Kyle Busch: 2025 RCR is 'much better' than last year

Kyle Busch knows that 2025 is a big season for him and Richard Childress Racing (RCR) and seems to be happy with where the team is heading. In an interview with former NASCAR star and FOX Sports analyst Kevin Harvick, Busch was asked where he thinks RCR is currently.

“Much better than we were last year,” Busch said. “I would give big Kudos to everyone at RCR, ECR Engines, everyone that’s been working really, really hard over the offseason and the new people that have kind of come in to help us out with car builds at the shop to different steups that we’ve run at the racetracks to the strategies and the software that we have behind the scenes with the computers and the simulation. All of that improving and getting better, so we’re getting better results on Sunday, just due to different but yet better processes through the week that get us to the racetrack.”

Through five races this year, Busch has earned three top-10 finishes. At this point in 2024, the 39-year-old just had one top-10 finish. In this year’s COTA Cup Series race, Busch was a few laps away from getting his first victory since the 2023 season. But Christopher Bell caught up to him to earn his second consecutive victory of the year while Busch finished fifth.

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“[Bell] was faster than me and was able to do a good job of biding his time and waiting for me to make a couple of mistakes in a row,” Busch said after the COTA race earlier this month, per NASCAR.com. “Once I made two mistakes in a row, then it was over.

“I was making it incredibly difficult on him and certainly there were some times where he could have done it again, but he did a better job of that. At that point, he had better tires; I don’t know that he had a better race car. Just was a tick faster than I was.”

Kyle Busch is in his third season with RCR after being with Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) from 2008-2022. After a challenging 2024 season, Busch had to answer questions about his future with the team, especially when JGR driver Martin Truex Jr. announced his retirement.