BROOKLYN, Mich. — Kyle Busch, this week’s NASCAR cause celebre, did little to unmuddy the waters surrounding his impending departure from Hendrick Motorsports.
The 22-year-old Busch, whose spot in the Hendrick lineup will be filled in 2008 by Dale Earnhardt, Jr., followed up several days of conflicting reports and roiled the waters again Friday at Michigan Int’l Speedway with a press conference seemingly designed to raise more questions than it answered.
Throughout the get-together with the assembled media, Busch stressed that decision for him to leave the team was by mutual agreement.
“That’s exactly what it was,” Busch said.
Busch also squelched the notion that there was a single incident that pushed both parties to the edge.
“It was a series of events,” Busch labeled the departure discussions.
Was the incident at Texas, where he left the track after a crash and Earnhardt, Jr. was asked to drive a few laps to gain extra points before the car was retired, a contributing factor to his departure?
“No, there’s no connection there,” Busch said. “It was a miscommunication between myself and my team.”
In the midst of the turmoil, Busch went out and got himself a new agent, Motorsports Management International.
Why?
“I had previous manangement by someone else, and it wasn’t discussed with me some of the things that probably should have been, so I was out of the loop on most of it,” Busch said. “I’m very ignorant when it comes to that kind of stuff because I wasn’t informed.”
It would seem that a mutual decision would be hard to reach, given this situation.
Busch pointed out that contract negotiations with Hendrick were up and down until Dale Earnhardt, Jr. became available, at which time negotiations stalled.
“I’m not stupid,” Busch said. “You guys (the media) aren’t stupid, so it’s kind of common sense I guess.”
Again, it’s sounding like something other than a mutual decision.
Asked by the media if, in light of his success with Hendrick, things turned out the way they did, Busch gave the waters a good stirring.

“I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would leave Hendrick Motorsports,” he said.

“I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would leave Hendrick Motorsports,” he said.

Did the way things went at the point Earnhardt became available and contract talks stalled precipitate the change in management?
“No, it has nothing to do with the deal falling through,” he said. “I just felt like I needed to make a change.”
Did you ask for your release from Hendrick Motorsports?
“It was a mutual decision,” he said.
Did the fact that his previous representation had been getting calls from other teams, and that word had gotten back to Hendrick?
“That’s where they sort of got upset,” Busch said.
Did his previous representation cost him his ride at Hendrick?
“I don’t think so,” Busch said. “To be honest, it was a tough decision to let him go, and I really didn’t want to do it.”
Busch’s future appears to be one of deciding which team to hook up with while the teapot-type tempest swirls around him.
Like most “big news” stories, readers will soon grow weary of the rhetoric and await the next “big story” while the media, equally disinterested, will nevertheless keep asking what really happened.