Is Joe Gibbs Racing Better Off With Or Without Kyle Busch?

It was a wild week at Daytona International Speedway and as the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs begin this weekend at Darlington Raceway, many eyes are focused on the run for the championship. While the playoffs always provides intrigue, perhaps more intriguing is that the biggest question mark for the 2023 silly season has yet to be answered, and it could lead to a major driver leaving an established organization.

Kyle Busch is still not under contract for 2023 and as the days continue to pass, it appears more and more unlikely that he will return to Joe Gibbs Racing for a 16th season.

That has us thinking: Will JGR be better off without Kyle Busch? Anthony Damcott and Amy Henderson debate.

JGR Needs Kyle Busch Badly

As much as JGR recognizes that resigning Kyle Busch should be top of its priority list, it’s possible that the team doesn’t realize just how valuable he is to its organization.

If Toyota and JGR let Busch get away and sign elsewhere, it’s a losing situation for them all around. On the Cup level, it leaves a prestigiously open seat in a race-winning car. And filling that seat is not going to be as easy as people think. First, JGR needs to find someone with sponsorship, enough to sponsor a good majority of a full-season. That alone is hard to do without stealing another active driver from another race team. The team could go after Tyler Reddick, but that’s only on the assumption that Richard Childress is still angry about Reddick’s 23XI Racing announcement and decides to release him a year early. Other free agent drivers with sponsorship don’t have enough to last even half of the season.

So the only realistic option JGR has at this juncture is to move someone up. But who? Ty Gibbs is the obvious choice, but Joe Gibbs has made it clear he would like to see his grandson run another full-time Xfinity Series season before moving up. Of course, plans always change, especially with Gibbs getting unexpected seat time at 23XI this season, but who else could JGR move up? Brandon Jones is too inexperienced to take that ride. Moving someone up straight from Busch’s Camping World Truck Series team wouldn’t be smart, not to mention impossible.

The reason why it would be impossible leads to the second reason why JGR needs to do anything in their power to keep Busch. If he goes elsewhere, his truck team is going with him. That leaves Toyota with NO development team in the Truck Series, which in turn leaves NO ONE for JGR to fill the No. 18…