Will 23XI Racing Become The Flagship Toyota Team?

Will 23XI Racing become Toyota’s premier NASCAR Cup Series team?

It sounds far-fetched considering the success and history of Joe Gibbs Racing, but it’s certainly a possibility.

Kurt Busch dominated at Kansas Speedway with 23XI in May, while Bubba Wallace followed it up at Kansas in September with the second Cup win of his career. 23XI has shown tremendous growth in its second season, and the team has several big-name sponsors lining up to sponsor its cars. Busch will likely keep working with 23XI in the garage, and with Tyler Reddick joining the team in 2023, things are only looking up.

As for JGR, Christopher Bell’s win last weekend at Martinsville Speedway was the 200^th Cup win in the team’s history, an incredible accomplishment. But JGR’s big win was mostly overshadowed by the finish of the NASCAR Xfinity Series race the day before.

Team orders have drawn controversy in the playoffs, with the biggest example being Cole Custer and Chase Briscoe at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL. Ty Gibbs wasn’t concerned with team orders at Martinsville; he wanted a grandfather clock. But in order to do it, he dumped his teammate out of the win and the championship on the final lap.

JGR owner Joe Gibbs and co. can say they are handling the situation with Ty Gibbs internally, but it’s yet another controversial incident that he has been involved in this season. It’s one thing to dump someone out of the win, but it’s even worse when it’s your teammate. Gibbs can keep apologizing for incidents, but the apologies grow hollow when they keep happening. And in a team that will need to replace Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin in a few years’ time, getting dumped by the team owner’s grandson is not a good message to send in attracting free agents.

Gibbs seems likely to move up to Cup in the No. 18 next season, and whether it was because of Gibbs, sponsorship or contract expenses, JGR has had an ugly, unceremonious end with its winningest driver, Kyle Busch. Sponsorship appeared to be the biggest crutch, but Richard Childress Racing was easily able to hire Busch and make it work for 2023. In addition, JGR will likely have to deal with finding new sponsors once Truex decides to call it a career. There’s also the outside possibility that Hamlin decides to move over to his own team in a few seasons.

JGR will continue to be Toyota’s flagship team for the foreseeable future, but there are several questions regarding the team’s future. On…