“I Was Jealous” – Kyle Busch Describes His Shocking Switch to JGR And His Mindset Heading to a New Team

It’s hard to imagine that Kyle Busch did not believe that he was good enough at any point in his career. The man has raced with 3 of the most legendary teams in the NASCAR Cup Series today. Not only that, he is one of the most successful stock car racers of the modern era. However, Rowdy recently revealed that he felt a sense of insecurity when he began his Cup Series career, which led to a significant career move.

The 38-year-old has one of the most impressive resumes of anyone in the history of the sport. He has raced with 3 teams in the Cup Series so far – Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, and Richard Childress Racing. The teams are renowned, thanks to their massive legacy. But things weren’t that great for Rowdy at HMS.

Kyle Busch reveals how Jimmie Johnson, and Jeff Gordon made him feel insecure

In a recent interview with former rival and Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch revealed that racing at Hendrick Motorsports hurt his mindset. But that had nothing to do with how the team functioned. Rowdy had the likes of Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon as teammates who used to win races left, right, and center. The fact that he could not do the same at the time used to eat him up, and that forced him to move to Joe Gibbs Racing later on.

He also explained his first few years at JGR, where he hardly sounded like the fiery personality that fans remember him to have. Busch used to be a rather silent driver on the team, taking in all the information and teachings and applying them to his craft. That allowed him to become one of the best of the modern era, as he won 2 Cup Series championships with Joe Gibbs Racing.

He said, “I think both organizations are obviously different. They have different ways and their different tendencies of things and what they do. I would say what’s different between me and what I’m doing…when I joined JGR, I was off of 3 years of being with Hendrick. Seeing Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson and the success that they were having, I was jealous. I was only winning once or twice a year, they were winning 6 to 10 times a year and it was like what am I doing wrong?”

“Why can’t I be like those guys right now, in my first 3 years of Cup racing. I kind of took a back seat at JGR, just kind of like floating around, listening, like doing all that even though we were successful winning races with all the different crew chiefs that I had over there,” Rowdy added.

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Last year, he made another career move after several years with JGR due to sponsorship issues. But now, the situation is a lot different. He is the leader of the team and has a clear idea about how things should function.

Two decades later, Rowdy is now a leader on his new team

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And it was perhaps this experience that he has gained over so many years that helped him win 3 races in his very first season with a new team. But the #8 team could not continue the momentum late into the season, which ultimately cost them the Cup Series. However, Kyle Busch is adamant that he will not let that happen this time around.

“Now, moving over to RCR, being in the sport for 20 years, going on 20 years, I feel like I have a good sense of direction of what needs to happen, what should take place, how things should be structured and organized, and all of that. Also, from owning a race team, from having KBM for 12 years that we had that going, there’s a lot of that happening kind of behind the scenes.”

“I would say still though, at the race track, want to be that same guy wanting to go out there and win and compete and do it to the best of my ability and the best of the team’s ability, and fortunately, we were able to win 3 races at RCR in my first year, which was great. Definitely cooled off towards the end of the year so we want to fix that and not let that happen again,” he added.

It will be interesting to see how much Rowdy improves in his second season with Richard Childress Racing. Will he be able to win his third Cup Series championship this year? Let us know what you think.

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