The same hands that dominated Dover’s Truck Series race on Saturday have been wrapped around a steering wheel going nowhere on most Sundays. For Kyle Busch, that has been the story of 100-plus Cup races now. And at this point, Busch is unable to understand where he is going wrong and why he can’t get himself out of this misery.

“Yeah, I would say so. I mean, I would think anytime that you have positive mojo going, which, you know, when you have positive mojo going, it’s just kind of like it’s a good feeling, and it just kind of gives you that vote of confidence of just like, ‘Okay, we’re doing our job.’

“And then when you’re—when you don’t have when you’re not doing well, you’re like, ‘Well, what am I doing wrong?’ Like, I’m doing everything I always would normally be doing. If you’re the car chief, you know I’m putting in what the engineers and the crew chief are telling me to put in there. Like, obviously, it’s not working. So, who’s the idiot here? You know which one of us?”

The internal situation at RCR had grown tense well before Busch started speaking this candidly. At Martinsville, he qualified 34th after struggling with what he called an “unbalanced” car, was then penalized when his crew lost a tire on pit road, and finished 34th. At Las Vegas, he called the car “broken” over the radio after going laps down as it faded through the race.

He also clashed with his spotter over the radio about his aggressiveness. And by the time Talladega produced his first top-10, RCR had already decided a change was necessary: crew chief Jim Pohlman, who had joined ahead of 2026 with strong Xfinity credentials but limited Cup experience, was replaced after just ten races by longtime RCR veteran Andy Street.

Kyle Busch’s struggles in the Cup Series are a stark contrast to his phenomenal success in the Truck Series. In his four outings in the Truck series, Busch already has two victories and one second-place finish. In comparison, he only has two top 10s in the Cup Series this year and is at the bottom of the driver standings.

So, even after a Truck win at Dover, Busch was far from satisfied, clutching every driver’s fear close to heart.

“You never know when the last one is,” he said. “I know all too well unfortunately with the Cup stuff, but here with the Truck stuff now, it’s awesome to be part of Spire Motorsports.”

Still, Busch has found some hope in his new partnership with Andy Street, who has been doing far more than his best, per Busch.

“It’s Street – I don’t know what he’s doing different. I don’t feel like I’m talking to anybody any differently. I don’t feel like I’m relaying any of the information any differently. I just feel like it’s construed or thought about in a different way, and the execution of being able to listen to my words and being able to put it into the race car translates differently.”

He even compared it to his partnership with former crew chief Adam Stevens. “We were unstoppable,” he said of those years. “We won 35 races in those years.”

In addition to his regular difficulties with the Cup car, Busch is also facing mass criticism for his move against John Hunter Nemechek at Texas. While other drivers and personalities are calling out NASCAR for not penalizing Busch over his run-in with Nemechek, Rowdy refuses to explain himself further to defend his case.

Kyle Busch dismisses row with JHN over NASCAR penalty

After his heated incident on track with John Hunter Nemechek, Busch took to social media to defend himself with the SMT data ‘proving’ his innocence in the matter. According to Rowdy’s post, he had no idea about Nemechek’s presence and blamed the latter for boxing his car out of space.

“I did not start this. The 42 apparently doesn’t know where the RS of his car is or where he is in relation to the outside wall. There was 2 ft outside him, and I was judging my left side tires to the hash marks. Always know who you’re racing beside.”

That explanation worked for NASCAR, along with how Busch didn’t admit to intentionally wrecking Nemechek. While the statement further conveyed that NASCAR did plan to have a conversation with the RCR team and No.8, how Ryan Preece was fined for a similar incident has not sat well with many in the garage.

And when the media asked him about the same, Rowdy immediately swerved the question: “No, my post didn’t have anything to do with that. My car was broken. Go ask NASCAR for the pictures. It was plenty broken.”

In many ways than one, it is quite visible that Kyle Busch and his temperament are slowly starting to be affected by the lack of success in the Cup Series. Fans are worried that he might end up tarnishing his legacy over the same, but Busch is more concerned about returning to winning ways as soon as he can.