Days after the Talladega Superspeedway Cup race, Richard Childress Racing has announced a team change, bringing back Andy Street to be the crew chief for Kyle Busch's No. 8 car. The two-time Cup Series champion is desperately seeking a turnaround in the 2026 season.

His winless streak that began in June 2023 is at 103 races after Talladega. In a bid to end his undesirable run, Andy Street will replace Busch's previous crew chief, Jim Pohlman, who will take a leadership role within the team's competition department.

"This move is about putting our people in the best position to succeed," said Richard Childress, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Richard Childress Racing. "We have strong talent across this organization, and we’re focused on having each person in the right position to help deliver the results we expect."

Street, who worked at RCR for over 20 years, brings ample experience, having served as a race-winning crew chief for Myatt Snider, Anthony Alfredo, and Kaz Grala. Mike Verlander, President of RCR, wants to use this experience to turn the team's fate around this season.

"We strongly believe in the people we have," Verlander said. "At the same time, we expect better results, and that requires us to continually evaluate and make adjustments. Jim has more than two decades of success in this sport and will remain an important part of our team. We believe Andy and Kyle’s previous working relationship positions us to improve the No. 8 team and compete at a higher level."

Richard Childress Racing, despite all its efforts, has become a shadow of its glorious past. The team that once delivered champions after champions has won just two races in the last two seasons. As for Kyle Busch's statistics, they have become subpar, especially after NASCAR's 2023 directive, which hindered the team's performance.

Kyle Busch reveals RCR's breaking point

Back in 2023, Richard Childress Racing and Kyle Busch were a winning pair, and won three races into the season. However, a midseason directive by NASCAR neutralized an on-track advantage they had.

Speaking about this in a recent interview, Busch explained how the change put them in a tricky position. The team had been exploiting a gray area in the regulations. Although they did not violate any technical rules, NASCAR banned it nonetheless.

"After the third race that we won at Gateway, we got our hands smacked for some of the stuff that we were doing to the race car that NASCAR didn’t like and said, 'Don’t bring that back,'" Busch told Sean Hannity.

"It wasn’t anything, like, against the rules. It was just — you always exploit the gray area. So we exploited a gray area, and we found something, and we had an advantage. … [It’s] cheating without cheating," the 40-year-old added.

Since that change, RCR has just won two races in over 100 outings, and Kyle Busch has yet to return to victory lane. They don't seem to have a race-winning pace, a hurdle that Andy Street should be expected to clear as the No. 8 squad's crew chief.

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Sabyasachi Biswas

Edited by

Yask Kotak