To say that NASCAR driver Kurt Busch has had a tumultuous career in the sport is putting it somewhat mildly. When he burst onto the NASCAR scene at the turn of the century, Busch quickly established himself as a young, brash, in your face driver who was not known for making friends.
Early in his career, the Las Vegas native raced for some of NASCAR’s biggest teams; he won a Cup title for Jack Roush in 2004 and took over the famous No. 2 for retiring NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Rusty Wallace at Penske in 2006.
During the ensuing years, Busch went on to race for teams big and small. Along the way he also looked outside of NASCAR racing in the 2014 Indy 500 where he finished an impressive sixth place earning Rookie honors and the respect of many. He even secured his NHRA Pro Stock license in 2011 racing in that division at the NHRA Gatornationals.
Sponsorships for Busch have been almost as chaotic as his career. Most of the deals have come as part of whichever team he was racing for at the time. But as he has aged, Kurt Busch has become less of a controversial figure; he’s mellowed with time perhaps, and for at least one sponsor, has become just the kind of driver they want representing their brand. It’s a sponsorship that’s less that about the car he’s racing and more about the person Kurt Busch has become.
Monster Energy entered NASCAR fulltime in 2012 with Kyle Busch Motorsports (KBM) as that team made the move from the Truck series into NASCAR’s Xfinity series where Kurt joined his younger brother Kyle splitting time in the No. 54 car.
“I remember Mitch Covington (VP of sports marketing at Monster) made a comment; he goes, ‘man I can get two Busches for the price of one I'm in.’,” Kurt said with a smile.
Kurt would get Monster Energy’s first NASCAR win later that year. But it would be the only win for KBM that season, so the team decided to move operations to Joe Gibbs Racing the following season.
“That's where Kyle and Gibbs I think won 11 races the next year,” Kurt said. “I actually I was like ‘absolutely go over there win and we'll do something together over time.’”
Monster Energy would go all in on NASCAR, becoming the title sponsor of the Cup series from 2017 to 2019. They would also sponsor Busch while he was driving for Stewart-Haas Racing during the time. That partnership continued when Busch moved to Chip Ganassi Racing as the start of the 2019 season. Following a driver wasn’t unusual for Monster. For them NASCAR sponsorships aren’t about the car, but the person behind the wheel.
“If you look at our roster of sponsored athletes around the world,” Covington said. “You can see we have a heavy belief in the influence and the power of the sponsorship for the individual; regardless of what bike manufacturer they ride or skateboard they ride or whatever, we're invested in that person who represents our brand.”
And according to Covington that’s something that Kurt Busch has done very well.
“You know, just the way it's worked out with the different teams he's went to, we decided to stay with Kurt because he's been a loyal athlete to Monster ever since the day we signed him,” Covington said. “He’s been a model sponsored-athlete for us. He easy to work with. He's always ready to jump on a plane and go see a customer, go to an event for us, see our sales meetings. He's just been a joy to do business with. We treat Kurt like family.”
For the companies, and brands, that have NASCAR sponsorships, measuring the return on their investment can follow a formula based on such inputs as how many times their sponsored car appears on television screens, or how many mentions the brand gets in the media. For the Monster Energy brand, like their sponsorship model, the ROI measurement is looked at differently.
“Well, we do, and we don't,” Covington said. “We of course have sales data and all these kinds of things that big companies use to measure a so-called return on investment on a sponsorship.
“But it's always been our belief that it's hard to measure a return on investment in a sponsorship that you know it when it's good and you just know when it's working … we've certainly had that big a thing with NASCAR and with Kurt without numbers to get it to a calculated ROI. Right? But when you have equity in a personality like Kurt or any of the other hundreds and hundreds of athletes; people know that they're Monster athletes. When they see them they think about Monster. If you jump around every season and have a different person every year, you don't get that equity.”
For teams, Busch brings more to the table than a sponsor. He brings his over two decades of experience. What many outside the garage may not know is that Kurt Busch has become an asset not only behind the wheel, but in the knowledge he has. That was a big attraction for the team where Busch will start the next, and perhaps final, chapter of his career behind the wheel.
Late last month it was announced that Busch will move to 23XI Racing for his 23rd season in the NASCAR Cup series. The move was precipitated when Trackhouse Racing announced in June that it had acquired the assets of Chip Ganassi Racing who will be leaving NASCAR after this year. As part of the acquisition, Trackhouse will field a second car with driver Ross Chastain from Ganassi partnering with Trackhouse’s current driver Daniel Suarez. That left Busch without a ride for 2022; until the 23XI announcement.
He'll move from Ganassi which fielded Chevrolets to 23XI, the team co-founded by driver Denny Hamilton and NBA legend Michael Jordan that will campaign Toyotas.
“As we all know decisions in the sport are driven by other factors, other pressures sponsorship etc., but this was a very intentional decision,” David Wilson president of Toyota Racing Development, U.S.A. said of signing Busch. “We picked Kurt specifically for all of the attributes that he brings to the table. There's not, I think, a better suited athlete to join the ranks of 23XI and Toyota. He will be a force to raise the bar for all of us and I’m very much looking forward to that.”
The decision for Monster to follow Busch wasn’t a difficult one.
“When we were first approached on this by Denny and Michael,” Covington said. “You know we didn't know if Michael was just joining it in name only and he's friends with Denny and if he had a minor interest in it, so I remember us meeting with Michael and Denny and I asked Michael I said, ‘how much are you going to be involved?’ He takes a cigar out of his mouth, and he takes a drink and looks at me and he goes ‘look man I don't do anything to lose, I do everything to win’ and I’m like ‘sold we're in.’”
For Hamlin, his new team will get a championship caliber driver, and a new sponsor as well.
“It's very rewarding,” Hamlin said. “I love the relationship that he's built with Monster. I’ve got a personal relationship with those guys; we've gone out to dinner for years and years and we always were trying to get creative on how we could eventually get together. But it just all worked out great where now we get a championship winning driver and a race-winning driver on a weekly basis to essentially analyze our team and see where we stack up and kind of set the bar to push our team to continue to move forward.”
Kurt Busch admits that the move to 23XI Racing is part of an endgame of sorts.
“I didn't know where 2022 was going to lead me,” Busch said. “I didn't know where the future was going to be in racing. The timing and the people and the relationships are making this happen. And now it's all telling me that this is the right place to be and it's most likely the final spot for me in NASCAR.”
When he does end his career, Busch will likely be using his knowledge and experience to help others in the sport. What others will get is not the young, brash, in your face driver, that seemed to create controversy wherever he went early in his career, but a Kurt Busch who has matured.
“I think a key element is just being able to channel my emotions and my energy,” Busch said. “The things that might get caught by the camera or out into the public to the right situations and it's to build better crew members, it's to build better cars, it’s to create better sequences through how you gain points through the stages and leading through the Playoffs.”
And he’s a driver who has learned valuable lessons himself along the way.
“You know I learned a lot from my first team with (crew chief) Jimmy Fennig. We put a championship effort together and he taught me a lot about leadership. But I wasn't doing it in what you would say the public eye and that's where I think behind the scenes, people with hard cards or the teams I’ve raced for, each of the drivers that were my teammates. I want to always make them better because if I can make them better, they will make me better and ultimately the whole program will be more successful.
“So behind the scenes that's where things have really taken good root and that foundation that I’ve built now over the last decade and the comfort with a sponsor like Monster Energy has allowed me to feel confident in each and each place that I go and each track that we have a chance at winning.”
When Kurt does finally decide to step out of the racecar, Monster Energy won’t be leaving NASCAR. They already have an eye towards the future; a future that will include the same type of sponsorship model they have with Kurt Busch.
“We’ve got other drivers in the Monster system,” Covington said. “Just in the NASCAR system, along with Hailie Deegan, Riley Herbst and Ty Gibbs. And we have NOS (Energy) our other brand that we also own that's involved with Ricky Stenhouse and Kyle Larson and some other people, I can't name them all.
“There's too many on the dirt track side, but in NASCAR, we've certainly got our hopes on Hailie and Riley and Ty. We would love to have long-term relationships with all those. We believe it's a long-term relationship with an that athlete pays off.”
For the immediate future, however, the main focus for Monster Energy will be on the driver who started it all.
“We have a driver that we have the utmost in confidence in in Kurt and a long-term member of the team at Monster; and good friends in Denny and we just can't wait to get started,” Covington said.
And for Kurt the future will be with a long-term sponsor he knows well and knows will be with him to the end.
“I think the key thing has been honesty and transparency right from the beginning,” Busch said. “And then the fun factor of course with the whole program. It's a lifestyle in a can; their edgy swagger fits the way that I race it fits the way that my image is portrayed and how the fans absorb things.
“It's just it's amazing to see it all come full circle.”
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