NASCAR: Busch Light to sponsor Ross Chastain in 2024
Anheuser-Busch has sponsored Kevin Harvick since 2011. Harvick is retiring at the end of the 2023 season.
Busch Light is moving from Kevin Harvick to Ross Chastain.
The beer brand announced Tuesday that it would sponsor Chastain in 2024 following Harvick’s retirement at the end of 2023.
Busch Light 🤝 @RossChastain coming to a track near you in 2024.
Here’s to a future of crushing Busch Light and smashing melons 🍉 pic.twitter.com/pjQWt4ZNvj— Busch Beer (@BuschBeer) July 11, 2023
Anheuser-Busch is the last beer company to have a sizable presence in NASCAR after brands like Miller and Coors have scaled back or dropped their sponsorships completely over the past two decades.
Anheuser-Busch products have been associated with Harvick since 2011 when he was at Richard Childress Racing. The company’s Budweiser brand moved over to sponsor Harvick that season and went with him in 2014 when Harvick moved to Stewart-Haas Racing. Harvick won his first Cup Series title that season.
In 2016, the company announced that Busch and Busch Light would be the sponsor on Harvick’s car instead of Budweiser.
Harvick announced before the 2023 season that it would be his last at NASCAR’s top level before moving to the broadcast booth for Fox in 2024. AB’s contract with SHR lined up with the end of Harvick’s contract and negotiations with Trackhouse to sponsor Chastain and the No. 1 car had been well-known over the first half of the 2023 season.
Chastain has been NASCAR’s breakout driver since moving to the team now known as Trackhouse ahead of the 2021 season. Chastain has three wins over the past two seasons and his wall-riding move at Martinsville a season ago was one of the wildest NASCAR moments in recent memory.
That Martinsville race got Chastain into NASCAR’s final four and gave him a chance to race for the 2022 Cup Series title. He finished second to Joey Logano at Phoenix to finish second in the points standings.
This season, Chastain is fifth through 19 races and got his first win of the season in June in Nashville. In addition to the Martinsville move, he’s also become known for aggressive driving that doesn’t make too many friends on the track. Chastain had numerous run-ins with Denny Hamlin over the course of the 2022 season and Chase Elliott’s championship chances ended at Phoenix when he went spinning off Chastain’s bumper during a restart.
