RCR president reveals how they solved Joe Gibbs’s worst nightmare, replacing Kyle Busch’s sponsor
In the LA Clash exhibition race, Kyle Busch finished P3 in his RCR NASCAR debut.
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Kyle Busch at LA Memmorial Coliseum (Credits: @rcr/Twitter)
Kyle Busch announced his exit from Joe Gibbs Racing in September 2022 after months of negotiations on his contract extension fell apart. He joined their direct rivals Richard Childress Racing, replacing the then TRD-bound Tyler Reddick in the No:8 team. One of the major factors that influenced Busch’s exit from a team that helped him to make an irreplaceable NASCAR legacy was the team management’s incompetence in finding a sustainable replacement for his long-term sponsor, M&M.
One of the biggest challenges ahead of RCR was to find the best sponsors for Busch, who has a bad-boy reputation. But Childress’s men were unfazed by the challenge and thrived in the task as they convinced all of Reddick’s major sponsors to stay with the team while bagging more new deals. With long-term job security, the two times Cup champion will be fighting to get RCR back to their elite status and potential Cup title.
Torrey Galida, the RCR’s president, and the RCR marketing team had the task of founding sustainable partnership deals. Over the decade, it has been challenging for teams to find solid deals. The experience they had in finding partners Austin Dillon and Reddick, helped them in the process. They convinced Reddick’s sponsors to stay and not leave with the driver and could top use their success in the 2022 season to their advantage.
“With some of them, it was a really easy process. You know, they felt right away that Kyle would be a great spokesperson for the brand. With a few others, it took a little more time and a little more convincing, but like I said, thankfully, we’ve been able to convince all of them that an investment in RCR and Kyle Bush was going to be a good thing,” Torrey Galida said about keeping Reddick’s sponsors.
“I’d say the market right now is okay, not great. I do think we’re benefiting from the fact that, overall, the sport had a really good year last year. RCR had a very good year. We saw an increase in TV ratings, we saw good crowds at the majority of tracks. So I think we’re all benefiting from that as well,” Galida explained the market situation.
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RCR Marketing team’s expertise played a major role in Kyle Busch’s decision to join the team
Busch first experienced how important sponsors are for a NASCAR driver in his final season with JGR. So, while looking for a new team, among the first things factored in was the ability of the management to support him and get sponsors. He finally chose RCR as he knew Torrey Galida and his team could do it.
“It was obviously a huge question mark going into all that, to begin with. When you look at these places and the opportunities that were presented in front of you, there were a lot of good storylines to that, and it was really a very difficult decision,” Kyle Busch said.
“I just really enjoyed Torrey’s team with Jen White (RCR VP of marketing and communications). And all the guys that are there that do such a good job of getting the sponsors, but also retaining them and putting them through the at-track stuff that makes a program successful,” Busch added.
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Justin P Joy
(4918 Articles Published)