kyle Busch Optimistic for Brickyard 400 despite RCR’s Speed Woes
Indianapolis, IN – Kyle Busch, a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, expressed optimism heading into the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a track where he has secured two victories. This comes as his team, Richard Childress Racing (RCR), grapples with a lack of outright speed throughout the current season.
Busch, who recently suggested a significant rule change regarding spotters in NASCAR, attributes his past successes to his ability to consistently push his car beyond its perceived limits. “When you’re a race car driver and you’re going out ther, you want to push the car to its absolute limits,” Busch explained on “The Pat McAfee show.” “And for me, what always sort of made me as triumphant as I was, I could push it to that 100.5 percent line and just a little bit over the edge and yet keep it under control, where everybody else sort of lies within that 97 to 98 percent range. So, you can get that little bit out of it, you can make a lot more hay in being able to get those wins.”
Currently in his 21st full-time season with 63 career wins, Busch is in the midst of a winless streak spanning over two years, with his last victory coming at the 2023 Enjoy Illinois 300. Despite this drought, Busch feels confident about his prospects at Indianapolis. “I love Indy, coming to Indys a lot of fun,” he stated. “I’ve really gotten pretty good here over the years, I won the race in ’15, ’16, should have won it in ’17 but we got wrecked out in a late caution restart.” He also noted the strong performance of the Chevrolet camp at the track, citing Kyle Larson’s win last year, and believes RCR’s package should be competitive. “so, I would think that our basis should be pretty close that we can go out there and we can have a good shot.”
The team’s performance has been under scrutiny following critical comments from team owner Richard childress after the recent race in Dover, where Busch finished 11th and teammate Austin Dillon finished 15th. This result was indicative of RCR’s season-long struggles, with Busch’s best finish being fifth and Dillon’s top-six finishes eluding him.
Addressing the team’s performance, Busch acknowledged the effort being put forth.”It is not due to lack of effort,that’s for d- sure,” Busch told McAfee. “everybody at RCR, back there at the race shop, they’re working as hard as they can; engineers are trying to figure it out and look at all the notes and figure out where the speeds at. Balance of the race cars has been pretty good this year,the driveability feels okay,it’s just the lack of speed.”
