“Ride in line=finish where u r
TRY to race for win=finish last
I hate these 🤬 cars!!!” Kyle Busch vented on X, revealing his growing frustration with the Next-Gen cars. The two-time Cup Series champion has struggled with zero wins this season, despite five top-5 finishes. It is clear that the lack of results has taken a toll on both him and Richard Childress Racing.

In a candid moment, even team owner Richard Childress had to face a harsh reality: if the struggles with the Next-Gen cars persist under NASCAR’s current regulations, layoffs at RCR might be inevitable. This looming possibility has sparked concern within the team as they continue their search for solutions.

Layoffs are a sore topic in NASCAR. Ever since Stewart-Haas Racing announced its exit at the end of this season, the lingering subject of 323 people who would reportedly be laid off from the team stayed in fans’ minds. It’s not a scenario any fan wants to see with any team, even if it’s a rival. With RCR, these layoffs might come for a completely different reason, and Richard Childress thinks NASCAR’s choice may have sealed the fate of some team members.

In the three years since the NextGen car’s arrival, Richard Childress Racing has only managed to get four wins, even with a driver of Kyle Busch’s capability. Speaking on ‘Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour’, Richard Childress mentioned that if NASCAR continues down the same road with the car, things will become difficult.

Childress said, “Well, this car, Kevin, has become such an engineer-driven car and when we very first started it, I felt really good about this car. And then they kept taking the spoiler away and adding horsepower and they were doing so much to it. And now it’s so hard to pass. Before you had enough of spoiler, you could. It’s always been tough to pass. But I think the changes they’ve made have been difficult for the racing. That’s my opinion. As a company, we were going to end up having to lay a lot of people off.”

Further detailing some of the engineering processes and their day-to-day garage difficulties, the RCR boss went on to say, “I think about 40 people when we got this car because we build our own chassis and do so much work at RCR. Instead, we’re now doing a lot of military work, we’re doing a lot of other outside work, and we’ve actually hired more people and looking to hire more people now for some of that kind of work. And I take the big responsibility for my employees and their family.”  

Richard Childress was quick to address RCR’s initial success with the Next-Gen cars that later turned into frustration. When first tested, the cars featured 8-inch spoilers, later reduced to 7-inches, and eventually cut down to 4-inches. Childress believes this reduction, which significantly impacted the car’s power output, has been a key factor in RCR’s struggles.

His point holds weight when looking at RCR’s performance. Despite a promising start in 2022, the team secured only four wins that year. While Kyle Busch showed early dominance in 2023, the momentum didn’t last. Additionally, the team continues to face a nearly 30-year championship drought in the cup series, with Dale Earnhardt being their last titleholder. However, is this purely a Next-Gen issue, or are there deeper problems lingering for RCR?

What are the problems RCR is facing?

With no wins in over a year from Kyle Busch or Austin Dillion, things don’t look good for the team. Although NASCAR allowed Dillion’s win at Richmond to stand, they took away his playoff eligibility. In such a situation where Childress acknowledges a possible layoff situation, NASCAR’s Next-Gen car is not the only cause of trouble. Deeper issues are lying inside the team. What are these problems?

All of Kyle Busch’s poor performances are not simply due to the Next-Gen issue. Fumbles from the team led to major penalties, majorly at Texas and Daytona, with the COTA (Circuit of the Americas) penalty being the more glaring problem. Pre-race inspections failed for the backup car being used at COTA, and with Daytona, a pit stop error forced him to drive for just a 12th-place win. Additionally, more penalties on the pit road throughout the season kept bringing in poor performances, largely due to pit crew errors popping up. That’s not all.

Pit crews are part of the performance on the track, but off the track, things in RCR’s hierarchy don’t look too good. At the end of June, Executive Vice President Andy Petree retired with immediate effect. At such a time, there was a big hole at the top of the power pyramid of the team.

Not just at the top, there have been several changes within the on-track team as well. Dillion’s former chief, Keith Rodden, was switched out seven races into the season. Although there was the failure to perform in those races, the change of a crew chief was not the only thing that could have improved things for the team.

Kyle Busch does agree with Childress in a way. Speaking about his struggles this season, Busch had a very simple explanation earlier this year. “The old car didn’t have that sensation, it was easy to just make a smooth corner and have the balance stay the same the whole time where now I feel like I’m fighting many more balance issues. And on top of just fighting those balance issues by yourself, throw in the aero deficiencies that you have in traffic and now you’re just confused.”

It’s a deep sign of trouble for the team. Their formula for the Next-Gen car seems to fail, and without a clear direction, the team lacks motivation to perform. Add to that the biggest fine in NASCAR history (after Austin Dillon’s aggressive race in Richmond, where he wrecked Logano and Hamlin), and you have a recipe for trouble. A short-term solution will only aggravate the situation. It might just mean the championship drought since the Dale Earnhardt era could just continue. What do you think?