What’s In Kyle’s Future?
Kyle Busch is now saying that he was not shopping around talking with other teams, and that Rick Hendrick’s announcement to the contrary, was news to him. It doesn’t really matter because I belive Busch’s recent behavior left him completely vunerable to something like this. Is he a talented driver? Probably, but his aggressive attitude has become a liability on the track.
And how is this going to affect where he goes? Probably not much, because rumor has it that he’s actually going to swap spots with Dale Jr. and will end up working for Teresa Earnhardt. Of course, I also believe that there are other teams that would be willing to sign him for 2008. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there are driver movements before the Chase starts, and Busch would probably be in the center of it.
Everyone complains about drivers that have no personality, no fire. But the second one comes along, everyone is ripping him a new one for being too aggressive. No matter what you do in this sport, you’re a bad person.
That said, Kyle has a lot of opportunities in front of him. He’s one heck of a driver, and Rick Hendrick even compared him to Tim Richmond, which says a lot. I don’t think Kyle got fired, and I don’t think he quit.
There was a disagreement on the contract that Rick wanted to give him for next year. Watching Kurt growing up, Kyle came into the sport knowing what he did, and did not want out of a team. The two main reasons he left Roush was he didn’t want to be in older brothers shadow (Much like Junior not going to RCR), and he did not want a long term contract.
Jack Roush wanted to sign Kyle to a ten year deal when Kyle wasn’t even old enough to sign his own name. Obviously he didn’t want that. Rick wanted Kyle to sign for another five years, and Kyle wanted three, neither wanted to move so that’s why the negotiations fell apart.
Kyle isn’t stuck with going to DEI, and as a Kyle fan I don’t want to see him go there. There are a whole bunch of other places that I know would be interested. Gibbs for one. RCR is another possibility, and there’s even Toyota.
Don’t write him off yet, you’ll be seeing a lot of him for many, many years to come.
Thanks for the comments. You make some valid points, but I still think Kyle’s behavior didn’t help is current situation.