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Two-Time Cup Series Champ Kyle Busch Reveals His "Perfect" Retirement
Rowdy’s ideal sunset sendoff involves hanging around until his son Brexton is old enough for him to compete alongside.
Watching our favorite athletes ride off into the sunset is never easy. But with Kurt Busch retiring last year, Kevin Harvick set to retire at the end of this season, and Martin Truex Jr. pondering a world of deep-sea fishing in the place of Cup Series competition, Father Time seems to be lingering around NASCAR’s top flight of stock car racing.
And now, Kyle Busch is also discussing retirement — though it's still a way off.
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What has Kyle Busch said about retirement?
In a chat with the Cars & Culture with Jason Stein podcast on SiriusXM that dropped Thursday, Rowdy said he envisions that his exit from the Cup Series will occur as his son Brexton focuses on his burgeoning racing career. When that happens, the elder Busch said he intends to oversee his son’s NASCAR trajectory that would see Brexton first compete in a Camping World Truck.
Go on and breathe a sigh of relief because the good news for racing fans — and the legion of Rowdy faithfuls in particular — is that Brexton’s only 8, so the intrepid wheelman of Richard Childress Racing’s No. 8 Chevrolet Camaro plans to continue battling for eternal track glory for nearly a decade to come.
Rowdy’s taking a page out of the playbook of another 38-year-old champion, NBA living legend LeBron James. Last week, the Los Angeles Laker and the league’s all-time leader in points announced at the ESPY Awards that he plans to delay retirement so he can play with his eldest son, 18-year-old Bronny, who recently committed to the University of Southern California. Now, it’s Busch who’s gearing up for a future of competing with his boy, and the details of his decade-plus plan is impressive to say the least.
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Asked by Stein how long he plans to drive full-time in NASCAR’s top tier, Busch mapped out his fairy tale scenario.
“I would say in a perfect world — I’ve kind of dreamt this up a little bit — in a perfect world, I would retire from Cup racing when Brexton is 15 years-old, and I would go run a year of Trucks,” Busch said in the interview, according to Motorsport.
Though stepping away from the Cup Series would be difficult, Busch’s plans to work with his son also include him chasing a first-of-its-kind career highlight.
“I’d go run a full Truck series season to see if I can win a Truck series championship because that, I would be the first one to have ever won all three (national) series of NASCAR, you know, the championship, which I’ve won the most races across all three of those divisions, than anybody combined,” Busch explained.
“So, I would do that, and then when Brexton turns 16, him and I can split that truck where he can run the shorter track races, and I can run the bigger track races,” he added. “So, for two years, because you have to be 18 to run the big tracks, so for two years, we would split it. And then, when he’s 18, he takes it over, and then when he runs it and takes it over and hopefully wins a championship, then he moves on, and then I’m out.”
“Like, I’m done. You know, that would, that would be it for me. So that would probably put me around, I guess 49, 50 years old.”
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Rowdy’s idyllic map to retirement even impressed Stein, with the podcast host saying, “That’s a heck of a plan. I like that.”
To that, Busch responded, “Yeah. That’s the dream. So, I’ve got to make the dream a reality. So, we’re working on that. I’ve got to have that life-after-racing plan. I don’t have that one set yet. And if my Cup career is going to be over in the next, you know, six or seven years, boy, the time is ticking.”
