NASCAR team chief admits Kyle Busch was 'second choice' signing

Joe Gibbs Racing president Dave Alpern has admitted that Kyle Busch was their ‘second choice’ when it came to signing a driver in 2008.

For Busch’s 40th birthday NASCAR released a selection of interviews detailing the Cup Series champion’s career, and the JGR president admitted that Dale Earnhardt Jr was the team's first choice at the time.

Of course, the team eventually missed out on Earnhardt Jr, who would go on to sign for Hendrick Motorsports, at which point they turned their attention to Busch.

"You hate to say he was our second choice, but at the time, he was," Alpern admitted.

Alpern: Kyle Busch was 'complicated'

Later in the interview, Alpern added: "Kyle was complicated in some ways. Kyle had a switch that would flip, and it was at some point before the race started,"

"I would often go up to Kyle and do a picture, but he was not my first driver that I would go to on the grid because he had already flipped the 'Rowdy' switch on. And he was just zoned in, locked in. During the race, it was the switch."

Busch’s arrival at JGR came about after he was replaced at Hendrick Motorsports, with the team reportedly telling Busch at the time: "Hey, you don't really fit here. You're not really our personality that we're looking for at Hendrick."

However, the move became career-defining for Busch, who not only went on to win 56 Cup Series races for the team, but also two Cup Series championships in 2015 and 2019.

The Cup Series is not the only racing category Busch has excelled in, either, enjoying 169 race wins in both the Xfinity and Truck Series, the latest of which came this year at Atlanta in the latter.

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