Richard Childress has just about had it. The veteran team owner is tired of his team underperforming. It’s not just the drivers, but also his cars, their setups and overall performance.
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After this past Sunday’s race at Dover, Childress was so ticked off that he uncharacteristically hopped on the team radio and made his feelings very clear that he’s unhappy with the way things are going. “Gotta get some race cars,” Childress said. “We are in trouble, period!”
Childress’ two drivers, his grandson Austin Dillon and two-time Cup champion Kyle Busch, have also been dramatically underperforming. Dillon has won just two races in the last four and a half seasons. Thus far in 21 starts this year, he has just three top-10 finishes: a seventh place and two 10th-place showings.
Busch enters Sunday’s Brickyard 400 riding a 78-race winless streak, the longest of his career. Thus far in 2025, he has two top-five finishes and seven top-10 showings. While Childress could have let Busch’s contract expire after this season, he decided about a month ago to give the younger Busch brother a one-year extension through 2026 to see if the now 40-year-old Kyle could finally turn things around.
It’s been a difficult time for Childress as a team owner. He hasn’t won a championship since 1994 with the late Dale Earnhardt (who also finished second in 1995 and 2000). Since then, Richard Childress Racing has had just one other runner-up season finish (Ryan Newman in 2014) and four third-place finishes (three by Kevin Harvick and one by Clint Bowyer).
Busch understands his boss man’s frustration. “I can only speculate, but I’m sure there were plenty of meetings this week,” Busch said during Saturday’s media availability at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“I’m not there every day and I was actually traveling every day this week, so I didn’t have a whole lot of time to be at the race shop with anybody.
“So, (RCR president Mike) Verlander and Richard, I’m sure, had plenty of meetings with our engineering team and guys in order to try to go over a plan of what can we do? Where are we at? What’s next? What have we improved on? What else can we improve on? And where can we fill some of these gaps that we seem to be having when we go to these racetracks.”
Busch isn’t used to mediocre finishes, or more importantly, not winning. This is the same Kyle Busch who is the winningest driver in NASCAR history with 232 combined wins in Cup (63), Xfinity (102) and Trucks (67).
With the exception of a one-off win earlier this year in a Truck (and two others last season), Busch hasn’t won a Cup race since 2023 and an Xfinity race since 2021!
Busch understands Childress’ frustration
Busch is just as frustrated as Childress. “It’s not one thing,” he said. “There is a plethora of issues. And it’s not just RCR issues either. (We’ve) got to figure it out.”
When a reporter asked if it’s possibly a Chevrolet or Next Generation car thing, Busch quipped, “D, all of the above.”
“This isn’t a positive conversation for me,” Busch added. “So I can’t really give a great answer that won’t get me in trouble.”
It’s clear from his body language that Busch is uncomfortable with the hard questions he’s being asked. But he can only do so much as a driver. The rest of the answer to RCR’s inability to do well is across all platforms of the organization.
