The Downfall of Kyle Busch
Kyle Busch was on the top of his game during the 2010s with Joe Gibbs Racing. He won two championships with JGR in 2015 and 2019, won 55 races between 2008 and 2019, and made the championship 4 all 5 years between 2015 and 2019. Busch was the all time leader in wins for Joe Gibbs Racing up until that point, surpassing drivers like Tony Stewart, Bobby Labonte, and outpacing Denny Hamlin during this stretch. When Busch won the title in 2019, most people expected him to continue being one on of the best drivers in the Cup Series for years to come. He still had crew chief Adam Stevens on the pit box and was driving fast Toyota's each and every week. That said, Busch's next 6 seasons were a farcry from the dominance he showed in the mid to late 2010s.
The Pandemic
Kyle Busch did not have the best start to 2020, as he blew a motor during the Daytona 500, which he ended up finishing 34th. That said, he did have a 15th place finish at Las Vegas, a 2nd at Auto Club, and a 3rd at Phoenix. He was sitting 11th in points at the time, but was clearly showing some pace that he had in the years prior. NASCAR would soon take a 2 month hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic which shifted how events would be moving forward.
Kyle Busch was one of the best drivers when it came to knowing what adjustments he needed to improve throughout the weekend. He may have struggled in practice, but this team knew what to do come Raceday to ensure that they would run up front. The pandemic, however, took away all practice and qualifying that the drivers and teams were used too. Now, each race had no practice or qualifying, so teams showed up with what they had. If a team was off to begin the race, there wasn't a ton that could be done to fix the issues. For Kyle Busch, he struggled a great deal during the 2020 season. He was able to get a win very late in the season to keep his one race win a year streak alive, but he was eliminated in the Round of 12 that year. He ended up having a 13.8 average finish, 14 top 5s, and 20 top 10s that season. It wasn't a bad season on the surface, but considering that Busch was champion in 2019, it was a bit disappointing.
2021
Busch's 2021 season was already off to a not so great start even before the season starting. Busch would lose crew chief Adam Stevens, who moved over to the 20 car of Christopher Bell, leaving Busch with Ben Beshore. Busch and Beshore had worked together a bit in the past, as Beshore was the car chief on the 18 car for a few years before he transitioned into a crew chief for JGR's Xfinity team. Beshore got 4 wins with Busch when Busch raced Xfinity races, so while the move wasn't super popular, JGR at least paired Busch with someone who had experience with him.
Busch's 2021 season ended up being slightly better than 2020. Though there was still no qualifying and practice for the most part, Busch would qualify for the playoffs again. He made it all the way to the Round of 8 this time, before being eliminated at Martinsville. Busch got 2 wins that year, which came at Kansas in the spring, and a fuel mileage race at Pocono over the summer. He finished the season with 14 top 5s, 22 top 10s, and an average finish of 12.8. A decent season compared to 2020, but this was still a farcry from the seasons he had pre-pandemic. Up until this point, Busch was still seen as a championship threat by many in the industry, but it was clear that Busch's time as a title contender was being put on notice.
The Next Gen Era (2022)
NASCAR would end up debuting a whole new car. The Next Gen car would end up bringing the field a lot closer together and that was clearly shown as there were 19 different winners that season, tied for the most in a single season. This meant that there would be some new players that we wouldn't typically see up front. Some favorites from the Gen-6 car, might end up performing worse with the new car than before. That ended up being the case for Busch, as he had his worst season at JGR since 2014.
Though practice and qualifying was brought back in some capacity, it wasn't nearly enough to what it had used to be. This continued to hurt Busch, as he was never able to get back the dominance that we saw during his prime in the mid to late 2010s. He ended up only winning 1 race in 2022, and that came at Bristol Dirt when Briscoe and Reddick wrecked for the lead coming to the finish line. Busch still had speed at times throughout the season, leading more than 50 laps at Gateway, Nashville, and Dover. He scored good finishes at Gateway and Dover as well with 2second place finishes. The speed was still there, albeit more inconsistently than before.
Busch would enter the playoffs as the 11th seed, with only 10 playoff points to his name. 2 bad races in this round meant that Busch would likely be eliminated. That ended up happening in all 3 races of the first round. Busch would finish 30th at Darlington after blowing an engine from the lead, despite leading 155 laps that race and being the best car. At Kansas, he spun late in the race and wound up finishing 26th. Then at Bristol, a track that he used to dominate at, he blew another motor leading to a 36th place finish. Kyle Busch was eliminated in the round of 16, his worst result in the playoff era up to this point.
The RCR Switch (2023)
Busch would end up leaving JGR at the end of the 2022 season, mostly because of sponsorship. Longtime sponsor M & Ms informed JGR that they would not be renewing for 2023 and beyond, which meant that JGR had to scramble to find a sponsorship deal for Busch to stay in 2023. They tried getting Oracle to join, but that deal fell through. As the season progressed, it became evident that Busch would not resign with JGR. Instead, Busch decided to sign with Richard Childress Racing, who had just lost Tyler Reddick to 23XI Racing. This meant that Busch would be driving the 8 car, which is the same car that Reddick won 3 times with in 2022. Busch would pair up with crew chief Randall Burnett, which looked like a good pairing at first.
Busch would end up getting off to a pretty good start in the 2023 season. Through the first 15 races, he got 3 wins, which was almost as many wins as he had gotten just between 2020 and 2022 where he had 4. Busch was on pace for a really good season, as he won at a variety of tracks including Gateway, Auto Club, and Talladega. He had 3 top 5 finishes on Road Courses including 2 second place finishes at COTA and Sonoma. It was clear that Busch was going to be a factor the rest of the season, or so we had thought.
The rest of the 2023 season was not very kind to the 8 team. Busch would not end up winning anymore races the rest of the season. He ended up as the 5 seed heading into the playoffs, with 19 playoff points to his name. It wasn't a huge margin, but Busch did just enough to advance out of the first round of the playoffs. That said, his championship ambitions came to an end in the Round of 12. Busch crashed out at Texas, finishing 34th. At Talladega, he finished 25th which was not good for him. Though he ran well and finished 3rd at the Charlotte Roval, he would have had to win the race to advance which he did not do. Still, this was an encouraging season for Busch and the 8 team. The performance got worse as the season went, but they still got 3 wins, 10 top 5s, 17 top 10s, a 15.0 average finish, and advanced furthermore into the playoffs than they did with Reddick the year prior. This was a season of optimism for RCR and Busch fans.
The Downward Spiral (2024)
Busch had high expectations heading into the 2024 season. Make the playoffs and win a race or two was the minimum that this team should shoot for. The 2023 season was a solid one, but the inconsistent form that they showed in the 2nd half of 2023 reared its ugly head in 2024. To start, RCR did not have the same speed that they showed in the first half of 2023. Busch was not able to contend up front as much as he did the second half of 2023. After Nashville where he led 12 laps, Busch would only lead 15 laps the remaining 19 races of the 2023 season. This got severely overlooked in my opinion, and it was clear that the 8 team regressed as the season went on.
Busch came out decent to open 2024. He finished 12th at Daytona, and nearly won at Atlanta where he was apart of the iconic 3 wide finish between himself, Daniel Suarez, and Ryan Blaney. Busch followed that up with 3 finishes outside the top 20, before finishing 9th at COTA the race after. After the 12th race of the season at Kansas, Busch saw himself 12th in the regular season standings and 15th on the playoff grid, 31 points above Bubba Wallace. While this wasn't anywhere near where he was at in 2023, Busch was still sitting an okay spot. That would change come the summer though.
Busch would end up crashing a lot, and I mean a lot. The 8 team threw away decent runs at Gateway, Sonoma, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nashville. At Gateway, Busch made an unnecessary move on Kyle Larson and wrecked himself out there. At Sonoma, Busch got spun by Ross Chastain on the last lap running 4th at the time. At Iowa, Busch had a water pump issue and DNFed. At New Hampshire, Busch was involved in multiple crashes and DNFed. Then at Nashville, Busch got wrecked after Larson ran out of fuel during one of the overtimes. He finally recovered at Chicago with a 9th place finish, before being sent by Corey LaJoie at Pocono and DNFing a 5th time in 7 races. At Indianapolis, Busch was running well before he lost it on the inside of Denny Hamlin, leading to a 25th place finish. This stretch put Busch into a must win situation leading into the last 4 races of the regular season.
Busch had chances to win, as he ran well at Michigan but came just short with a 4th place finish. His teammate, Austin Dillon, won at Richmond but Busch had nowhere near the same car as Dillon that race. At Daytona, Busch was in the lead on the final lap, when Harrison Burton got a huge shove by Parker Retzlaff to win the race. Busch ended up finishing 2nd there. The following week at Darlington, Busch was in position to win at Darlington, but he couldn't find a way around Chase Briscoe and he finished 2nd once again. Busch would end up missing the playoffs for the first time in his career which was super disappointing.
Busch would only finish in the top 10 once in the final 10 races of the season which came at Atlanta where he finished 7th. Busch was in the lead at Kansas late, but he threw it away as he got loose and spun in the final stage. The 2024 season would go down as a frustrating season for Busch and the rest of the 8 team. Busch only had 5 top 5s, 10 top 10s, and a 18.3 average finish which was the worst since his rookie year. At this point, it became clear that Busch was not the same driver that he used to be. The equipment was not helping him, but Busch kept throwing away points away often by pushing way too hard. The thing with the Next Gen car is that drivers can't overdrive the car, because more often than not a driver spins out when they do this. Busch learned that lesson quite often in 2024, so the hope was that he could fix this come 2025.
2025
Busch had a decent start to the 2025 season, as he scored 3 straight top 10s in the first 4 races of the season. He was 7th in the regular season standings after Phoenix, which was really solid. At COTA, Busch would end up leading the most laps on the day and finished 5th which was a great day all things considered. Things were looking up for the 8 team, but that soon came crashing down as the weeks passed.
At Las Vegas, Busch ended up with a loose wheel and finished 35 laps down in 34th. Following this, Busch and the 8 team would just lack speed more often than not. Busch would finish 21st at Homestead, 17th at Martinsville, 10th at Darlington, and 14th at Bristol. Not awful runs, but the team just didn't show much speed to be excited. At Talladega, Busch was caught up in a crash getting onto pit road and finished 27th. The team would drop to 16th in points and as a result, were outside the playoffs at the moment.
Busch, to this point, wasn't overdriving the car. He did not have a ton of speed, but they were still salvaging some alright finishes. Busch reverted back to 2024 form though, at Texas when he got up into the bumps of turn 4 on a restart and crashed. He was running 4th at the time and threw away a potential great run inside the top 5. Busch wound up finishing 20th. Busch was caught up in another wreck the week after, this time to no fault of his own at Kansas where he finished 21st. Busch then had a 3 week streak of okay runs, as he finished 15th at Charlotte, 12th at Nashville, and 8th at Michigan. Nothing amazing, but he still was in the fight for a playoff spot on points.
Busch then went back to his overdriving ways that we have seen far too often the following 2 races. At Mexico City, Busch broke way too late and ended up wrecking about 5 drivers while taking himself out completely. Busch broke when he was supposed to during dry conditions. That said, it was raining early on in Mexico City, meaning that drivers needed to break much earlier to make the corners at Mexico City, which Busch did not do. As a result, Busch would finish dead last at Mexico City, not even 10 laps into the race. Then, at Pocono the following week, Busch got loose in the back of the pack and spun out once again. This time, collecting a handful of drivers and finishing 20th when it was all said and done. At this point in the season, Busch is in must win territory to make the playoffs. He's more than 50 points below the cutline and with how little speed that team has shown this year, I'm not confident that he will get a win.
What Caused the Downfall?
It's really hard to pinpoint to just one thing that led to Busch being to where he is now. The lack of practice time I think has hurt Busch the most out of any driver. Busch was really good at adjusting the car throughout and now that one of his biggest strengths as a driver is taken away from him, he just hasn't been the same. Busch has cited that they basically show up with what they have at a track and that's about it (Dalton, 2025). I don't think it's the only reason as to why Busch has struggled so much. Swapping out Adam Stevens for Ben Beshore hurt a lot in my opinion in the long run, as Christopher Bell ascended in 2022 to being the best driver JGR had. Along with this, Busch has been overdriving the car a lot with RCR, trying to get more than what the car really has to offer. As a result, Busch has thrown away a ton of points that they could have had that can help get them into the playoffs. Lastly, is the overall lack of speed that RCR has. RCR has done well at the road courses especially with Busch, but they don't show a ton of speed at the ovals. As a result, Busch is mediocre at best on most ovals.
I want to see Busch get back to his title winning ways soon. I don't think that will ever happen again though, so long as he is with RCR. Furthermore, this car does not suit Busch's driving style whatsoever. Busch likes to try and find the fine line and hang the car out, which he did really well in the Gen 6 car. With the Next Gen car though, drivers are more susceptible to spinning out if they hang the car out too much. Busch, as a result, as not adjusted to the car very much. Even if Busch were to go to a Hendrick or reunite with JGR, I just don't see him as a threat to win a title anymore. He will go down as one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history, but Busch is not at his best anymore. I hope that changes, but I have to see it first in order to believe that he can win one again.
Dalton's article on Kyle Busch is here
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