In light of the biggest story over the summer in the NTT IndyCar Series, the sudden release from Arrow McLaren for Christian Lundgaard, it felt like this would be a great time to look back at NASCAR’s own version of this kind of situation.
What have been the times when winning was not enough for a driver to keep their ride in their respective series?
Now, I will lay out some ground rules for the criteria of making the list because a lot of drivers could come to mind for this.
Rule one is going to be that the driver must have won in the year that they got released. Drivers like Erik Jones and Josh Berry won’t make this list because they went winless in their final season with the team releasing them.
The second rule is that the departure was not a choice made by the driver to go to a new team, like Kevin Harvick jumping to Stewart Haas Racing. The final rule is that the driver’s wins had to come before they knew that they were not coming back the next year. Sorry Harrison Burton.
Now that all the foundation has been set, let’s get into the list.
Kyle Busch
One of the first things that most team owners knew about the late Kyle Busch on his ascent to the NASCAR Cup Series was the fact that he was a generational talent behind the wheel. Unfortunately, both times Busch had departed from a team through his Cup Series career fit this category to a tee.
Before Kyle’s departure from Hendrick Motorsports, he had scored a win at Bristol Motor Speedway in the spring, an infamous one in that he then went on to criticize the Car of Tomorrow in his victory lane interview. He eventually got the boot for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to drive the fourth Hendrick entry.
From there, Kyle would head to Joe Gibbs Racing, where he made his absence at Hendrick very well known, as Kyle outscored Junior in wins during the 2008 season by a margin of eight wins to one. He also managed to repeat history after his departure following the 2022 season.
In 2022, Busch coincidentally scored a victory in the spring Bristol race, this one on a dirt surface, before he was replaced by Ty Gibbs the following year. Busch wound up heading to Richard Childress Racing and scored what would end up being his final three career victories in the Cup Series during the 2023 season.
Joey Logano
Hindsight is always 20/20 with a lot of these moves, especially when it comes to Logano’s departure from JGR. In 2012, Logano moved his mentor Mark Martin out of the way to score a win at Pocono Raceway, which would be the last one he scored with the organization.
Gibbs pursued and eventually scored Matt Kenseth once his tenure at Roush Fenway Racing was over. Logano took his talents to Team Penske, where he would reach his full potential and score three (so far) Cup Series titles.
Brett Moffitt
Moffitt has had a long history of team departures to his name, but none of them fit this list more than his departure from Hattori Racing Enterprises following the 2018 season. Moffitt had the most success out of anyone on this list, as he scored six wins during the season and hoisted the championship trophy at the end of the year.
When the next year rolled around, it was announced that Austin Hill would take that ride in 2019, while a few days later the news was that Moffitt was headed to GMS Racing.
Johnny Sauter
Sauter was Moffitt’s biggest foe in the championship battle that season, despite him finishing fourth out of the four championship contenders at Homestead.
Like Moffitt, Sauter had taken home the checkered flag six times throughout the course of the year. Moffitt would go on to drive the No. 24 at GMS, replacing a departing Justin Haley, while Sauter’s No. 21 was shut down for 2019, leading to him reuniting with ThorSport Racing and the No. 13.
David Ragan
Speaking of teams shutting down, how about the Roush No. 6 team at the conclusion of 2011. Ragan would finally score his first career win with the team in his fifth campaign with the organization in the July race at Daytona International Speedway.
This would also be redemption for what had happened during the 500 earlier in the year, where it looked that Ragan had one of the best cars in the field but cost himself with a restart violation on the final restart. While his redemption story had a happy ending, it didn’t prevent the team from closing down at season’s end and Ragan would depart for Front Row Motorsports: the place where he would score one more Cup Series victory at Talladega two years later, and the place where he would end his full-time Cup career.
Reed Sorenson
The most bizarre entry on this list I had to save for last. Sorenson had one of the most interesting careers in stock car racing when it comes to the amount of rides he’s had, along with his prospects as an elite talent through different points of his tenure driving racecars.
In 2011, he had found himself in a stable position driving for Turner Motorsports in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, which back then was the Nationwide Series. Sorenson had one of the most stellar years of his career going as he scored a win at Road America and looked to be a threat for the series title through the entirety of the year.
That was until he was abruptly let go from the team before the season even ended. His championship hopes washed away with just five races remaining in the season. The worst part about this whole ordeal? He still doesn’t know why he got let go to this day.
Sorenson made an appearance on the Dale Jr. Download around a month ago and this exact moment was a major talking point on the podcast. Sorenson shared how emotional he was about the release but also revealed that he still has no idea what went wrong.
Every racing fan believes that companies should not be able to pick their employees. Well, spoiler alert, they can and should. I worked for a major global company when Uncle Joe’s administration announced that companies will no longer be allowed to hire white males. Well, F that, my last three hires were white males, because they were the ones actually qualified to perform the job.