Kyle Busch won three times in his first 15 races at Richard Childress Racing but it’s been goose eggs ever since.
Why?
“When I first joined, I feel like there were some things that we were doing within the rules at that time that got us some extra speed,” Busch said on Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “Then there was definitely some things that kind of came down that they didn’t like us doing, and so that’s sort of where we’ve lost a little bit, if people are wondering why have we not been able to win like we did in the first 16 races.”
Busch and Richard Childress Racing were in the media center on Saturday to discuss the mutual option that was picked up to keep the two-time Cup Series champion in the No. 8 car through the 2026 season. He wouldn’t say it, but this is still the best situation for Busch to continue in for next season, even if the RCR program doesn’t look like an obvious contender currently.
With that said, Busch said on Saturday that he is seeing improvement towards getting back where they were early in 2023 and it shows in terms of them being a threat to more consistently race around the top-10 this season.
“Yeah, I think the speed has been there,” Busch said. “More and more we continue to work on that and get that closer to where it’s consistent speed. I feel like there’s times in the race where we do have top speed, but it’s not the whole race. So we’ve got to work on beginning to end and being able to put everything together. So that’s a big part of what you see. A lot of these guys that are winning right now … they’re just good from start to finish. So that’s a big piece of what we’re doing.
“As far as the workload, the workload has never been higher. That’s for sure. There’s a lot going on, whether it’s team meetings or meetings with upper management, things like that. Obviously, each week we do our driver debriefs. Each week we’re in the simulator, whether it’s for GM or whether it’s for ourselves and our own race team and trying to factor in much of the simulation and making that better.”
And Childress himself says they are not remotely satisfied at the fall-off that happened last year and wanting to rectify that.
“I wouldn’t call it pressure, but I call it a drive to win,” Childress said. “I felt like we let (Kyle) down some last year by not winning a race. There’s things that we’ve changed a lot to try to win. We will win a race this year with him and hopefully Austin as well. We’re working really hard. Like he said, he hit the key point. You’ve got to work smarter, and that’s what we’re trying to do. And I think we’ve got a lot of good things going.”
Childress says he wholeheartedly believes that Busch has another championship in him and wants it to be at Richard Childress Racing, which won six with Dale Earnhardt.
It’s why, at 79-years-old, that he is still so hands-on with his race team instead of spending time in a winery, on a boat or the woods, which are his go-to pastimes.
“I think the thing that drives me the hardest is wanting to win that next championship, wanting to win races, and that’s what I’ve always done,” Childress said. “I love the race fans. I love what we do. I even love the media believe it or not. No, it’s just me. I wouldn’t know what to do. You can’t hunt for so much. You can’t fish for so much. So I enjoy this. I enjoy every bit of it.”
He has room to love it more if he can provide Busch and Austin Dillon more capable cars. And it hasn’t always been smooth sailing in his relationship as Busch went from racing for a championship every year at Joe Gibbs Racing to struggle to even be playoff caliber.
But that frustration was equally shared.
“Kyle has been great to work with,” Childress said. “Everybody had questions going in. I love a driver that doesn’t like to lose. We’ve worked hard. We’ve got some exciting things coming up. He and I are both alike in one area – that we don’t like to lose. We want to win races.
“I still think Kyle will win him a championship, and we’re going to have it at RCR. That’s our plans. We’ve got a lot of new things coming. This car is a lot different. It’s so engineer-driven that we’re stepping our engineering up more. And I’m excited about the future of where we can go. Watching Kyle race and working with him, it’s been a great pleasure. You know, he’s a champion. Here’s the guy that’s won over 200 NASCAR races. His career is not even close to being over.”
And even at 40-years-old, Busch isn’t drawing a road map to retirement. It’s not even on his immediate radar with a 10-year-old that hopes to follow in his trails.
“There’s kind of the vision or the plan, if you will, on being able to race in some Truck races with Brexton alongside him,” Busch said. “So obviously, that’s six years from now before he can make that start. That would sort of be an idea of when I would look at stepping aside from Cup Series racing. But, you know, it’s a long ways out.”
And Childress said he would be more than proud to have Brexton at RCR, having given him a $100 placeholder contract when his dad signed with the team in August 2022, but also conceded he will be 89-years-old when it comes time for the second-generation racer to go Cup racing.
“I don’t even know if I’ll be around 10 years from now so we’ll probably let Austin or Mike (Dillon) make that decision,” he said with a laugh.
