“You have to learn from the past”: Richard Childress reflects on Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon's ‘tough year’, shares excitement for next season

Richard Childress reflected on his drivers, Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon's fateful 2024 season amid neither making the playoffs. The RCR owner, in conversation with former NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick, outlined taking notes from their tough year and improvising moving forward.

Since the 2024 season kicked off, Busch's #8 RCR Chevy and Dillon's #3 have failed to produce results. Even though the latter couldn't keep himself with the frontrunners, in the majority of the races, he secured the Richmond win. However, as that came by crashing out Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin, the officials deemed the move illegal and removed his #3 Chevy from the playoffs.

On the other hand, Busch inched close to securing his maiden victory this season multiple times, but either got wrecked out, like at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway and the most recent at Kansas, or succumbed to mechanical failure, like at the Iowa Speedway, marking a DNF.

Richard Childress Racing is a 55-year-old team, having six Cup Series titles and 117 wins. But amid their poor showing this season, the team owner reflected on their "tough year" and upcoming changes. He said.

"It's been a tough year, but everybody has fought hard. We see that we've got to make some changes and we got more changes coming [that] you're going to be hearing about in the next month probably. And we're excited about next year," Childress said.

"You know, you can't dwell on the past, you have to learn from the past. You know, history teaches you. And that's what we've got to learn from is what happened this year and take it into next year with a positive attitude that we're not going to do it," he added.

Kyle Busch's RCR team is placed 20th in the standings while Austin Dillon's #3 team is in P28.

"Racing whoever was in front of him there": Kyle Busch on Briscoe not letting him pass at Kansas Speedway

With every lost battle, the two-time Cup Series champion creeps closer to witnessing his first winless year since debuting full-time in 2005. He could've aced the recent Hollywood Casino 400 race, but the pursuit of lapping Briscoe took the better of him.

After overtaking Ross Chastain on Lap 227, Busch gunned toward the checkered flag and dominated 26 laps before attempting the lunge over Stewart-Haas Racing's Briscoe. The #14 Ford driver aligned his car to capitalize on the air, and Busch, in the meantime, pinned his machine into the outside line.

However, the room wasn't enough and the RCR driver's Chevy rammed into the outside wall and spun on the tri-oval, destroying another opportunity to park his car in the victory lane. Busch wasn't happy with how he was raced by the SHR rival and criticized the move. He said:

I'm sure he[Chase Briscoe] was racing to stay on the lead lap and racing whoever was in front of him there. Granted, they got a race to run, but back during the whole day, you give you a lane, you know, and let the leaders race. And I just, I wasn't getting that. And so I tried to force my hand to get that and get to his outside. And when I did, just for some reason, whatever happened, it just gave all the air and all the wrong place and spun out," Busch said.

The 2024 season marked the first time since 2012 that Kyle Busch failed to punch his playoff ticket.