NASCAR insiders consider whether Kyle Busch, RCR should 'press the panic button'

Kyle Busch was able to string together three consecutive top-10 finishes from Atlanta to Phoenix, but the team’s efforts have come up short in recent weeks. Can Busch get it together?

He’s sitting right on the NASCAR Cup Series playoff cut line right now on points. And that leaves Busch in an interesting spot.

Does he focus on trying to make the playoffs on points or does he go all out trying to win a race? NASCAR insider for The Athletic Jordan Bianchi weighed in following the weekend’s action at Homestead.

“I’m kind of hedging here. I can make a case either way,” Bianchi said on The Teardown podcast. “I think Kyle Busch still could win a race. We saw it at COTA for goodness sake. Like he was in position to win the race. I don’t think he can point his way into the playoffs. I don’t think as an organization. We’re going to get guys who win races and that line’s going to move up.”

That brings Bianchi to the real issue facing Kyle Busch right now. The consistency simply isn’t there for Richard Childress Racing.

“I don’t think consistently RCR is going to have good enough cars,” Bianchi said. “Because going into this weekend, and I wish I’d looked this up, and I apologize for not, but he was asked in his bullpen session on Saturday about his chances, because drivers with the last name ‘B’ have won all the races. And the narrative was like can you do this, Kyle? ‘No.’ He was very blunt. ‘It’s not happening this weekend. We just are not in the ballpark at all.’ He was not wrong.”

It’s one thing to have the driver. It’s another to have the equipment.

Having both firing off at the same time is even harder. Busch has flashed some excellent moments of driving this year, only to come up a little short. His car just wore down on him at COTA with a chance at the win.

That’s going to be a constant battle Kyle Busch faces. Can he wrangle enough out of his equipment?

“RCR is not Joe Gibbs. They’re not a Hendrick. They’re not week in and week out, regardless of the racetrack you know they’re going to be good,” Bianchi said. “That’s not who RCR is right now. And so I don’t feel like they can point their way in. But Kyle is still a good enough driver to figure out a way to win a race. He almost did it at Darlington last year. He almost did it at Atlanta. And they need to focus on that. They need to get speed into the racecars. If you give Kyle Busch a fast racecar I think he can go do something with it. “

Is it too early to push the panic button on Kyle Busch, now six races into the season? It just might be.

“So am I concerned? No, but I don’t want to put myself in a points hole too much and lose too many points on a race like this or Vegas,” Bianchi said. “Have an issue like Vegas where it’s like we’re throwing points away because I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that it would be nice if we can’t win a race we can maybe still get to the playoffs on points. Because I don’t think they’re good enough to climb out of that points hole.”