“You’ve got to keep that momentum.” These words came from Kyle Busch recently, and you can feel the confidence throbbing in them. The two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion survived a heartbreak-laden 2024 season, where he was winless for the first time after 19 long years. Yet Busch faced 2025 with a broad smile on his face, and the results have appeared accordingly.
Across four races in the 2025 Cup Series season, the Richard Childress Racing driver has already dazzled. Kyle Busch has picked up three top-tens consecutively, proving that the fire still burns deep inside him. So, a NASCAR insider boldly defies doubts about Busch’s incoming redemption as the Cup Series heads to Rowdy’s hometown of Las Vegas this weekend on a 62-race winless streak.
Kyle Busch drums up a lot of confidence
The dramatic turn of events is visible this season. In 2024, Kyle Busch posted just ten top-tens throughout 36 race weekends. His average finish of 18.31 marked his worst since his rookie year (21.0, 2005). However, in 2025, Busch showed a remarkable turnaround. Currently, he holds 8th place in the championship standings with a 13.5 average finish. Clearly, Rowdy is slowly weaving his path back to his old form. It is taking a lot of time, though. At the end of Stage 2 in Daytona, Busch wound up in a crash spun by Joey Logano, and fumed, saying, “Looked like the fastest car got in a hurry to get to the wreck.” This was his only finish outside the top 10 this season, and he even ran in the top three at one point, so he was understandably upset.
However, signs of improvement appeared as he led 13 laps throughout the Atlanta race and finished 7th. During the Circuit of the Americas race, Busch was poised to win. With a two-second lead on his competitors as the laps dwindled, it looked like the nightmare was finally over. Then, his teammate Austin Dillon got pushed into the sand by former teammate Denny Hamlin, as Busch was forced to pit and lost his lead. Bell took the lead on fresher tires as Busch lost multiple places and eventually ended in fifth. That led some skeptics to believe that the curtain of misfortune still haunts Kyle Busch. However, NASCAR journalist Kelly Crandall likes to see the glass as half full. She lauded Busch’s pace: “We’ve seen how good Kyle was at Daytona, at Atlanta, in COTA. And I was like, alright you know, again cautiously optimistic for real.”
But what really motivated Crandall of Kyle Busch’s incoming glory was Phoenix. During the Shriner’s Children 400, most of the spotlight was on either Christopher Bell’s record-breaking three-peat or the Lap 99 wreckfest. However, Crandall highlighted how Busch was a silent force throughout: “But then they went and had another solid day at Phoenix. You know, quietly solid – didn’t go and lead laps or dominate or anything like that. But for what this organization is trying to do by rebuilding themselves essentially and getting back to being in consistent top ten teams…The string that they’re working on right now is very impressive.”
At Phoenix, Busch was a part of the lap 99 wreck, but survived it and drove his RCR #8 Chevrolet to an 8th place finish. Now, he enters a track that he saw being built from the ground up. A place he calls home. And what better way to snap a miserable, winless streak than by doing it in front of the people you grew up around?
Indeed, both Richard Childress Racing and Kyle Busch have been evolving for the better. The changes are visible both in Cup and Trucks Series, where Busch races part-time.
Constantly working to be better
In 2024, we saw how many times RCR reshuffled its crew just to give a better head start to Kyle Busch. But Rowdy kept knocking against hurdles and accrued 8 DNFs throughout the season. Yet, RCR did not give up. By the end of last season, significant personnel changes had set in. Keith Rodden became the new Vice President of Competition. Former Stewart-Haas Racing leaders John Klausmeier and Richard Boswell also joined the ranks. Klausmeier is RCR’s technical director, while Boswell is the No. 3 team’s crew chief.
Kyle Busch optimistically said about this new set of leaders: “Anytime you add more people or new people, you hope it’s for the betterment of your team.” And the results have been visible. Busch wheeled his No. 8 Chevrolet to top-ten finishes across three disparate tracks. Atlanta is a superspeedway, COTA is a road course, and Phoenix is a short track. Then, Busch added his Craftsman Truck Series tally as he clinched his 67th Truck Series win at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Clearly, RCR is doing something right. But Kyle Busch also cautiously warned that keeping the momentum is crucial. “Two years ago, when I joined RCR in 2023, we had a good 16 races — I think we won three of the first 16 — and then tallied off after that. You have to keep the strength all year long. You can’t fumble; that’s when these other guys will take advantage of you.”
As RCR keeps making positive changes, Kyle Busch keeps improving. Who knows, maybe Kelly Crandall will be proven right in her prediction for Rowdy! What do you think? Will Kyle Busch end his 62-race winless streak at Las Vegas this weekend? Let us know in the comments!
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