The 2024 misery continues for Kyle Busch and Richard Childress Racing after last Sunday’s Ally 400 race. A season that was supposed to take RCR right back into contention for the championship has turned into Kyle Busch’s worst-ever run. While there have been issues with the No. 8 team and its inability to produce consistent results, luck surely isn’t in Rowdy‘s favor, and that was evident at the Nashville Superspeedway.
From running 31st in the first stage to then going on to compete for the win in the final stage. It looked like he could have those breakthrough results after all, but then tragedy struck late in overtime when he was on the receiving end of things once again. From a potential top-5 finish to ending the race on DNF, this was gut-wrenching for the driver and his team. Even Kevin Harvick couldn’t help but empathize with the predicament Kyle Busch is in right now.
Kyle Busch just can’t catch a good break at the moment
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Joey Logano broke his 49-race winless streak at Nashville. Chase Elliott ended his 42-race winless drought. Heck, even Brad Keselowski is back to winning ways after 110 races. But the 2024 season has just been a huge letdown for Kyle Busch. Even when he and his team rallied for a good run at Nashville, he ended up being rammed into the wall during the overtime run.
Reflecting on Busch’s run with the bad luck, Harvick on the Happy Hour podcast said, “I don’t even know how to fix it at this point. Because they didn’t do anything wrong, he didn’t do anything wrong. He is on the worst bad luck cycle of anyone on the circuit right now, and it is bad. Don’t go around Kyle Busch right now; if you want bad luck, don’t get around that guy because he is plagued with bad luck.”
Harvick also thinks that Andy Petree stepping down from his role is a signal that RCR is looking to improve their performance on the race track. “So that tells me that there’s obviously some issues on the performance side with everything that is going on with Andy stepping down or getting pushed out, or whatever the scenario is. They obviously feel like they need to make their race cars run faster because they’re now looking for a new competition director.”
Clearly, something is off inside the Richard Childress Racing camp. And if they fail to address and act on their shortcomings, it might prove costly for Busch and the entire racing organization as a whole.
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RCR needs to get their act together
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With just seven races to go until the end of the regular season, it is just tough to see Kyle Busch manage to break into the final 16. After the streak of DNFs, he now finds himself 104 points short of the cutline. Only a Hail Mary run or a change in fortunes would see them get their ever-so-important win.
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However, if we are to add Austin Dillon’s run into the mix, this adds to the misery of the team. Over the last seven races, Busch and Dillon have earned the second and third-least points of any full-time driver in the Cup Series. This is indeed a torrid stretch of play for Richard Childress and Co., and they are now looking like one of the worst teams on the grid.
RCR might endure another season’s failure, but if this continues, Rowdy might lose out on his personal record as well as his Rowdy status. With his current winless streak now standing at 40, he is in jeopardy of not scoring a win in the regular season for the first time since 2004. So there’s more than just playoff qualification on the line for Busch; it is now a matter of his pride and reputation.