I had this epiphany this afternoon. In Googling some things in researching this article, I found out I wasn’t the first nor only one to have the same epiphany. Oh well, I’m calling my shot now and if I’m right at the end of the season, I’ll still be gloating at making the call.
I always like to start off with a full disclosure. When Kyle Busch was with Joe Gibbs Racing, I thought he was on par with the anti-Christ. Bad attitude. Treating his time with the media like it was the biggest hassle in the world. A detriment to the sport as he padded his stats through his involvement in the O’Reilly’s Auto Parts and Craftsman Truck Series. The way the sport seem to fawn all over the guy and constantly having to remind us how he held the record for most wins in series he should have graduated from years prior. Overall, he thought he was God’s gift to NASCAR and a hell of a lot of people seemed to back up that claim.
When he came to Richard Childress Racing for the 2023 season, it wasn’t just my bias for RCR that made me soften my stance. Busch changed. Yes, he was (and is) still running races in the Truck races, now for Spire Motorsports. But his attitude seemed to change. He isn’t getting mouthy with the media. NASCAR seemed to be entering into a kindler, gentler Kyle Busch era. It didn’t hurt that, in his first year with RCR, he won three races.
Not everything has been sunshine and rainbows for Busch during his time driving the #8 Chevrolet. While he’s still winning races in the Trucks, he’s currently in the middle of a two-plus year drought in the Cup Series. Of course, it didn’t take long before we started hearing the refrain on social media (and for that matter, even in regular media): Busch isn’t winning because he’s in that sh***y equipment at RCR!
I’ll fire back by saying that I once heard about a guy that won 67 of his 76 Cup victories and 6 of his 7 Cup championships while driving “that sh***y equipment at RCR!” That guy just happened to be the same driver that I kept hearing Busch was on par with. Just sayin’.
While Busch isn’t publicly bashing RCR (aside from a bit of shade towards Cletus McFarland getting an O’Reilly’s Auto Parts Series ride, and really, who hasn’t done that?), one has to wonder how a guy with his ego, having been stroked by so many for so long, is privately handling the massive gap in time between trips to Victory Lane in the Cup Series.
Busch signed an extension with RCR to remain with the team in 2026 but is expected to be a free agent at the end of the year. As much as I’ve softened my stance on Busch, my thought is that if he wants to go, then let him go.
But I’ll ask the question I did in 2022: Where does Kyle Busch go? With the demise of the playoffs and NASCAR restarting the playoffs (for as long as they can before the Blue Checkmark Brigade deems this a failure and reissues their demands to go back to a full season point system), the sport has basically said “there are three teams to care about – Hendrick, Penske and the JGR/23XI Union – and there’s everybody else.” I’ll admit that I was as shocked as anyone when I heard rumours that Busch was having to choose between Kaulig and RCR back then. If Busch can’t win except in top-line equipment, there’s only so many routes he can take.
He’s rubbed enough people the wrong way at Penske (even after the departure of Brad Keselowski) that that’s probably not an option.
If Denny Hamlin was set to retire at the end of the year, Joe Gibbs Racing could be an option. However, as he was departing JGR, they made it a point of delivering him the worst equipment they could seemingly find. JGR also forced him to “retire” from the then-Xfinity Series so as not to interfere with the elevation of Ty Gibbs, who seemed to be the heir apparent to the throne that Kyle Busch had held for so many years. At the same time, a return to JGR after his dismal showing at RCR might appear to be Busch going back with his tail between his legs.
But then there is the little matter of Hendrick Motorsports. It was in the Hendrick #84 Chevrolet that Busch made his Cup Series debut at Las Vegas so this would be a “coming home” story, a definitely plus since everything has to revolve around pre-written stories these days.
While Kyle Larson is coming off a championship year (even if NASCAR and its associated media seems more intent on creating the story that Denny Hamlin lost, more than Larson won), Chase Elliott is the perennial Most Popular Driver and William Byron is a two-time Daytona 500 winner.
Meanwhile, Alex Bowman seems to continually find himself on the hotseat at Hendrick. 2026 is no different, as he is in a contract year as the driver of the #48 HMS Chevrolet. To put Bowman on the hotseat, he is 36th in points after Phoenix, ahead of only BJ McLeod and Casey Mears. His total in DNFs (one) is more than his combined wins, top 5s and top 10s (zero). After falling ill at COTA, he was replaced by Anthony Alfredo at Phoenix after suffering from vertigo.
It’s early in the season, with the media trying to paint the fourth race of the season as “the real start of the season” but unless Bowman recovers both physically and in terms of on-track performance, there may be an opening at HMS for 2027.
As big an RCR mark as I am, even I can admit that the #48 HMS Chevrolet would seem to be be a step up from the #8 RCR Chevrolet. Right now, Hendrick needs to start planning for a future upgrade from Bowman and Kyle Busch needs to plan for a future at another team. Other than Hendrick having started a youth movement with the 2020 retirement of Jimmie Johnson, and that youth movement now turning into veterans, the timing couldn’t be better.
It also has the advantage of Hendrick, apparently not content with having JRM serve as their farm team, recently introducing the #88 Chevrolet in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. (It could be that Rick Hendrick was jealous of Joe Gibbs having all the Owner’s Championships in the lesser series and wanted a few of his own.) In 2026, the #88 car will be driven primarily by Rajah Caruth but also have an all-star lineup of the Hendrick Cup stars (Larson, Elliott, Byron, and Bowman) sit in for ten races. While that may be the case for 2026, there’s nothing that says that Hendrick couldn’t sweeten the enticement by having Busch run all ten races that Caruth – or whoever replaces him – doesn’t in 2027.
Ask 100 NASCAR “experts” and every one of them will tell you that leaving RCR at the end of the 2026 season for Hendrick Motorsports is the right move. This is the move that will get Kyle Busch back to the level of superstardom that every NASCAR outlet has said he was at during his previous tenure at HMS and, of course, JGR.
There might be the small matter of: Does a move to HMS and back to one of the top rides in NASCAR necessitate Kyle Busch winning soon and often? If Busch leaves “the sh***y equipment of RCR and fails to win in his first year at Hendrick, what could that mean? Does it signify that Busch’s best days are behind him? Does it finally lay the whole “car vs. driver” debate to rest? Does it start an internet rage fest against Hendrick? The bottom line is that while “Busch to the #48” may seem like a righting of a three-year wrong for a lot of people, there should also be a major concern to Rowdy Nation that this might expose some hard truths about Busch’s career.
As with any roster move in NASCAR as part of “Silly Season,” there will be further ramifications throughout the sport. Alex Bowman’s outlook is like the Doors’ sang in “Roadhouse Blues“: The future’s uncertain; the end is always near. His best-case scenario is that Austin Cindric, in his final year at Penske, the company which showed his father the door last year, says “He’s out? I’m out.” (Or Penske says the same thing to him.) To be honest, I’m not seeing Alex Bowman the driver of the #2 Ford.
As for Richard Childress Racing, while Busch was always lauded as the next Dale Earnhardt, RCR probably has a real contender for that crown sitting in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
Austin Hill.
Hill seems to be the target of a lot of online backlash, for what I’m not sure. He wins consistently at drafting tracks and, had it not been for BS call by NASCAR to strip him of all of the points he accumulated in the regular season, is probably joining teammate Jesse Love in the final four at Phoenix last year. (I mean, I get it, he jeopardized Joe Gibbs’ chances for yet another Owner’s Championship so he had to pay a steep penalty.) I’m not sure that’s enough to have people consistently label him a “douchebag” and other such monikers.
But NASCAR doesn’t award points for the most positive social media posts for any given race. They award points for how well you finish and Hill makes it a point to finish well. He won the Daytona opener for the fourth time in five years. He would have won Atlanta had it not been for Ross Chastain. He finished runner-up to another Cup guy (Shane Van Gisbergen) at COTA, and finished 12th at Phoenix.
Hill is going to be a factor in the O’Reilly championship picture this year. That’s not a prediction, that’s not even a spoiler, that’s a fact. Hill is an aggressive driver and will most likely get the most out of his equipment. That’s likely to rub more than a few people the wrong way.
Hill has the attitude of “I’m getting to the front and I’m staying there. I don’t care about anyone else.” That actually may not make him the next Dale Earnhardt. It certainly won’t make him the next Kyle Busch either. It will make him the next Carson Hocevar, who has been the next Ross Chastain. If there’s one thing these big money teams don’t like, it’s drivers for these mid-pack teams making their way to the front.
2026 shouldn’t be considered a lame duck season. Busch could put his early season episodes behind him and get on a winning streak. He might decide to retire with RCR. This season might also be the calm before the storm. Busch might decide to leave RCR for greener pastures, but it might just be an opening for RCR to revisit their past.
johnmilner.ca 