Kyle Busch talks about “copy pasting” last year’s Dover results as he seeks to break his winless deadlock in 2025

Kyle Busch, a Richard Childress Racing driver, recently spoke about how he was hoping to “copy and paste” the notes from last year, considering the drivers can’t have a tire test for the new Goodyear tire ahead of the race at Dover. He is set to start in the 10th spot at the Dover Motor Speedway.

Driving the No. 8 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing, Busch has stumbled upon the speed that made him a figure of significance in title contention. Heading into July, he was 18th in the point standings with 432 points, and while he posted two top-five finishes and seven top-10s, many were above average results on the road and street courses (fifth place at Chicago and fifth place at Circuit of the Americas) which led to a number of problems including mechanical issues and finishing worse than 15th in more than half of his starts.

Due to the absence of new tire test data, Kyle Busch and his team have to rely heavily on notes and setups from last year’s race at Dover. Busch acknowledged it, saying that when you have nothing new for tire compound or tire construction, organizations will have to copy and paste what they did last year. He said in Saturday's media availability:

“I would say that you take everything that you did use last year because it was good for you, and you try to just look at all of that and try to replicate that as much as you can without knowing anything about the tire with no tire test being here, no wheel force test being here, anything like that. We're all sort of up in the air on exactly what that's going to be. So you might as well just copy and paste last year; go out there on the racetrack and hope that it suits your race car again this year like it did last year.”

With no wins and little margin for error, Busch’s 2025 campaign has reached the tipping point. Busch’s experience and adaptability will come into play as the team hopes to find a pathway back and secure a playoff position. Notably, he had finished fourth after starting from pole at Dover last year.

The strangeness of a winless streak has only been magnified by the perception of Busch as one of the more successful modern drivers, and it has added an element of suspense for both team and driver as they wrestle with attempting to find their groove during a disappointing campaign.

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Kyle Busch on potential retirement from NASCAR

Kyle Busch, a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, has addressed ongoing speculation about his future and possible retirement as he nears his 40th birthday and continues a prolonged winless streak. In recent interviews, Busch admitted that retirement was a serious consideration for him about three years ago, but he remains committed to racing as long as he enjoys working with his team and sees opportunities to bring Richard Childress Racing back to victory lane.

"But when you're still out here, being able to enjoy what you're doing, working with your team and continuing to try and improve RCR and improve the program, and get it to where we all wanted and put ourselves in victory lane, we're going to keep working at it," said Busch in a pre-race interview at Martinsville.

He emphasized that as long as the challenge and enjoyment remain, and there is progress being made within his program, he has no immediate plans to step away from the sport.