It is now official, Kyle Busch will drive the #18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet or Toyota in 2008.
The Kyle Busch sweepstakes has officially ended today as it was publicly announced that the young driver will join Joe Gibbs Racing in 2008. Interstate Batteries is expected to remain as the primary sponsor, but at the same time, they are willing to allow other sponsors to advertise on the hood of the 18 car.
"He could have gone to almost any team he wanted to ... What I told our guys, that's a huge compliment to them," said team president J.D. Gibbs. He also admitted that current drivers Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin encouraged the hiring of Kyle Busch.
"We leaned a lot on Denny and Tony during this process. Both of them said 'Off the track and on the track, there is no one who has the talent this guy does and bringing him on board really gives us three guys who can win week in and week out.' "
Kyle Busch's decision finally puts to rest all of the speculation and rumors that have been swirling around the garage area over the past two months. "It was a great decision-making process that I was able to go through and a great learning experience as well ... I think we went about it in the right way where everybody was pleased with the way it went down. I felt like, for myself and the time in my career, I made the right decision," said Busch.
Kyle Busch is confident that the 18 team will return to its glory days of the late 1990's and early 2000's.
"We'll be able to jump in there and hopefully get the chemistry right right off the bat and be able to get up there and run competitive in the first few races or maybe even take a couple and throw them away and then hopefully be able to run competitive through the middle part of the season and try to get toward the Chase next year," he said.
Gibbs was mum on which manufacturer the team would use in 2008. Joe Gibbs Racing has had conversations with both Chevrolet and Toyota.
NASCAR won their appeal versus AT&T on Monday, which will likely result in the removal of the AT&T decals from Richard Childress Racing's Chevrolet driven by Jeff Burton. Back in April, AT&T was given a temporary injunction which allowed the Cingular logos to be replaced with the AT&T logos. Cingular, the sponsor of the 31 car since 2002, merged with AT&T in December of 2006, and the name is being phased-out.
When Nextel, now Sprint Nextel, became the primary sponsor of the series in 2004, rival telecommunication companies were no longer permitted to advertise their brand on a car in NASCAR's top series, however, Cingular and Alltel were listed in a grandfather clause since they were under contractual obligations with Richard Childress Racing and Penske Racing.
It is uncertain as to which logos will appear on the hood of the 31 Chevrolet this weekend at Michigan.
So Sprint Nextel appears as if they will be successful in running off all telecommunication companies from NASCAR. Roger Penske better have a backup plan for Ryan Newman's #12 team, because Alltel is next on their hitlist.
