It didn’t take long for Kyle Busch to make his mark at Richard Childress Racing as he already has his first win of the 2023 Cup Series season.
The new No. 8 driver for RCR is off to a flying start. He has already won his first race in just the second race of the season at Auto Club Speedway. After a lot of disappointments on and off the field last season, Busch seems to have left the past behind and is on a course for a bright future.
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When Fox’s Bob Pockrass asked Busch, if he struggled last year, the former Joe Gibbs Racing driver said: “We did.” He then went on to explain the progress he has made with his new team.
“I’m not sure. You look at how the No. 8 car ran here last year, and they were fast. They had a really, really fast car, and I did the sim session stuff with them and worked on what they had here last year, and then kind of changed a couple things to what I felt like I could do or race better, be more comfortable racing for myself, and today it was just a completely different feeling of a race car than what I had here last year. I think that’s just different philosophies of how you go about it and what this group here is doing to build grip versus my old group.”
Busch and his long-term team JGR departed on a sour note after the two parties failed to find a solution to keep the two-time NASCAR champion in the No. 18 car as his long-term sponsor M&M Mars left NASCAR.
While it was certain that Busch would asset his influence to his new team, not many predicted that it would be this early. JGR’s loss is now RCR’s gain as they have a very proficient driver who seems reinvigorated to assert his talent in the series again.
As Cup Series host the last race at Auto Club Speedway, track president promises a “bright future” with more to come