Kyle Busch Says How Long He Plans to Drive in NASCAR

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• Kyle Busch will be a featured guest on Thursday night’s Cars and Culture with Jason Stein on SiriusXM Business Radio (Channel 132 at July 20 at 6 p.m. ET).

• In the pre-taped interview, the Busch said he envisions a plan where he will retire from the Cup series.

• His master plan would be to oversee young son Brexton’s budding NASCAR career, racing in a Camping World Truck in about eight years from now.

LeBron James isn’t the only athlete who is postponing retirement so he can fulfill a dream of competing with one of his sons. The 38-year-old James announced last week at the ESPY Awards that he will postpone retirement until he can play professionally with his eldest son, 18-year-old Bronny.

Borrowing a page from LeBron’s playbook, NASCAR Cup star Kyle Busch just turned 38 on May 2. But don’t expect him to retire for at least another decade or so. The reason: he wants to race in NASCAR with his only son, Brexton, who just turned 8 years old on May 18.

Kyle Busch will be a featured guest on Thursday night’s Cars and Culture with Jason Stein on SiriusXM Business Radio (Channel 132 at July 20 at 6 p.m. ET). In the pre-taped interview, the elder Busch said he envisions a plan where he will retire from the Cup series, and then oversee Brexton’s budding NASCAR career, racing in a Camping World Truck in about eight years from now.

Kyle added that Brexton would likely compete in short track Truck events while he was 16 and 17 years old, while Kyle would compete in the bigger and longer tracks. And even though he didn’t say it on the show, it’s pretty clear that Busch & Son would drive for Kyle’s own race team, Kyle Busch Racing.

And then, when Brexton turns 18, he would be put into a truck full-time while dear old dad watches him—and potentially would race against his offspring, much like LeBron wants to do with Bronny, who turns 19 on Oct. 6 and will likely be spending his last season of playing hoops at Southern Cal later this year and into 2024.

“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,” Kyle Busch said, adding he would “run a full truck series season to see if I can win a truck series championship,” getting his son involved, and then fully retiring around 49 or 50-years-old.

Since first coming to NASCAR in 2001, Busch has become one of the most prolific drivers in the history of the sport. To date, he has 63 Cup wins, 102 Xfinity Series victories and 63 Truck Series triumphs.

But …

One thing has eluded Busch in his career, and which is serving as inspiration and motivation for him to race in the Truck Series once his Cup racing days are over: while he’s won championships in Cup (2015 and 2019) and Xfinity (2009), he has never won a Truck title.

Accomplishing that feat is one of the main elements remaining on Busch’s NASCAR bucket list.

If he wins a Truck Series title after leaving the Cup Series, Busch would set history in the sport, becoming the first driver in NASCAR to ever win championships in all three of the major series: Cup, Xfinity and Trucks.

“I would be the first one to have ever won an all three series of NASCAR, you know, the championship, which I've won the most races across all three of those divisions than anybody combined,” Busch said. “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.

“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 (likely to Xfinity and eventually Cup) 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.”

Stein was impressed with Busch’s plan, prompting his guest to add this in response:

“Yeah, that's the dream,” Busch said. “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 six or seven years, boy, the time is ticking.”

While you can catch the entire interview with Busch at 6 pm ET July 20 on SiriusXM Channel 132, Shop Now where Kyle talks about his future plans of racing with his son.

Follow Autoweek contributor Jerry Bonkowski on Twitter @JerryBonkowski