Kevin Harvick: 'Definitely not a situation that Richard Childress wants to be in'

The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season has been anything but a banner campaign for Richard Childress Racing.

Both of its drivers, Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon, remain winless through 16 races and outside the playoff picture. Busch and especially Dillon, have struggled to find the speed necessary to compete and in Dillon’s case, he’s finished P25 or worse in six of his last seven starts dating back to Talladega in April.

Kevin Harvick said on his “Happy Hour” podcast this week alongside Kaitlyn Vincie and Mamba Smith that Dillon has been so quiet this season, he’s often forgot he’s been part of the field.

“They’ve been so quiet that we’ve forgot they’ve been there,” Harvick said. “At some point, you really have to start to turn that situation upside down. They did the crew chief, but that really hasn’t seemed to move the needle. But I look at Kyle Busch’s car and I see his scenario and the speed is not 100% where it needs to be on his car either. I look at Kyle and Austin — I look at Kyle as the leader of the RCR team and the speed and the things that they need. You take that back a step to Austin Dillon’s car and they definitely don’t have the speed. We’ve only seen enough speed out of that car maybe once or twice this year to where it needs to be.

“Definitely not a situation that I’m sure Richard Childress wants it to be in. I think that Austin probably expects a lot more out of himself and the team as well, but it is definitely so quiet that you don’t know they’re there.”

Richard Childress Racing struggling to find speed in 2024

Dillon showed some life at Gateway last weekend, finishing a season-high P6. It was the first time all season he’s truly been a factor on race day, though it was short-lived. He was involved in a Turn 11 pileup at Sonoma this past Sunday and finished 36th. He now sits 31st in the points standings after finishing a career-worst 29th last season.

As for Busch, he simply cannot catch a break. At Gateway, it was a dust-up with Kyle Larson which ended his day early. At Sonoma, Busch was poised to collect a top-five or top-10 finish until Ross Chastain dumped him on the final lap.

Busch went from tallying just his sixth top-10 of the season to finishing P12 at Sonoma. He would later run out of gas before crossing the start/finish line. Busch spoke about the incident after the race and safe to say, frustration is starting to set in.

“A couple of guys there at the end of the race had better tires than we did but we were going to have a good day,” Busch said. “Unfortunately, one of those guys got into us on the last lap and ruined our day. It’s frustrating to not get the finish that we deserved.”