By now, everyone knows about the plight of Richard Childress Racing. But before they get ready to potentially end their 2024 season without a shot at the playoffs, the question remains: does it get any better for these former giants aching for glory? With Richard Childress vowing to get “more involved” than ever in recent regard, it should be about time they figure out a permanent fix to their temporary problems.

But how close is RCR to bouncing back? Well, that’s not an answer you’re going to get anytime soon, as being tight-lipped has become the team’s favorite sport besides stock car racing. In a recent media presser, although the team’s senior-most driver, Kyle Busch, addressed the thought-provoking developments inside Richard Childress’ race team, he left reporters with even more curiosity than they originally harbored.

Kyle Busch hints at Richard Childress Racing’s missed opportunity

2024 has so far been an aching pain for Richard Childress Racing. This was a team that was once among the best, with 16 championship wins to its name and a home for the legendary Dale Earnhardt. However, with each passing week, Richard Childress’ brain-child has been plummeting further down the points standings.

And it’s not once that the stakeholders have tried to iron out the issues. From crew changes to executive-level shufflings, the team has tried to different formulas, only to fall short. But the team isn’t giving up just yet!

This was first hinted at by Childress’ grandson, and driver of the #3 car, Austin Dillon. During a conversation with Danielle Trotta of SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, he teased at some major changes at “end of this year or beginning next year”, leaving the community’s interest piqued.

The matter was further addressed by Kyle Busch during a pre-race presser last weekend, as he revealed some setbacks concerning a potential personnel switch at Richard Childress Racing. “I have certainly heard of some names and some rumblings. I don’t know if any signatures have been put on paper to get some of those people in. I know we lost one, meaning we did not get him. So that’s that,” he said as per Bob Pockrass.

It is unclear who Kyle Busch is hinting at, although there were rumors earlier in the year after Stewart-Haas’ NASCAR fallout, that crew chief Rodney Childers for Josh Berry’s #4 car was a potential target for RCR. However, soon after, Spire Motorsports announced Childers as the new pit boss for Corey LaJoie and the #7 team in 2025. So that leaves another conversation up for debate. Regardless, it is all just speculation without Busch opening up further about these situations.

When asked if he would like to be involved in the process of whom to hire, the #8 driver said, “I mean, it would be kinda nice to know, I guess. And they have been bringing me into the fold of some of the names and whatnot that they’re looking at. But honestly, besides the people that I have worked with before, I don’t know anything about the people that I have never worked with before. So it’s kinda hard to judge their character, their work ethic, their genius level, all that.” 

Although he remained silent, Kyle Busch radiated a threatening aura, the kind often visible before a deafening Rowdy comeback. However, starting from P34 on Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, many would count that out from realistically happening. Even his former teammate at JGR, Denny Hamlin recently opined that a comeback is quite unlikely for Kyle Busch, especially in sub-par RCR equipment. And if that is to happen, he will miss the playoffs for the first time in over a decade.

Still, Richard Childress, quite rightfully, believes that drastic change cannot just be brought around in the middle of the 2024 season.

What changes could Richard Childress Racing be looking at?

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Will 2025 be RCR’s year? Childress certainly is optimistic. But keeping in mind the reality of the situation, recently, the team owner asserted that he needs “time” to pull through the changes he has in mind for his race team. “You can’t fix it in the middle of the year… A lot of it is engineering. I feel that we’re strong in a lot of areas and weak in some of the others. I want to beef up our engineering. We’ve got a lot of stuff that we’re working on and hopefully we can get both of them running better,” he said as per NBC Sports earlier this month.

Further elaborating on the changes he’s planning, Childress had said in early June, “We need to change the culture. We need to have more racers.” And it’s like the team owner has become almost desperate to see a change in fortune as he stated, “I’m more involved than I have been in several years because I want to get the right people to help me make the right decisions,” Childress told NBC Sports on Saturday. “I don’t want to make all these decisions on my own. I’ve got to have the right people helping make those decisions,” in another conversation with NBC Sports.

Notably, multiple reports even suggested Richard Childress was thinking of buying a third charter in 2025. However, as per Bob Pockrass, “that seems much less likely than in early June”. 

With a string of DNFs and race cars that have arguably been the slowest since 2019, a massive overhaul is long overdue. In April this year, the team replaced Austin Dillon’s crew chief Keith Rodden with Justin Alexander. The new crew chief had worked with Dillon sporadically between 2017-2022, guiding Dillon to all four of his Cup Series race wins. Rodden, on the other hand, took over the Executive VP duties on an interim basis after Andy Petree’s retirement. Additionally, there are also rumors about Austin potentially shifting to a backroom role at their grandfather’s race team.

Just to give you an idea of why the team might be relying so much on necessary changes: Kyle Busch is set to miss the playoffs for the first time since 2005, when he finished 20th in the Cup Series standings. To add to that misery, he’s also on the longest winless streak of his career at 43. While his first year with RCR went fairly well with three wins, ten Top-5s and 17 Top-10s, this year he’s only managed six Top-10s and two Top-5s, let alone a win.

With a handful of races, still remaining, can he work his way up? Only time will tell.