[Xavier]

The greatest punishment of all is for him to lose his car and have another person driving it, for a person who does this professionally for a living it must be like watching someone make love to your wife. Not good, and that was done today.

Given how poorly JGR and Toyota has done in NASCAR this year, they are not going to eliminate their only hope in competing - Kyle is their Golden Boy. Its a viscous cycle; the better he does, the more dependent Toyota and JGR becomes, the more arrogant he becomes, the worse he gets. JGR's team has really sucked this year - and the only thing they have is Kyle - the only thing Toyota has is Kyle. With 5 blown Toyota engines this season alone (another today) and no other Toyota driver out there - they HAVE to keep him. Denny has really slumped this year; great personality but that does not win races. Joey, whom some thought would be the next NASCAR great could barely make it into Nationwide as far as I am concerned - his head is on the chopping block and everyone knows it...The 2nd and 3rd stringers who are being mentored by JGR - well, have a long way to go. And you can see that today with Kyle's replacement - which is why Kyle asks Denny to drive his truck/car in other races.

The greatest punishment is to worry, you won't worry until you don't have a car - and you won't lose your car until you lose sponsorship. So its not a question when JGR will get rid of him (they can't), its a question when MARS candy does. That will only happen when;

A - he stops winning or out of the top 10 or...
B - When the public reaction of Kyle's behavior taints MARs Candies marketing efforts (aka: sales). And you seen a little hint of this today with MARs public statement. It doesn't mean Mars is going to dump him, but the fact that they had to release a public statement tells you something. I mean less face it, he is not sponsoring a beer - but your kids candy.

In most forms of NASCAR; the racing team does not fire you, the sponsors do. They demand top performance and why not? Mars candy just paid for Kyle Busch today in the chase contention and instead they got the 3rd stringer. The terrible economy and many great race teams inability to get sponsors make this all more critical of a component to what has happened. JGR is not worried about Kyle, they are worried about Mars saying good bye.

Never been a Kyle fan, but he is a great race driver - no doubt abut that. He will just be a better one when he grows up. Perhaps he is one that must learn from great tragedy?