TALLADEGA, ALA. (AP) - Kyle Busch’s race team will field a full-time Nationwide Series car next season in addition to his Truck Series program.
Busch said Friday that the car is fully funded, but didn’t announce the sponsor or a driver. It’s possible he will drive the car a good bit and try to win the owners championship, but he said he will honor his commitment to run the races he’s already signed up for with Joe Gibbs Racing.
“It’s a great opportunity for myself and for the Kyle Busch Motorsports organization, for everybody that’s there now (and) that we have on the line to hire to bring over in order to foresee that program being successful,” Busch said. “We’re excited. It’s a great day for us. Crew chiefs, sponsors, drivers _ all that stuff will be announced at a later time.”
Busch’s truck team is currently second in the owner standings, 73 points behind Kevin Harvick Inc.
But KHI is shutting its truck program down at the end of the season, and its Nationwide team is being transferred to Richard Childress Racing.
Busch said he was not gun-shy about expanding Kyle Busch Motorsports.
“We’ve been going through this process now for about four months, so we’re ready and excited that the opportunity has finally come that we can move up to the Nationwide Series,” he said. “We actually wanted to have two truck teams out of there this year and we’ve kind of done that, we’ve run part-time with a second team.
“It’s been good, but this just kind of takes us to the next level and we’d like to make it a long-term partnership that it helps out over time with NASCAR and the series and making sure Kyle Busch Motorsports can stay going.”
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