Kyle Busch reflects on what he needs to stay at Richard Childress Racing long term

Last season was a winless one for Kyle Busch. It is the first winless season of Busch’s NASCAR Cup Series career. So, how can he avoid that again? Perhaps more importantly, what does he have to see from Richard Childress Racing in 2025 to make him stay in the No. 8 Chevy?

There is no doubt about it, RCR missed a few times last season. Not just a lack of speed, but a true failure at times on the track. While there was an uptick in performance in the second half of the year, there were too many moments to brush aside.

Busch had a good Heat Race at Bowman Gray. He was a middling P15 in the main event, though. Austin Dillon didn’t even make the Sunday night race. Is that a sign of things to come later this season?

Speaking to Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports during production days, Kyle Busch was honest. He wants to win. As far as his future at RCR is concerned, that’s the best way to get him to stay in the seat.

“I would say you gotta win, right?” Busch said. “Unfortunately, we weren’t able to win last year. So, being able to get back to Victory Lane, being able to build on some consistency. Getting those top-fives, top-tens, getting that number higher than what it was [last] year is definitely, paramount. Had a rough summer last year, had a lot of DNFs in that stretch that kind of brought us outside the playoff rank and being able to get ourselves in contention. So, definitely want to have a lot better sense of all of that, earlier in the year would be better, but it’s always a long year and you’ve got to fight it out every week.”

Winning cures all ailments. It is the one thing that will almost guarantee you a spot in the postseason.

Watching Kyle Busch in 2024 was strange. In 2023, Busch and RCR came out of the gate swinging. They won three races in the first 15 weeks of the season. Then, things started to fall off a bit.

In 2024, it never looked like Busch was happy. After all, the team was making pit crew changes on an almost weekly basis for the first month of the season. It isn’t just on-track performance from Busch. He had mechanical bugs, pit road problems, and a general lack of speed.

Even for how rough his season was last year, Kyle Busch is right. It was the DNFs in the summer that did his season in, ultimately. At least, it forced him into a must-win situation to make the postseason. Five DNFs in seven races between Gateway and Pocono is not a great final push into the playoffs.

In 2025, Kyle Busch and RCR want to win. They HAVE to win. If Busch were to move on from Childress, where would he go from there?