Quick, name the last time either of Richard Childress Racing’s NASCAR Cup Series drivers, Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon, dominated a race.
The answer probably does not spring to mind easily. The team had only one dominant performance in 2023, which was Busch’s victory at World Wide Technology Raceway in June.
That was Busch’s third win of the season but ultimately his last. Since then, things have been rough for RCR, and so far, there are no signs of an impending turnaround in 2024.
Eight races into the season, Busch is 15th in overall points but 16th in the playoff grid, one point ahead of Chase Briscoe for the last postseason spot. Busch has not missed the playoffs since 2012, and he holds the longest-running streak of consecutive years in the postseason among active drivers.
Busch has also earned at least one win in every full-time season of his Cup Series career, a NASCAR record and a personal record that stretches back to 2005. There is still a long way to go this season, but the performance of the No. 8 team is putting both of Busch’s streaks in jeopardy.
Yet even if Busch has not been quite as fast as he usually is, his struggles are nothing compared to Dillon’s. The driver of the No. 3’s last win came at Daytona International Speedway in 2022. That was the regular season finale race where Dillon’s victory clinched him a playoff spot at the last possible opportunity.
Ever since then, things have been brutal for the No. 3 team. Dillon has not had a top-five finish in the last year’s worth of races and has not even had a top 10 in 2024. Buried 31st in points, he will need a Hail Mary win to get into the playoff conversation.
It feels like RCR is getting mired in the struggles that have plagued the team for the past decade. After Kevin Harvick bolted for Stewart-Haas Racing, the organization fell behind its peers and struggled to reach victory lane regularly.
But things appeared to be on the upswing in 2022 when Tyler Reddick enjoyed a breakout year. Reddick won three times, the first multi-win season by an RCR driver since Harvick’s last year with the team in 2013. Then, just when it looked like Reddick was going to lead RCR back to relevancy, the news broke that he was heading to 23XI Racing. Reddick’s impending departure clearly did not sit well with Childress, but it allowed him to sign Busch, whose contract negotiations with Joe Gibbs Racing fell apart.
As much as losing Reddick had…
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