“They should do more”: Kevin Harvick demands more urgency from Kyle Busch and company to figure out the reason for Rowdy’s problems
When Kyle Busch changed teams in 2023, he changed his destiny without any doubt. Busch’s winning streak, moving to Richard Childress Racing, came to a halt with a win at Gateway last year. But it’s already been a year since that day, and there’s no glory in sight.
Technical problems seem to be disrupting the No. 8 team.
Pit crew problems and lack of adaptability to the next generation give Kyle Busch a nightmare.
With NASCAR’s winningest driver having just two top-five finishes so far this season, maybe it’s time to hit the panic button, something Kevin Harvick emphasized while acknowledging that there will be inevitable problems.
Kyle Busch needs to pack a punch
Well, not literally, because Ricky Stenhouse Jr. did it in the All-Star Race. But Kyle Busch needs to figure out his running game.
The two-time Cup champion has hit a dry spell and struggled to finish above the top-10 mark in most races.
His pit crew has already been replaced several times, and Busch himself admitted he “missed a lot of potential” this year.
Kevin Harvick backs Busch up when it comes to the difficulties of the Next Gen car. On a recent episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, he said: “How do you find the consistency to keep the car up to speed week in and week out? It’s a little bit confusing… I know it’s harder to be consistent with this car… It’s harder to maintain the top five and the ability to put these cars on the track at this speed every week.”
But then again, Kyle Busch’s rivals have adapted pretty well. Veterans like Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. have been around longer than Busch. They get top-five positions almost every other week, like cherries in the garden.
So the contrast when Busch is behind is like an elephant in the room. So Harvick added meaningfully, “But I think they should do more than they are now.”
Despite their past adversarial relationship on the track, Harvick praised Busch’s analytical prowess. But these prove irrelevant for Next-Gen parts that will be supplied by only one supplier. “He’s great at analyzing the car.
There aren’t many people better at what he does than Kyle Busch… I think this car incorporates a lot of the tools and techniques that Kyle Busch knows so well.
There’s enough of that there… but it’s a little hard to understand that this car needs ‘this, this, and this.'” In addition to the undeniable difficulties of Next-Gen, Harvick also highlighted another new NASCAR element that bothers Kyle Busch:
Practice is key, and the key is missing
Nearly everything has evolved since COVID-19 hit the world.
This also applies to the training time available to NASCAR Cup Series drivers. Teams are now given only 20 minutes of practice time and have limited options for tuning during race weekends.
That’s why Kyle Busch trains from a simulation program, even if it often produces inaccurate results. So Kevin Harvick couldn’t have missed this key factor in Kyle Busch’s missed win streak.
“When you don’t have a lot of time in the race car to analyze and evaluate things, it’s hard to understand exactly where you need to go with the car… This week we had qualifying at 8:30 in the morning. We had one 13-minute session. It’s not a very long time and the race is in the sun, unlike training, so you have to guess what the pace is going to be.”
Clearly, RCR’s No. 8 team needs to step up its game, which is essential to keep up with competitors in an increasingly tough racing atmosphere.
