Kyle Busch’s start to the 2024 season has not been a great one so far. While the team searches for answers trying to set themselves back up on the path to success, Busch explained all the things that he feels have gone wrong for the team in an interview with Kenny Wallace. The two-time champion revealed, “The short track stuff has definitely been our struggle… Everybody nowadays relies so much on simulation and all that sort of stuff but the sim stuff is kind of thrown at us the wrong way and has led us down the wrong path a couple times like we tried.”
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The #8 driver explained how they ran simulator laps for the Richmond spring race last year but when translating the sim setups on the racetrack they finished somewhere around 18th. Later that year for the fall race they copied the setups from Hendrick Motorsports and he was able to finish in third place and his teammate Austin Dillion also finished in the top 10s. However, when they chose to run those same Hendrick setups for this year’s race at Richmond they ended up finishing down in 20th or worse.
“So I think some of it is setup stuff. Yes. I think some of it is car build. Just having the splitter in the right position, having the floor in the right position, the body in the right position, like all that sort of stuff, and being able to get everything right with that… there’s just so many things now that you have it you’re just well you have at your disposal with everybody has the same stuff.”
“So it’s hard to find that advantage,” he concluded.
How has Kyle Busch performed so far this season?
There have been eight races in the 2024 regular season so far. However, for Busch, none of these races have been any better than they were just a year prior. Last year, Busch already had a win in the bag by the second race of the season. But this year he has only managed to secure a single top-five finish at Atlanta and two top 10s overall.
He currently sits 15th in the standings with 189 points and seems far off from other Chevy drivers like the Hendrick Motorsports boys. His teammate, Austin Dillion, isn’t doing any better either as he sits 31st in the standings with only 93 points to his credit.
Despite the woes at RCR with their car building and setup issues there is still hope that the Chevy-based team will be able to turn their tables around and give Busch the opportunity to fight for wins and not the middle of the pack. But as their star driver said, finding that advantage over the competition isn’t always that easy.
