In a sport like NASCAR, where margins are so thin, taking advantage of the thin area between the margins is what separates the winners from the rest. This was also the case for Kyle Busch when he joined Richard Childress Racing in 2023. For the initial races in 2023, Kyle Busch and RCR were exploiting a gray area so effectively that it brought them to victory lane. Then, as Busch himself just admitted, NASCAR stepped in and delivered a warning that brought their momentum to a screeching halt.

Kyle Busch admits RCR was engaged in rule-bending in 2023

In a recent interview with Sean Hannity, Busch revealed how NASCAR intervened in his dream start to RCR life. After leaving JGR for RCR in 2023, the 2x Cup champion got off to a flying start by winning his second race at Fontana. Another win followed at Talladega, and another at Gateway. But then, the sanctioning body found something which they didn’t approve of, as Kyle Busch revealed:

“When in 2023 when I won those three races, 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.’ It wasn’t anything like against the rules. You always exploit the gray area, so we exploited a gray area and we found something and we had an advantage.”

Busch’s revelation made Hannity curious as to what was the nature of the advantage that allowed Richard Childress and team to win and NASCAR to ask them to let it go. “It’s cheating without cheating. It makes it faster. You want more downforce. You want to make it lighter,” the RCR driver revealed.

To Busch’s point, NASCAR teams have engaged in exploring the gray area to find clever ways to gain a competitive advantage. But at the same time, the sanctioning body has also intervened whenever a team strayed outside the lines and margins.

A big example of that was Chad Knaus as a crew chief for Jimmie Johnson. The pair were notorious for pushing the envelope and gaining an advantage over their rivals to the point where they were labeled as cheaters. In fact, Knaus was penalized by NASCAR on at least three major occasions.

But while NASCAR’s punishing the former #48 crew chief for his dubious tactics, it didn’t stop the success of Jimmie Johnson. However, when NASCAR stopped RCR in 2023, their success took a big nosedive.

NASCAR’s intervention might have plummeted RCR’s success

In 2022 and 2023, the #8 car under Tyler Reddick and Kyle Busch ended up winning a combined six races and finished 14 times inside the top 5. But then in 2023, NASCAR found out about the rule-bending by RCR, following which things took a turn for the worse.

In 2024 and 2025, the #8 car under Busch won no races and managed 8 finishes inside the top 5.

But then this season, things have gotten even worse for RCR and the #8 team. At this point of the season in 2023, 2024, and 2025,  the #8 had at least one top 5 and two top 10 finishes.

This year, the highest finish has been 12th at COTA. In fact, the first four races saw three finishes inside top 20, which was positive considering what was up ahead. In the races between Las Vegas and Kansas, the #8 team has finished outside the top 20 in all five races.

Therefore, it can be presumed that the slap on the wrist NASCAR gave to RCR after their Gateway win surely led to a change or a shift inside the team, post which they simply haven’t found their footing yet.