When Kyle Busch joined Richard Childress Racing this season, the team knew that having the two-time Cup Series champion on its roster brought with it a certain reality of heightened expectations. If the team didn’t produce results, the likelihood is that it would have nothing to do with the driver and would be on the team itself.
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That’s one of the primary reasons that signing Busch was such a priority for RCR. It had been nearly 30 years since the organization last won a Cup title and several years since it last seriously contended for one. And as the team anticipated, Busch has more than delivered. His three wins are the most at this point in the season for an RCR driver since Kevin Harvick’s four in 2011, and his average finish (14.0) represents the best since Ryan Newman (13.5) in 2015.
“He’s like the gold standard,” said Andy Petree, RCR’s vice president of competition. “If you’re not at the top, you have work to do because it’s the car, not the driver.”
How Busch would acclimate at RCR, where he would replace Tyler Reddick, was one of the more pressing questions heading into the season. After 15 years with Joe Gibbs Racing, he was essentially starting over with a new team, manufacturer and, well, everything. The unknown was whether he’d be able to adapt, or, if the adjustment proved rocky, how he’d handle those moments when nerves are frayed.
Would the temperamental Busch be a good fit for RCR’s more old-school approach, or could the two parties blend their approaches to find success?
In his last three years at JGR, Busch had largely struggled, winning four total races and failing to advance to the Championship 4 round of the playoffs. A far cry from the driver who from 2015-19 won two titles, a series-best 27 races and never failed to qualify for the Championship 4.
Why a Busch-RCR union could work was obvious. This is still Busch, a generational talent who at age 38 remains in his prime and has shown his ability and willpower can elevate a team to a higher level. And RCR’s No. 8 team wasn’t lackluster, coming off a 2022 season that saw Reddick win three races and nearly win several others.
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For RCR, there was never any doubt how this would turn out.
“We knew with Kyle you’ve always got an opportunity to win,” Richard Childress said. “He just brings confidence to the whole organization. Everybody knows what type of driver, a championship driver, we got. And that’s what everybody’s pumped up about.”
Helping Busch adjust is that RCR’s culture has long been defined as one composed of “racers,” an affectionate term that equates to a collection of people who truly care about the grind of motorsports and are in it because of their unbridled passion for all things racing. Such a culture permeating within RCR has made it easy for Busch, whose love for racing extends to just about anything with wheels, to feel at home.
“Oh yeah, he fits that (culture) very well,” Petree said. “He is a hard-nosed racer. He races everything. Him and his son, Brexton, run all over the place, racing on dirt and pavement. And he works on the car. I mean, he’s really smart and people don’t realize how smart he is; he’s a very intelligent guy. He thinks things through, very sharp and quickly picks up on things. And I think that’s one reason he’s so successful.”
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After 15 years at JGR, Busch has also been able to bring to RCR institutional knowledge of an organization that has won five titles since 2000 — only one fewer than RCR’s six all time.
“Just how you perceive data, look at data, what data you really need,” Busch said of the learnings he’s brought with him. “What’s important after practices, after races, things like that. That’s the biggest thing from there. They’ve got a good process and procedure of how they do stuff and how they build cars, and I didn’t see anything in that (to change). But they’ve done a really good job of taking in some of my ideas and being able to implement that.”
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There are other ways Busch has ingratiated himself. On his first official day with RCR, he had lunch with the entire No. 8 team, telling them he wanted to fit into their way of doing things, not the other way around. He recognized that the team had success with Reddick, and so retooling was unnecessary.
Busch demands excellence from those around him, Petree noticed, but does so while holding himself to that same standard. He offers feedback in a direct manner, and his continued willingness to put in the work to improve has left a favorable impression.
“When he starts talking about the car, he is very detailed,” Petree said. “Everything he says we can do to work on it and make it better, it definitely shows up, and the car is indeed better. He’s very good at leading us in the right direction.
“He’s fully committed. I mean, I kind of wondered if he would be the kind of guy that would spend hours a week in the simulator, and he does. He’s dived right in there and he puts a lot of effort in.”
Busch has made it a point to develop a strong relationship with crew chief Randall Burnett. They’ve bonded over having young sons who race, with their respective families often spending time together at a small dirt track in the Charlotte area.
On these Tuesday nights, Busch and Burnett have learned each other’s lingo and how they approach racing. Busch’s team even helps prepare a car for Burnett’s son.
“He definitely keeps me on my toes, and I feel like he has made me a better crew chief,” Burnett said. “And I think anybody you talk to that’s worked with him will tell you the same thing.
“He’s very detail-oriented. He brought a lot of new ideas on just how to be better organized, be better prepared going from track to track to track. He is certainly very specific on how he likes things, the notes he likes having … he’s had a good bit of input on everything we do.”
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Busch and Burnett’s fast bond showed early results, with Busch nearly taking victory in the season-opening Daytona 500, then winning the next week at California Speedway. Victories at Talladega and Gateway came in the spring, and at one point, his consistency had him as high as third in the standings.
Busch entered the playoffs as the fifth seed, and an 11th-place finish Sunday at Darlington moved him 20 points above the cutline with two Round 1 races remaining.
A deep playoff run is realistic for Busch, and if he and No. 8 can better execute and scale back on the miscues, advancing all the way to the Championship 4 is obtainable.
“Yes, absolutely,” Burnett said. “… I feel like, with Kyle, I think his experience helps us a lot when it goes to making it through to each round and knowing what to expect and just studying that, knowing how to put yourself in position for that, and making sure you get the most out of your day.”
Should Busch make it to Phoenix with a shot at the title, he’d be the first RCR driver to do so since Newman in 2014. And meeting that goal is exactly why RCR signed Busch, a move unlike RCR has made in some time. Many of the drivers RCR has put in one of its Cup cars have come by way of its Xfinity Series program, whether that was Reddick, Austin Dillon and Daniel Hemric in recent years or even Harvick and Clint Bowyer in the early to mid-2000s. It’s been some time since RCR went out and landed a big-money free agent who was in his prime.
And while Reddick accomplished big things last year, signing Busch was a step signifying that RCR badly wanted to end its championship drought that dates to 1994 when Dale Earnhardt won his seventh and final Cup title.
“We have a good opportunity to win with Kyle because you always got an opportunity to win with Kyle,” Childress said.
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To bring RCR that long-awaited seventh championship, Busch estimates he’ll need to win five races on the season. He’s two away from that number, and another win or two over the remaining nine races would likely vault him into serious title contention.
“Moving teams is always kind of scary, going to a new school or whatever is kind of unnerving, but it’s been really good,” Busch said. “Randall has made it super easy. Everybody at RCR has been great. My thing now is just to try and reward them with the skill and everything I know that I have to be able to go out there and perform with the best of what I know to bring home a championship.
“But more importantly, just make that Final Four. The potential is there. The stuff is there. The team is there. We just have to execute, and that starts with me. That starts with Randall, and it snowballs from there.”
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(Top photo: James Gilbert / Getty Images)
