- Richard Childress voiced concern after Kyle Busch finished 11th at Dover
- Despite recent struggles, Busch and RCR agreed to a contract extension through 2026
- Both are committed to turning things around and chasing a championship
Richard Childress did not hold back his frustration following Kyle Busch’s 11th-place finish in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover. Speaking over the team radio, the Richard Childress Racing (RCR) owner made it clear that improvements are urgently needed.
“Gotta get some race cars,” Childress said. “We are in trouble. Period.”
Busch joined RCR in 2023 and enjoyed immediate success with three wins that year. But since his victory at the Enjoy Illinois 300 in June 2023, he has not returned to Victory Lane. With five races left in the regular season, the two-time Cup Series champion is currently 39 points below the playoff cut line.
While some have speculated whether Busch might seek opportunities elsewhere, RCR announced in May that he has signed an extension to stay with the team through the 2026 season.
“This has extended our contract out another year, and we’re really excited,” Childress said when the deal was announced. “You know, Kyle has been great to work with. Everybody had questions going in. I love a driver that doesn’t like to lose, and we’ve worked hard. We’ve got some exciting things coming up.”
He added: “He and I are both alike in one area that we don’t like to lose; we want to win races. I still think that Kyle will win him a championship, and we want it to happen at RCR and that’s our plans. We got a lot of new things coming. This car is a lot different. It’s so engineer-driven that we’re stepping our engineering up more, and I’m excited about the future.”
Busch, for his part, expressed gratitude for the continued faith Childress has placed in him.
“I give a lot of credit to Richard and him believing in me and giving me the opportunity to be able to come over here and have a chance to drive his car,” Busch said. “So for me, rewarding him with that and having the success on the race track is paramount. Being able to continue on when I first joined, I feel like there were some things that we were doing within the rules at that time that got us some extra speed, and then, there was definitely some things that came down that they didn’t like us doing.”
With the playoffs approaching, Busch and RCR know that time is short — but neither is ready to give up. The challenge now is to find the performance needed to put the No. 8 car back at the front.
