The NASCAR icon will be leaving NBC after this year and be joining networks that will be part of the new media rights deal in 2025.
Junior has worked for NBC since retiring at the end of the 2017 season but isn't returning to the network in 2024.
What is quickly becoming the best rivalry in NASCAR evidently has at least one willing participant. After Kyle Larson edged Chris Buescher at the line in the closest finish in history Sunday night at Kansas Speedway, the 2021 Cup Series champion confessed that he would have been OK finishing second, because their door-banging, nose-to-nose finish — the final margin was a mere hundredth of a second — was just so “frickin' awesome.” If it was Denny Hamlin, rather than Buescher, who beat the No. 5 car in a photo finish?