Everyone knows Kyle Busch has had a winless streak for a very long time in the Cup series.The No. 8 driver for Richard Childress Racing currently occupies the 23rd spot in the points table, and although fans are blaming RCR, former teammate Denny Hamlin feels some blame lies on the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion’s part.

In a recent episode of the Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin noted that the team is probably not in a good place, but he didn’t entirely blame the team, stating that the car certainly has better pace than where they are finishing right now.

“If Kyle is great, like we all believe he is, then he should be 8th, but he wasn't. I think he's searching right now, I think, in just my opinion, trying to figure something out, and it's just not, I don't know, I can't put it all on RCR.

They're not race-winning teams right now; they don't have that pace, but they don't have 30th-place pace. That's something that the driver-individual team has a role in,” he concluded.

Busch has been in a winless streak since 2023, when he won the Pala Casino 400 at Fontana. With the Darlington weekend done for, this streak has now extended to 98 races.

At the beginning of this season, it looked like he was back following his performance in the qualifying session at the Daytona 500. However, since then, he has been finishing in the lower spots, not even making the Top 11 once.

With five races into the current season, there is still a window of opportunity for Busch to turn things around. However, that window will only close faster.

However, Denny Hamlin’s driver Has Only Gotten Better

23XI Racing's driver Tyler Reddick went on to secure his fourth win of the season at Darlington. However, he really had to earn it, as he suffered alternator issues early on, which required a battery change during the pit stop. Then, his cool suit failed, and he also made contact with Chris Buescher on Lap 242.

He also had to chase down Brad Keselowski, who won the first two stages and led for 142 laps. However, once Reddick went past him, he held on to that lead.

In the same episode of the Actions Detrimental podcast, Denny Hamlin mentioned how he and the entire 23XI Racing team saw potential in Reddick, the areas he needed to work on, and how he has changed over the years.

“I think he is mentally tougher than he was before. I think he's got a lot of maturity that he's done over the last few years, his race-craft, everything has gotten better. This is what we saw in him, in that he's someone who had a lot of speed but he needed to work on managing races.

He needed to work on, when adversity hits him, how does he respond to that, and it just seems like there is a poise to him now that he didn't have before, and a lot of that comes from just time, maturity, age, things like that, but he has taken fast cars and winning with them,” he said.

What are your thoughts on Tyler Reddick's recent victory streaks?

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Written by

Aaradhya Singh

Edited by

Kaamna Dwivedi