Joe Gibbs Racing have announced that their iconic number will come back to the Cup Series in the future.
In the 2022 season, Kyle Busch left the team after the departure of his longtime primary sponsor M&M’s. He has since joined Richard Childress Racing for the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season. The departure came about after 15 seasons together.
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It has also been already announced that Ty Gibbs will replace Kyle Busch. While JGR didn’t plan to promote Gibbs in the 2023 season, after a successful Xfinity season, where he won the title and a good season with four wins prior to that, JGR agreed that Gibbs was more than ready to take the job.
Gibbs also had a lot of Cup experience in the 2022 season, as he ran 15 races, coming as a replacement for Kurt Busch at the Joe Gibbs Racing-affiliated 23XI Racing.
However, Gibbs won’t be taking over the iconic No. 18 car driver by Busch. Rather, he will continue to drive in the No. 54 car, the number which he has used for 50 of his 51 Xfinity Series starts.
JGR began using No. 18 in 1992 and it will be the first time since then that the team will be competing without this number. However, the team is not going to retire the number as they announced that it will come back “in future years”.
But if Gibbs decides to keep the No. 54, the No. 18 will probably replace the number 11, number 19, or number 20 in the team.