Kyle Busch has been vocal about his disdain for the results that Todd Gilliland has been recording in Kyle Busch Motorsports’ No. 4 Toyota Tundra.
Gilliland, who won 13 races and two championships in the NASCAR K&N West Series and had numerous close brushes with victory lane in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series a season ago, was expected to be a championship favorite.
Through eight races, Gilliland has just one top-five finish.
It’s been an absolute season of frustration for Gilliland who has had to answer questions all season about why he isn’t running better.
However, Gilliland isn’t the only KBM driver who is underperforming as rookie Harrison Burton has just two top-five finishes so far this season.
Saturday morning at Pocono, Busch voiced his displeasure with both of his young blue chip drivers.
When asked to assess his team’s performance so far this season, Busch said on a scale of 1 to 10, he would rate it just a 2.
Most of Busch’s frustration stems from the fact that he won all five of his starts for the organization this season in the No. 51 truck. So, obviously the equipment is good enough to reach victory lane. He’s just starting to doubt that the drivers are.
“They ain’t doing shit, man,” Busch said. “They ain’t running good. I can go out there and win every single race by 10 seconds and they’re out there struggling along to finish seventh and 10th. That ain’t going to fly.”
Busch was then asked if there would be driver changes coming in the future. Busch responded by saying, “I don’t know. Maybe.”
If Gilliland, 19, and Burton, 18, are wanting a smooth path up the NASCAR ladder they both need to start nabbing higher finishes and definitely a win here and there.
If they don’t get on the stick quick enough, they could be left behind.
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