Prior to the Great American Getaway 400, Kyle “Rowdy” Busch struggled during practice and struggled to make an impact in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season. Fans of the sport lashed out at Richard Childress Racing when the No. 8 Busch reported that his steering wheel was “sticky” while turning laps at Pocono Raceway.
Busch, a two-time Cup Series champion, is on the brink of missing his first playoff appearance in 20 years. Busch has 63 Cup Series wins in his career but is winless in the current Cup season. After three wins with RCR last season, the 39-year-old Busch has been unable to carry that momentum into the 2024 season. During practice at the “Tricky Triangle,” Busch’s No. 8 car reported issues with his steering wheel, “sticking and sticky.”
Here’s what NASCAR posted on X:
“Not an ideal start to the weekend for the No. 8 car. @KyleBusch is reporting issues with steering.
RCR driver Busch is scheduled to start the race 24th with a qualifying speed of 53.756 seconds. But the NASCAR community on X (formerly Twitter) noticed the issues with Busch’s No. 8 Chevrolet and criticized Richard Childress’ team. With Busch winless so far this season, one fan said:
“The worst year of his career.” “Kyle just can’t catch a break,” said a second user. Other NASCAR fans criticized RCR’s cars.
“RCR strikes again! You have to admire their dedication to finding new ways to ruin cars,” Anasel wrote.
“I’ve hated him for most of his career but he’s too good for RCR. He has too much talent not to be a better driver,” another user added. Here’s how fans responded to X:
“There is no ideal start for the top eight this year. It’s terrible,” one fan said, “RCR is sabotaging it.” “You’ve got one more fan yet?”
“Hendrick seems to be doing just fine,” – Kyle Busch feels RCR can up their performance levels this Cup season
With drivers and teams deep into the regular season, Rowdy Busch is on the verge of missing his first NASCAR playoffs in a career spanning over 20 years. With two top-five and six top-ten finishes this season, the Las Vegas native is battling for a playoff spot.
In a conversation, #8 Busch claimed that RCR needs to catch up with other Chevy organizations like Hendrick Motorsports. He said (via NBC Sports):
“It’s just the competition side, the engineering side, all of that stuff and be making sure that we’re doing all the best we can and understanding the information we have given to us the best we can as there are other Chevy teams that are being able to do a better job than what we are with all of that.”
“If we were the best of the Chevy teams and we were struggling and not winning, then it would be a different problem across the board, but Hendrick seems to be doing just fine, so we’ve got to catch up to at least that.” Busch added. As NASCAR Cup teams and drivers gear up for the race in the Pocono Mountains, #8 Busch sits at P17 in the overall Cup Series standings. He is 98 points below the 2024 playoff cut line.
