RCR Extends Kyle Busch Amid NASCAR Struggles And Future Uncertainty

Despite their collective struggles, Richard Childress and Kyle Busch are giving it at least one more go. On Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the pair made it official: the team has picked up the one-year option that keeps Busch behind the wheel of the No. 8 Chevrolet through the end of the 2026 season.

That means Kyle Busch, a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion with 63 career wins, is staying put at Richard Childress Racing. But that headline doesn’t tell the whole story—because since 2023, Busch’s NASCAR tale has taken a turn.

After a promising start with RCR that year, racking up three wins and injecting fresh optimism into the program, 2024 turned out to be a statistical ghost town. No wins. No playoff appearance. And the end of a 19-season streak of at least one win per year—a record-breaking run that quietly shaped Busch’s reputation as a perennial contender.

Twelve races into 2025, there are flickers of the old fire. A top-five here. A handful of laps led there. But the winless streak now stands at 62 races and counting—the longest drought of his Cup career.

Still, if Busch is frustrated, Richard Childress isn’t ready to pull the plug. Far from it.

“I love a driver that doesn’t like to lose,” Childress said. “We’ve worked hard. We’ve got some exciting things coming up. He and I are both alike in one area—we don’t like to lose. We want to win races. I still think Kyle will win him a championship, and we’re going to have it at RCR. That’s our plans.”

It all sounds like a vote of confidence—until you realize the announcement was about the team exercising a one-year option, not offering a contract extension. In racing, as in business, one-year deals can be read two ways: as a second chance, or a soft goodbye.

But Childress insists it’s business as usual.

“We always wait until we get started the following year, or maybe later this year we’ll be discussing the future,” he said. “There’s a big future there for Kyle.”

As for Kyle, he’s putting in the work to turn things around.

“I think the speed has been there,” Busch said. “More and more we continue to work on that and get that closer to where it’s consistent speed. I feel like there’s times in the race where we do have top speed, but it’s not the whole race. So we’ve got to work on beginning to end and being able to put everything together. So that’s a big part of what you see. A lot of these guys that are winning right now … they’re just good from start to finish. So that’s a big piece of what we’re doing. “

Childress says the engineering as a lot to do with it.

“Well, it all boils down to the drivers having their own feel,” he said. “And we’re working hard to get that feel. The first year, we won three races right out of the bat. We’ve changed a little in our engineering and I think that bit us just a little… These cars are different. And once we get that feel he wants, it’s going to be Katie Bar the Door.”

So here they are: one of the sport’s most successful drivers and one of its most storied owners, still swinging. The wins aren’t coming, the pressure is mounting, and the critics are circling—but Richard Childress and Kyle Busch are both betting there’s still fuel left in the tank.

And if they can finally give Busch the feel he needs from the car—well, as Childress put it, “It’s going to be Katie bar the door.”

Until then, the losing streak continues. But not the fight.