The struggles of Kyle Busch and the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing team have been well documented at this point. Busch, a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and 63-time race winner, is currently amid a career-worst 102-race winless streak.
When Busch first moved over to Richard Childress Racing in 2023 after a 14-year stint at Joe Gibbs Racing, the veteran racer and his new team hit the ground running as they collected three wins in their opening 15 races together. Since that third win of the 2023 season, which came at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, Busch has been shut out of victory lane.
And while he’s had some close calls since then, he’s been especially distant from reaching victory lane this season.
This week, Busch stopped by FOX News Media’s Hang Out with Sean Hannity podcast for an expansive sit-down discussion. During the chat, Busch detailed the moment when he felt things started getting turned upside down for the No. 8 team.
Busch said after his third win of the season in 2023, NASCAR stepped in after they didn’t like something that Busch’s team had found within the Next Gen car that allowed them to have an advantage.
“When we, in 2023, when I won those three races, after the third race that we won at Gateway, we got our hand smacked for some of the stuff that we were doing to the racecar that NASCAR didn’t like,” Busch explained to Hannity, “and they said, ‘Hey, don’t bring that back.'”
Busch continued, “It wasn’t anything like against the rules, but you always exploit the gray area. So we exploited a gray area, and we found something, and we had an advantage.”
Busch didn’t expand upon what it was that RCR had figured out with the Next Gen car that NASCAR didn’t like, aside from saying that they had found an advantage. But while he didn’t offer specifics, looking at his stat line prior to the third win of 2023, and after the third win of 2023, it seems pretty clear that was indeed a fork in the road moment for the performance of the No. 8 RCR team.
When Busch lost his ride at Joe Gibbs Racing due to M&M’s pulling their NASCAR sponsorship at the end of the 2022 season, he hand-picked Richard Childress Racing specifically because that team had worked side-by-side with NASCAR to develop the Next Gen racecar, and after Busch saw Tyler Reddick win three races during the 2022 season with RCR, he knew they had a leg up on the competition.
However, since getting their hand slapped midway through the 2023 season, Busch says his team has failed to keep up with the other teams that have figured out the Next Gen car.
“[RCR] were ahead of everybody else. And as everybody has learned this car, the little tricks of the trade, the little things that you’ve got to do, now the Gibbs’, the Penske’s and Hendricks’ have all got it all figured out and they’re the top teams, and we haven’t really come up with any advancements to it, and we’ve fallen behind,” Busch admitted.
It’s been a trying time for Busch, who won at least one race in each of his first 19 seasons in the NASCAR Cup Series, which set an all-time record for the most consecutive seasons in the series with a victory. Busch takes his extended losing streak, which has spanned more than two full seasons, personally. But Busch admits the Next Gen car doesn’t allow him to reach in and grab that little extra to help elevate his car above others as previous Cup Series cars did.
“I do [take it personally] because I was always that guy who felt like I could make a difference. Like, I could be the difference-maker,” Busch said. “I could go out there, and I could drive that car past its limit and make it go faster and pass the other guys that I felt like I was better than. And now I feel like any time that I drive past the limit of this new car, it’s the Next Gen car we’ve had in the Cup Series for five years, or whatever, I spin the damn thing out. Like, you can’t overdrive this car because it’s so on edge. There’s just not a lot more for me to get out of the race car, so I feel stuck with the car that I have.”
But Busch insists that despite the struggles that he’s faced at Richard Childress Racing, he is still giving it everything he’s got from behind the wheel.
“I’ve been with RCR here now for four years, and trust me, I don’t feel like I’ve ever put in as much effort and as much work in order to improve something as I have these last four years,” Busch stated.
With his driving contract with Richard Childress Racing set to expire at the end of this season, many expect Busch to test the free agent market, but if things can turn around in a hurry, who knows? Maybe Busch and RCR will remain happily married. But as it stands, Busch has wasted a couple of precious seasons near the end of what has been an illustrious career, waiting for a team to get back to where they were when he first arrived in 2023.
Sure, Busch would like to drive in NASCAR forever, but Father Time remains undefeated in professional sports, and if Busch is going to finish out his career with a positive chapter, things will need to change.
In the hour-and-a-half interview on FOX News Media’s Hang Out with Sean Hannity podcast, Busch dove into a bunch of other topics, including his current feud of words with Denny Hamlin, his run-in with Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 2008, and his injuries sustained during a crash in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series event at Daytona International Speedway in 2015, which led to a broken leg, and a broken foot.
If you’d like to watch the episode in its entirety, here is a video player of the episode:
