Dale Earnhardt Jr. Warns Kyle Busch Crew Change May Not End Drought
kyle busch’s crew chief change did not erase the pressure around his season. Dale Earnhardt Jr. said a mid-season switch at Richard Childress Racing may not be enough to fix a stretch that is nearing three full years without a Cup Series win.
Busch finished 10th at Talladega this past week, ending his run of no top-10 finishes. Even so, the warning from Earnhardt centered on how hard it can be to reset a driver who has been searching for answers for months.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Busch
Earnhardt addressed the situation on the latest episode of The Dale Jr. Download and pointed to the strain that comes with changing leadership in the middle of a season. “There’s been a lot of radio chatter that’s become public. … That’s not uncommon,” he said.
He added, “It’s just highlighted because it’s Kyle Busch, and he’s struggling unlike Kyle Busch.” That was the point of the warning: the change has made Busch’s issues more visible, but visibility does not automatically turn into results.
Earnhardt, who has been through mid-season changes himself, said, “I’ve been in this situation, when you make a change mid-season,” before adding, “It is really hard to find positivity and try to figure out how to be hopeful that things are going to improve.”
Busch’s recent slide
Busch’s 10th-place run at Talladega ended a streak of no top-10 finishes, but the stretch before that was the bigger problem. He had finished outside the top 10 in each of his first nine races of the season and went through five races in which he never finished better than 21st.
The top-10 drought was his longest since 2015, when he broke his leg and missed the first 11 races entirely. This time, the slump has dragged on close to three full years without a win, a jarring run for a driver with 63 career Cup Series wins, 35 poles, and 393 top-10 finishes.
Busch is still a two-time NASCAR Cup champion and a two-time regular season champion, and those numbers are why the change in his garage has drawn so much attention. Richard Childress Racing has already moved to replace his crew chief, but Earnhardt’s point was blunt: the move alone does not guarantee a turnaround.
Richard Childress Racing pressure
That leaves Busch in a narrower window than the stats suggest. The 10th at Talladega stopped the immediate slide, yet the larger problem remains the same — he has gone nearly three full years without a win, and the season has already produced too many finishes outside the front of the field.
For a driver with Busch’s résumé, the next step is not about proving his past. It is about whether a new voice and a cleaner stretch of races can push the No. 8 team back into the top 10 more often and keep the drought from stretching any further.
