The untold story of Kyle Busch’s final Gibbs NASCAR contract

In life as a motorsports journalist you’ve got to work hard in the various paddocks around the world to get the scoops and inside steers to stay better informed than your opposition. But, just sometimes, stories truly fall into your lap. And here’s one that’s never been told in full before… 

It’s race day morning at Daytona International Speedway on February 17, 2019 and I’ve already had a chat with Denny Hamlin (who’d go on to win the Daytona 500 later that day) and NASCAR’s racing innovation guru John Probst, who gives me some great background information on what was then being called ‘Gen-7’ and subsequently morphed into the Next Gen car. 

Feeling pretty pleased with myself, I take up an offer of an early lunch in the Toyota suite – I was an invited guest that weekend – and I crash out a quick story from my Hamlin quotes before setting myself up for doing a live text of the race from the best seats in the house later that day.

The suite – ‘France 601’ which is at the top-right of the main Daytona hospitality building you can see in the photo above – was already filling up with Toyota dealers and suppliers when we get a guest appearance from another of its superstar drivers from Joe Gibbs Racing, Kyle Busch. 

The main Toyota exec of the day, who I’ll not name to save any blushes, really fancied himself as a Master of Ceremonies and called Kyle up on to the makeshift stage at the front for some pre-race banter. I switched on my recorder, just on the off-chance anything useful was said – and here’s what went down…

“Today’s a new day, it’s a sunny day, a bright day and an exciting day,” enthused Busch, clearly in a great mood. “I woke up on the right side of the bed this morning!”

We were about to find out why – but not before he regaled us of the tale about spraining his ankle earlier that week after getting “double-bounced by a seven-year-old on a trampoline” and joked that it might’ve been a Jimmie Johnson fan as “he didn’t even ask me for a photo or an autograph!”

Kyle added: “I’m sure there’s already an asterisk on my contract, written in pen, that says ‘no trampoline parks’ from now on.” 

And here’s where it got interesting – I knew he was in a contract renewal year, with plenty of speculation over whether he’d continue at JGR, and…