Kevin Harvick: Kyle Busch message about his future 'opens Pandora's box,' 'is a kick to the teeth' of RCR team

Kevin Harvick decided to condemn Kyle Busch’s commentary regarding his future with Richard Childress Racing from this past weekend.

While Martin Truex Jr. locked in his retirement following the 2024 campaign, there’s a ton of flux elsewhere in NASCAR as well, with the imminent closing of Stewart-Haas Racing, and the expansion of other teams throughout the sport. While Busch is under contract at RCR for 2025, his struggles have been well-documented.

Speaking with the media in Iowa, Busch basically threw his name out there for potential rides with his two former teams in the future, Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports. Harvick believes that was a terrible move by Busch, and it certainly won’t help improve his No. 8 Chevrolet anytime soon.

“Yeah well, to me, a message like that just opens Pandora’s box, to letting all of us critique, criticize, speculate what that means,” Harvick said, via his Harvick’s Happy Hour show. “But I can see thinking that, but I don’t know why you would say that, unless you were not happy with the deal that you have. Opening the door to a Joe Gibbs conversation, or a Hendrick conversation, and knowing, I think he said at the end of that, he has another year on his deal at RCR. Man, that’s just like a kick in the teeth, to the guys and the gals that are working on your car, right? To not be committed 100% in your answer to the team that you’re driving for, unless you were looking for a way out. That’s how I took it, because I don’t know why you would say that, if you were happy and wanted to work through the scenario that you have.

“So that comment to me totally blows the door open for speculation, and all of us speculating on what happens with Kyle Busch, where he’s at with RCR, what the scenario is with RCR. It’s been a tough stretch for the No. 8 car and everybody on that team, with everything that they’ve had go wrong, and now you’ve got those comments. And sure, he might’ve just been — I don’t know. It seems to me like he’s just throwing it out there, to see what the options are on the table.”

It remains to be seen what the future holds for Kyle Busch, and whether or not Joe Gibbs Racing or Hendrick Motorsports would even welcome him back. The most likely scenario is him returning to the No. 8 in 2025, and he’s going to have to learn the grass is greener where you water it moving forward, it seems.