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Kyle Busch blames simulators for RCR poor recent performance
Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports

Kyle Busch made the historic move to join Richard Childress Racing last year after leaving his old alliance with JGR behind. He had an impressive debut season with RCR that saw him secure three wins, but his performance dropped at the end of the season. Busch came into 2024 with hopes of early redemption, but things went from bad to worse for him.

The No:8 team is yet to secure a win this season and hasn’t been contenders in any of the races. The 38-year-old has a solitary podium finish so far and has an average finishing position of 16.625. They struggled the most during the recent short-track race weeks, where they historically have been productive. According to Kyle Busch RCR’s subpar simulators is the reason for decline in form in the last few races.

The short track stuff has definitely been our struggle. Everybody nowadays relies so much on simulation and all that stuff, but the sim stuff has kinda thrown us the wrong way. Kyle Busch said in an interview with Speed Sport.

In the current day and age, simulator training for a driver is one of the essential parts of prepping up for a weekend and if there are any limitations with the simulator, then the driver might suffer week in, and week out. Thus, Busch’s sudden decline in performance could warrant a soon fix the simulator to get their star driver back up to speed.

Richard Childress Racing has made serious changes within the team

Pit crews and crew chiefs are an essential part of motorsports and cannot be done away with. However, since the start of the season, RCR teammates Busch and Austin Dillon have been facing issues and have had their races ruined because of that. Subsequently, this laid pressure on the RCR hierarchy, which has now changed the pit crews for both of its drivers.

RCR vice-president Andy Petree stated that changes were necessary to enhance their on-track performance. Subsequently, the RCR driver is now provided with another jackman to help curb problems during the pitstop phase, and teammate Dillon a new crew chief in the form of Justin Alexander.

The organizational changes were made to help Richard Childress Racing’s overall NASCAR Cup Series program as we prepare for the rest of the season and locking two teams into the NASCAR Playoffs. Andy Petree said.

Apart from this, the RCR driver is 15th in the standings and would require some miracles in the upcoming races to score valuable points to secure his place in the playoffs. But there is still a long way to go before the end of the regular season and the championship is all to play for currently.

This article first appeared on FirstSportz and was syndicated with permission.

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