NASCAR veteran hypothesizes “Kyle Busch’s input” might be the reason for his RCR struggles

Kyle Busch is struggling really hard to get the best out of his RCR Chevy’s.

NASCAR veteran hypothesizes “Kyle Busch’s input” might be the reason for his RCR struggles

Kyle Busch (Via IMAGO)

Kyle Busch came into the 2024 NASCAR Cup season with the hopes of redeeming himself from the massive performance slump at the second half of his debut season with RCR. He was signed by Richard Childress to get the team back to its glory days, but as the team often failed times to give him solid cars they regressed more.

Spire Motorsports veteran driver Corey LaJoie, while talking about the same, pointed out that RCR drop in performance is not co-incidence. He asserted that the driver feedback plays a massive role in how teams develop their cars and when it goes wrong, it causes further regression.

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I don’t think it’s coincidence that RCR is going down a road with developing a sim tire off one person’s input and as soon as you start backing it up, as soon as you start kind of losing what your homing beacon is of where you think the balance of the car should be, it’s starts to snowball.
Corey LaJoie said via Stacking Pennies podcast.

He pointed out that Kyle Busch was able to win races because of the feedback they got from Tyler Reddick in the 2023 season. But when they started using feedback from Busch, it actually changed their development angle, and it might have resulted in them fielding underwhelming cars.

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You go to the racetrack, and you have no clue where you’re at. … My theory is that I believe they are chasing a tire model based off of Kyle Busch’s input in the simulator.
Corey LaJoie added.

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Corey LaJoie asserts Tyler Reddick was root of Kyle Busch’s initial success

The veteran driver pointed out that when RCR was using the GM sim to solve issues when Busch came in, they used data from Tyler Reddick. But as the season progressed, they used Busch’s feedback, but it backfired on them potentially due to mistakes during decision making.

Corey LaJoie
Corey LaJoie (Via IMAGO)
Kyle Busch [won three races] in his first season at RCR, was a perennial contender in the mix every week. They were using the previous year’s historical notes from Tyler Reddick and the tires they built on the GM simulator.
Corey LeJoie said.

Kyle Busch and crew still have seven more races left in the regular season to make a come back to secure his spot in the playoff. But it will depend on how much RCR would work in order to give him a car capable of winning races.

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