Kyle Busch finds new life with new team as he open up on his moves in..

It was the summer of 2022, and for the first time since anybody could remember, Kyle Busch appeared to be going nowhere fast.

He had lost his sponsor and then his ride with one of NASCAR’s marquee teams and — dare he say it — perhaps even his mojo.

“I never doubted myself — but sometimes you do,” the 38-year-old lead-foot said about circumstances beyond his control that lowered the curtain on an auspicious 15-year run with Joe Gibbs Racing and turned him into a free agent against his wishes.

“You kind of get down. You wonder what’s going on and what’s happening …”

But when he said that, Busch was standing at the start-finish line at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, earlier this year, some 225 miles down Interstate 15 from the Las Vegas Bullring where he first began driving in circles faster than anybody around here had ever seen.

He had just finished three seconds ahead of Chase Elliott for the 61st victory of his vaunted Cup Series career in just his second start since joining Richard Childress Racing.

The week before, he was on the verge of breaking through for his first Daytona 500 victory in his maiden voyage with his new team before being involved in a crash that, like his sponsors pulling out and Gibbs cutting him loose, also was beyond his control.

They say what goes around eventually comes around on the track. But not even Busch, never one to lack assurance and élan behind the wheel, expected to come around quite this quickly.

“Truthfully, no,” said the two-time Cup Series champion after breaking the legendary Richard Petty’s record by visiting victory lane for the 19th consecutive season in the vaunted Cup Series. “I felt there was going to be a little bit of a learning experience (with a new team).”

He wasn’t the only one who believed that.

The skeptics who raised an eyebrow when Busch decided to join forces with Childress were thicker than the grease under a pit crew’s fingernails despite RCR drivers having won 112 Cup races since 1969 and six NASCAR championships. All were with the irascible Dale Earnhardt in the driver’s seat.

But the last came in 1994. The team had slipped several rungs on the NASCAR ladder until showing a flash of resurgence in 2022 when young Tyler Reddick won three races in his third full season with the team.

But Reddick apparently was not as convinced as Busch that RCR had turned the proverbial corner. Midway through the 2022 season, he announced he would be leaving Childress to join 23XI Racing (headed by basketball luminary Michael Jordan and NASCAR star Denny Hamlin) for the 2024 season.

That decision touched off a frenzied game of motorized musical chairs that ultimately led Busch to Childress’ doorstep and RCR allowing Reddick out of his contract to replace Kurt Busch, Kyle’s older brother, at 23XI. The 2004 NASCAR champion was forced to retire from full-time racing after suffering a concussion in a midseason qualifying crash at Pocono, Pennsylvania, with his convalescence setting in motion a seismic three-way driver shuffle.

And just like that, there was Kyle Busch standing in victory lane beside an unfamiliar car while sporting an unfamiliar driving suit, once again confounding naysayers, if not his on-track rivals.

Chocolate-covered mess

“Why is anyone surprised by this?” fan favorite Elliott said after finishing second to Busch. “Kyle is fantastic, one of the best to ever do this. That didn’t change overnight, so I’m not surprised — and anybody who is should rethink their NASCAR knowledge, in my opinion.”

Kyle Larson, the 2021 Cup Series champion and one of the (few?) drivers with whom Busch has always gotten along, took to social media to congratulate him: “Couldn’t be more happy for @KyleBusch. The guy is one of the best race car drivers of all time and will always be. I’m glad it only took him two races to remind the world.”

Whereas most of his 63 Cup Series victories and a NASCAR record 229 altogether counting his triumphs in the Truck and Xfinity Series have been greeted with a smattering of boos, the crowd at Fontana cheered enthusiastically when Busch removed his helmet.

For most of his career, his success and impertinence on the track — his nickname is “Rowdy” after all — had polarized many NASCAR fans. But now virtually all were in Busch’s corner after Mars Incorporated, parent company of his longtime sponsor M&Ms, said it would be pulling out of the sport, transforming his 2022 season and racing future into a chocolate-covered mess.

Despite steering his familiar No. 18 Toyota to two Cup Series championships and dozens of victories during a sustained run with Joe Gibbs Racing that most believed would never end, the Super Bowl-winning coach decided to let him go when another sponsor could not be secured to offset Busch’s reported $16 million salary.

The development sent shock waves around the circuit. It also created an opening at JGR for a young driver who could be had at a much cheaper price – and just so happened to share the surname of the team owner as Ty Gibbs, Joe’s grandson, inherited Busch’s seat in the renumbered No. 54 entry.

Neither side said very much during negotiations to keep Busch at JGR, and their breakup was mostly described as amicable. But there were signs Busch’s frustration was growing the longer his situation festered without resolution. During his postrace TV interview at Pocono where his brother was injured, he barely acknowledged Gibbs when his boss tugged him on the elbow as if to say “good job.”

Then in September when it became clear that he would not be returning to JGR, Busch finally sounded off during a TV series chronicling the playoff chase in which he would be eliminated following the first round – his earliest departure while driving for Gibbs.

“Something that is so disappointing to me, and so hurtful about this whole situation with JGR, is they were like family,” Busch said on NBC’s “Race for the Championship.”

“For 15 years, Joe had my back in (my) stupidest of moments. Like, he was there for me, and (now) it’s gone. It just flipped, and it’s like nothing I’ve ever been a part of.”