just looked at the stats on Jayski. You complain the the cup drivers are keeping xfinity or truck regulars from racing. In the xfinity series only 36 teams attempted every race, out of 40 starting positions. And only 19 drivers started every race. So exactly which “regulars” aren’t making the races? Some start-and-parks and some field fillers that finish 20 laps down? Who cares? Would you not rather see a greater number of competitive drivers, without a bunch of chaff at the back of the field?
It’s even worse in the truck series, only 26 teams (for 36 starting spots) attempted every race, and only 13 drivers started every race. So again, exactly which “regulars” did not get to race because a cup driver shows up? If you want to really kill that series, just fix it so no driver anybody has ever heard of is in the race and see how many tickets they sell, and how the tv ratings go. And those two items are what the “regulars” use to sell sponsorship space on their race cars (trucks). No sponsorships, no money to race, drivers can’t afford to race, series folds. But, hey, at least now it is “fair”.
Well, Dave, maybe there would be more regulars in the lower series if the races weren’t being won primarily by cup drivers, if the purse money wasn’t being pilliaged by cup driver teams, and if the tv coverage wasn’t focused on cup drivers. Attendance at the lower series races is dreadful despite cup drivers. The irony is that I don’t think the fans would have a problem with limited participation by cup drivers, but Nascar has thus far allowed a few cup drivers to run rough-shod over the field in race after race. Change is welcome.
Amen, Carl. It was fun when there were still dedicated Truck and Busch teams who could take the fight to the Cup guys, whose Cup-owned teams didn’t have $25 million budgets. The Cup teams bring the proverbial baseball bat to a pillow fight and any young driver who can’t beat them is automatically labeled as a midpack competitor. So it’s no wonder that only a handful of drivers run all the races. And the coverage of the lower-level teams is worse than ever before, at least on TV. Twenty years ago, I didn’t have Internet access and couldn’t afford to subscribe to magazines, yet I knew all the drivers and at least knew of a lot of crew members. Now any coverage of lesser-known teams has that tone of, “here’s someone we can use as a time-filler until we can find Rick Hendrick.”
You have to be a Kyle Busch Fan……….. You must like to see Kyle Busch lead 95% of the Laps in almost every race he is in.. SOUNDS PRETTY BORING TO ME…………. 76 wins in the Xfinity Series isn’t ENOUGH …..
Out of 33 Races in the Xfinity Series Cup Drivers won 23 Races , Xfinity Drivers won 8 Races and Truck Series Driver won 2 Races. SOUNDS PRETTY FAIR…………. At least a truck series driver is moving up into the next series.
THIS WAS FOR DAVE IN OHIO
DAVE IN OHIO
WHO’S GOING TO TAKE OVER FOR THESE RETIRING CUP DRIVERS IN 5 TO 10 YEARS, GUYS WE HAVE NEVER HEARD OF ?
XFINITY SERIES AND THE CAMPINGWORLD TRUCK SERIES IS COMPARED TO THE MINOR LEAGUE IN BASEBALL. WE NEED UP AND COMING STARS TO PROVE THEMSELVES SO THEY CAN KEEP NASCAR GOING IN THE COMING YEARS.
I don’t mind the cup drivers in Xfinity or Trucks, it’s just the VOLUME— let them compete in 5 or 8 races… make some of the races ONLY for Xfinity regulars. A few races that are blocked from cup drivers. — It’s just hte cup drivers every week after week driving against each other.
But then we can’t call it the Busch series like it used to be, with real race cars before Brian got to them. I guess we’ll have to grin and beer it.
Grin and BEER it… I like it!!! I’ll be using that Monday at work…