Last year in November, Joe Gibbs rolled out a jaw-dropping announcement. The Cup Series team coach announced that his drivers will be able to compete in dirt racing. Opening these gates made three-time Chili Bowl winner Christopher Bell very gleeful, but it also made a former driver look back in sadness. For years, Gibbs had been apprehensive of sending out his Cup drivers to foreign racing series for fear of them getting injured. Kyle Busch, who raced in JGR until 2022, was the unfortunate recipient of this.

The two-time Cup Series champion has probably achieved everything in NASCAR. Despite holding 232 NASCAR national series trophies, Busch still feels dissatisfied. That is because he always had his eyes on what Kyle Larson is attempting for the second time – the Double. And Rick Hendrick continued what Gibbs had started.

Kyle Busch confesses to getting debarred from his dream

Well, we all know the unpleasant exit of Kyle Busch from Joe Gibbs Racing. M&M’s, whose parent company is Mars and currently has a valuation of $137.4 billion, walked out in the 2022 season. Losing this big sponsor was a blow for the No. 18 team, and Gibbs was not prepared to pull in another big name for Busch. However, prior to this incident, another point of contention arose between the team owner and the driver. Kurt Busch attempted the Double in 2014, finishing 6th in the Indy 500 while driving for Andretti Autosport. Following in his brother’s footsteps, Busch wanted to do the same, but Gibbs came in his way.

In a recent ‘Actions Detrimental’ episode, Kyle Busch revealed his tragic story of rejection to Denny Hamlin. He broached Joe Gibbs’ attitude first: “I had an opportunity done, sealed, signed, delivered. (Kurt Busch) did it in 2014…in 2017, I had it. It was all done. M&M’s was gonna do it. Guess who said no?” As a current JGR driver, Hamlin knew the answer: “Joe Gibbs.” This rejection happened due to Gibbs’ concerns for safety, although the financial arrangement was in place. “Chevrolet was OK with it. Toyota was OK with it. M&M’s was paying for it,” Busch continued. The future NASCAR Hall of Famer again had a shot at doing it more recently, but got his aspirations shattered, this time by Rick Hendrick.

This time, Rick Hendrick’s ambition for Kyle Larson was the massive obstacle, and also Arrow-McLaren’s fading trust in Rowdy’s racing potential. Busch explained: “I had it signed, sealed, and delivered again, and then Larson took it. Yes, I won’t release the sponsor, but I had a sponsor talking to Zac Brown [McLaren team head]… We were about ready to go to contract, and Zac Brown was like…‘Hey, I need you to buy the car.’ And the sponsor was like, ‘Why do I want to buy the car? …I don’t need the car, I want to sponsor the car. I’m sponsoring Kyle [Busch], he’s going to drive the car. I don’t want to buy the car.’ [Brown said] ‘In case he wrecks the tub, we want you to buy the tub.”

This was a damning verdict for Kyle Busch. He talks about the Indy 500 in the vein of other crown jewel races as a bucket list moment for him. Busch added, “Besides winning the Daytona 500, that’s the highest, but then doing the Indy 500 would certainly be that.” However, it wasn’t meant to be for Busch, who saw his hopes of emulating his brother’s achievement dashed by Kyle Larson!

Kyle Busch lost the race to Kyle Larson to secure the ‘Double’ opportunity. He said, “Well, it wasn’t two weeks later that then I’m talking to this sponsor guy. And he was like, ‘Yeah, I guess that we’re too late anyway now that the opportunity’s closed because Larson got it.’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean Larson got it?’ Then I found out Larson signed a two-year deal, and we were only going to do a one-year deal.” Larson’s two-year deal is also in collaboration with Amazon Prime, who initially wanted to make a documentary of his 2024 double attempt, but with rain ruining his Charlotte run, they extended their contract as well. Who knows, maybe we could have seen a documentary on Kyle Busch’s Double attempt if the circumstances were right!

Kyle Busch was visibly chafing under these repeated failures. While the RCR star is left feeling sad about a lost opportunity, his rival is making the most of it.

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Defying all the hurdles

“Nothing really gets under his skin,” Chad Knaus, vice president of competition of Hendrick Motorsports, said recently. The subject of his conversation was obviously none other than Kyle Larson. After rebuffing Kyle Busch’s chance for the ‘Double’, Rick Hendrick’s ‘golden boy’ is pushing away further obstacles. In late April, Larson crashed his IndyCar vehicle on the second day of open testing for the Indy 500. But still, he went on to win a Sprint Car race in Jacksonville, Illinois, the following night. Then, in a sprint car race at Lakeside Speedway, he crashed with his brother-in-law, Brad Sweet, and Kerry Madsen. Just like before, Larson brushed off this mishap like forgotten memories and led 221 laps to win the Kansas Cup race last Sunday.

So Kyle Larson‘s focus is razor-sharp when it comes to forgetting past troubles and looking ahead. Chad Knaus summed up his motivation: “He loves driving race cars and he loves competing. That’s something that’s pretty special. When you have a young man that talented that wants to drive all the time, you need to let him do that.” So Larson might just excel at the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 in two weeks.

In addition to his unbeatable passion, Larson also highlighted his fans’ love for him. His 2024 Double attempt was replete with an ecstatic crowd, as he said: “I feel like I did a really good job last year of taking it all in. I signed every autograph I possibly could last year. I felt like that was important for me to kind of embrace…have the fans experience my experience. The days are so long there that you have time to pop out and go sign a couple 100 autographs at a time.”

Be it for the fame or the glory, Kyle Larson is making the best out of Kyle Busch’s lost opportunity. Meanwhile, let us hope for a renewed chance for Rowdy to run the ‘Double.’