Throughout the entire summer, everyone associated with NASCAR wanted to know where Kyle Busch will race in 2023. It was the biggest off-track story in the sport and on this past Tuesday, Busch announced that he will go to Richard Childress Racing and drive the #8 that is currently driven by Tyler Reddick for the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season.
That previous Thursday, Dale Earnhardt Jr. caused a stir on social media when he sent an emoji filled tweet that said Busch would be going to the #8 car. Many ran with it figuring that Busch to Childress was a done deal but 40 minutes later, Dale Jr. posted another emoji filled tweet that had 32 basketballs, indicating Busch going to 23XI Racing. Earnhardt caught some flack for the first tweet from Busch himself.
🌳👉🏼🎱
— Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) September 8, 2022
On this week’s episode of The Dale Jr. Download, Earnhardt revealed that right after he posted the tweet, Busch called him wondering what he was doing and then the two collaborated in a largely unsuccessful attempt to throw people off the scent.
“So I put out a tweet about a bush going to an eight…ball, which is basically Kyle going to the #8 car,” Earnhardt said. “So…I regret sending that tweet…and so Kyle calls me and he’s like ‘Dude! What are you doing?’ And I’m like, ‘Man…just everybody’s speculating, I’m just jumping into this conversation, man.’ And he’s giving me a hard time and I’m like, ‘So I’m right? Am I right about this?’ And he’s like, ‘Dude, wait ’til Tuesday. Why couldn’t you wait ’til Tuesday to send that tweet?’ And he says, ‘Send another tweet. Send another tweet.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, what tweet do you want me to send?’ So me and him came up with the basketball tweet to sort of throw people off.”
“He said, I guess at some point, maybe there was some conversations between him and 23XI about driving a #32 car. Actually he told me he’s like, ‘Send a tweet with me going to the #45 car.’ And I said, ‘Well that’s your brother’s car, let’s not do that.’ And he goes, ‘Okay, #32.’ #32, that was one of Michael’s jersey numbers.”
After being corrected that #32 wasn’t a jersey number worn by Michael Jordan, Earnhardt said, “I don’t know why we came up with that number then but anyways, he was like, ‘Let’s do #8, then do a #16, and then do a #32.’ He was just coming up with all kinds of ideas. I’m like ‘Yeah, no problem, so I’ll send these tweets out.’”
The way it sounded, Earnhardt had a pretty good idea Busch would be going to Childress but he wasn’t 100% sure and his original tweet wasn’t actually supposed to be taken as news. That being said, many fans trust Dale Jr. and given his status as arguably the most well-known figure in NASCAR and that he’s a commentator for NBC, it’s safe to assume he’s rather connected in the garage so he’s probably not the best person to post something vaguely newsworthy as a joke if you don’t want people to take it seriously. At least it makes for a fun story.
[The Dale Jr. Download/Photo: Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Dirty Mo Media]
