The early split between Kyle Busch and his former crew chief, Jim Pohlman, has quickly become a talking point across the NASCAR garage. However, Justin Allgaier is standing firmly by his trusted ally.

When Pohlman left Allgaier's side at JR Motorsports to take over the pit box for Busch in Cup, Allgaier knew it was going to be a high-stakes challenge. Unfortunately, the partnership came to a sudden end after just 10 races.

Last weekend in Texas, Justin Allgaier spoke about RCR's move to replace Pohlman with Andy Street.

"Well, first of all, I was a big proponent of Jim taking this opportunity, and I still feel as though he was the right choice for that job," Allgaier stated. "Obviously, it didn't work out the way that any of us wanted it to."

However, Allgaier refused to place the blame solely on Pohlman's shoulders for the continuation of Kyle Busch's slump. "And look, I’m not going to put that on Jim’s shoulders. Could he have done things better? Absolutely. But I think that everyone in this scenario is going to have to look in the mirror and figure out what they need to do to be better," he added.

Andy Street previously served as Busch's interim crew chief. RCR made the call to switch things up after a difficult start to the season left Busch sitting 27th in the championship standings.

Tensions reached a high point during the race at Bristol, where the radio communication between Busch, Pohlman, and spotter Derek Kneeland highlighted real frustration within the team. RCR made the official change less than two weeks later.

Before this stint in the Cup Series, Pohlman enjoyed massive success at JR Motorsports with Allgaier, winning nine races and a championship together. In the aforementioned interview, Allgaier also noted that he had spoken with Pohlman the previous Saturday at Talladega, so the official announcement on Monday did not come as a surprise to him.

Why Harvick called Pohlman the "wrong guy" for Kyle Busch

Even though there were small moments of progress in the Kyle Busch camp, like a setup adjustment at Kansas that seemed to help, the team dynamic seemingly wasn't right.

Pohlman’s intense style became very clear during a difficult race at Bristol. Venturing onto the team's secondary radio channel to talk to the spotter, the crew chief let his frustration show, saying: "Just same s*** every week."

This blunt statement quickly drew criticism. Former Cup Series champion and current FOX Sports analyst Kevin Harvick noted that this kind of communication rarely works when managing a driver. Harvick specifically called out the radio exchange from the Bristol race.

"He can be mad at me (the driver)," Harvick said on his "Happy Hour" podcast. "But talking like the way they talked on Channel 2 after Bristol that week, that was unacceptable. That is the wrong guy."

Kyle Busch's new partnership with Andy Street got off to a good start. He was in contention for a Top 10 at Texas on Sunday, until contact with John Hunter Nemechek left both drivers with sub-20th-place finishes.

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Written by

Sanskriti Pastor

Edited by

Yask Kotak