“I’m not much for drama”: Rodney Childers and Kyle Busch adjusting to life outside playoffs in NASCAR

Kyle Busch and Rodney Childers both missed the playoffs this season for the first time in a decade. The duo is currently grappling with the unfamiliar feeling of no longer being contenders.

The current season marks only the fourth instance Kyle Busch has failed to qualify for the playoffs and the first time in ten years. Over the last three years, Busch has faced continual challenges, particularly with the transition to Next Gen cars.

His struggles began with a sponsorship shortfall at Joe Gibbs Racing in 2022, followed by a move to Richard Childress Racing in 2023, which was marred by numerous pit crew errors and his adjustment to the new car specifications. And now in the 2024 season, he failed to qualify for the playoffs.

Kyle Busch's absence from the playoffs has had substantial repercussions. According to Racer, Busch himself discussed these implications:

"That comes with a cost. I’ve lost a substantial amount of money, let’s say, in the last few weeks (because) of not making the playoffs, not getting wins and things like that. That’s a big hit. But again, it is what it is. We just move on. We go through and try to play spoiler now, and try to go out and be a guy that’s on the outside looking in and take victories from these guys who want them to be able to move to the next round."

Similarly, Rodney Childers, who has been the crew chief for Kevin Harvick since 2014, successfully led the #4 team to a top-five finish in the championship points seven times, including five appearances in the championship-4 race. However, this year, working with rookie driver Josh Berry, Childers faced new challenges and was unable to secure a playoff spot.

Childers expressed his adjustment to this new reality, noting:

"It really is” weird not to be on a championship run again. It seems like it’s been forever since we weren’t in the playoffs. But maybe we took that for granted. [...] For us, I still feel like we’re in that same mode because we want to win a race so bad with Josh, and we’ve had really good cars lately. [...] It was nice (last) week to not deal with the drama. I’m not much for drama; I just want to go race and win races."

He also mentioned that with Kevin Harvick, their consistent strategy for advancing through the playoffs was always centered around winning races.

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Kyle Busch takes responsibility for not qualifying for the playoffs this season

In a recent media session, the #8 RCR driver, Kyle Busch, reflected on a series of unfortunate events, including crashes and underperforming cars, that marred his season. He acknowledged:

"Just didn't execute well enough and have the pace that we needed to through the summer, crashed a lot, and so that just kind of self-eliminated us."

Despite this setback, Kyle Busch will be aiming to continue his impressive record of winning at least one race in each of the 19 seasons he has participated in the NASCAR Cup series since his debut in 2005.