After Kyle Busch won three races in 2023, Richard Childress Racing got their hands smacked by NASCAR officials
Kyle Busch is currently in his 24th season of NASCAR Cup Series competition. He collected 63 wins and he’s 9th on the all-time winner’s list.
He’s one the greatest to ever do it.
However, lately Busch’s struggling performance has been in the spotlight. Comments from Denny Hamlin has put it in the headlines.
Kyle Busch threatens Denny Hamlin after comments on his performance
Beginning with the 2023 season, Kyle Busch left Joe Gibbs Racing after 15 years with the team. He signed with Richard Childress Racing as the driver of the No. 8 car.
Initially, things were going every well. Busch picked up three wins in the first 15 races of the season with the new team. However, since the win at Gateway in the 2023 season, the No. 8 team has gone without a win.
What happened?
Busch is now 40-years-old. His age has been speculated as a reason for a performance decline. But, there may be something behind the scenes from that last win at Gateway that hasn’t surfaced until now.
While speaking on a podcast, Busch details that after that win in the 2023 at Gateway, NASCAR rules officials were not happy with something RCR did to the car.
Busch kept the win and the team wasn’t penalized. But they were told not to do that again. “Don’t bring it back,” officials told the team.
Kyle Busch details when NASCAR officials got to RCR
“They were ahead of the game,” Kyle Busch stated of the 2023 performance with RCR via Sean Hannity.
“And, as everybody’s learned this car, the little tricks of the trade and we haven’t really come up with anymore advancements to it. So, we’ve fallen behind.”
“In 2023 when I won those three races, after the third race that we won at Gateway, we got our hands smacked for some of the stuff that we were doing to the race car that NASCAR didn’t like and said ‘don’t bring that back.’ “
“That’s happened over the course of NASCAR for 78 years.”
“It wasn’t anything, like, against the rules. It was just, you always exploit the gray area. So we exploited a gray area and we found something and we had an advantage.”
“It’s cheating, without cheating. It makes it faster. You want more downforce, it makes it lighter. These cars, you wanna travel the car more because there’s rules and limitations around all that stuff.”
Current performance at RCR
Kyle Busch also spoke to some of the things going on regarding RCR performance currently…
“The thing a lot of fans don’t really understand of our sport is how much goes into everything at the shop. The technology, the building of the race cars.”
“The tiniest details, you can’t see it with the naked eye. We’re talking 40-thousands of an inch. That’s the difference of being able to win a race or finish 5th.”
“You’re starting to see the top 5 guys, are the same top 5 guys every week. I think it’s just the good cars are the good cars and they’re all from the same team. Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, Penske Racing so before you even go to the race track, you’re racing for 12th.”
“Now, there’s other teams that are becoming better than we are.”
