Joe Gibbs Racing has reached a multi-year contract extension with Kyle Busch, driver of the team’s No. 18 Sprint Cup Series Toyota. As part of the agreement, JGR will field the No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota in the Nationwide Series, which ran last year under the name Kyle Busch Motorsports. Busch will be the primary driver of that car.
I’m passionate about winning and that was a big factor in deciding to re-sign with Joe Gibbs Racing. I think JGR gives me the best opportunity to win a championship in the Cup Series for M&M’s and Interstate Batteries. I know that everyone on our team is committed to that goal and will push towards making that a reality in 2013.
With the No. 54 moving to the JGR camp, Busch says his racing team, KBM can focus on them team’s other cars. He said:
I’m extremely proud of what we have accomplished in a short period of time at KBM in both the Camping World Truck Series and Nationwide Series. When we started KBM our attention was to build something for the long term and now we are going to put a greater focus on our future with Parker [Kligerman] competing in Nationwide and Joey [Coulter] running trucks.
JGR President JD Gibbs said:
It’s no secret that you have to have great drivers to win in NASCAR and in the past year we’ve been able to secure long-term deals with Kyle and Denny [Hamlin] and of course we were able to add Matt [Kenseth] as well. Kyle is a big part of our success at JGR and we’re thrilled to know he will be with us for a long time.
Busch chuckled when he was asked if JGR instructed him outright to cut back on his Nationwide and Truck series schedules.