Even if only ‘a little bit,’ as he put it, Kyle Busch says he feels like his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing team has started to turn the corner after a season last year that went well beyond a disappointment.
The two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion is still mired in a career-long 61-race winless streak dating back to the 2023 season but has also emerged through the first month of this season eighth in the championship standings.
Busch also competed for the win at Circuit of the Americas and very much looked like the ‘Rowdy’ of old in leading a race high 42 laps that afternoon.
“I mean, certainly we’ve had some good races, so far,” Busch said. “We’ve had some good speed. We’ve had the cars driving much more to my liking than what we’ve had in past. So I’ve been able to get more from the race car as well, too.
“So that’s all a net positive. Everyone at RCR should be proud of the efforts and all the things that we’re doing behind the scenes to get us to where we’re at right now. So I’m grateful of that.”
Busch crashed out of the Daytona 500 but otherwise has three consecutive top-10s that continued into Phoenix last weekend.
“I do feel like there’s more to go get,” Busch said. “You know, if we had the gains that we made at Phoenix from last year to this year — if we could have another step of that, you know, then there’s going to be reason for us to race for wins.
“And so I’m optimistic about here this weekend and seeing what we can do this week in putting ourselves in position to race up front; challenge for stage points, challenge for a win, put ourselves in a position to go out there and continue our decent start to the season of top-10s.”
Sunday is another test to see where gains were made from last season because this is the first true intermediate track race of the season and a place where Busch last won back in 2009 while at Joe Gibbs Racing.
It’s his home track, too.
“Yeah, each week’s different, right,” Busch said. “We have a small sample size right now with the start of the season and only having a few races. So as we continue to add to that sample size of Las Vegas, Homestead and go to Martinsville … you know, hit a Bristol, a Darlington, I feel like then you’ll really start to see where you stack up.”
And while Busch would certainly like to be off to a start similar to the one Christopher Bell is currently on, having won three in a row, he also believes there is a benefit to kind of being under-the-radar like he and crew chief Randall Burnett are right now.
“The season changes so fast also,” Busch said. “You don’t want to start hot and then, you know, have NASCAR looking over you with a microscope, and then you have different issues getting through tech each week that then kind of derails your summer. So, you know, you’ve got to be careful and be patient with everything that you’ve got going on. But that sometimes can be a defining factor, as well too, to your season and how you play it out.”
Keep in mind too, that Busch is currently racing for a new contract and RCR is no doubt working hard to convince the future Hall of Famer to stay.
