{"id":557311,"date":"2026-03-24T10:55:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T10:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/557311\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T10:55:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T10:55:37","slug":"denny-hamlin-sounds-off-on-kyle-busch-rcr-nascar-struggles-in-2026-i-think-hes-searching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/557311\/","title":{"rendered":"Denny Hamlin sounds off on Kyle Busch, RCR NASCAR struggles in 2026: ‘I think he’s searching’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyle Busch, perhaps more than any driver, needed to get off to a fast start to the 2026 NASCAR<\/a> Cup Series season. The two-time champion entered the season approaching nearly three years since his last win and back-to-back campaigns with no playoffs. <\/p>\n

Busch, after six races, is 23rd in the points standings. After a 21st-place finish Sunday at Darlington Raceway, former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin is officially pushing the panic button. Hamlin believes Busch is \u201csearching,\u201d and he\u2019s not convinced all of the issues are the fault of Richard Childress Racing. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is noteworthy that last week, Austin Dillon was not as bad as Kyle Busch, right?\u201d Hamlin said Monday on Actions Detrimental<\/a>. \u201cI think we really gotta put everything into perspective and yes, the organization is probably not where they wanted to be, but if one of them is running last and the other is running 16th\u2026 if Kyle is great like we all believe he is, then he should be eighth, but he wasn\u2019t. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s searching right now. It\u2019s just my opinion, but he\u2019s just trying to figure something out, and I don\u2019t know, I can\u2019t put it all on RCR. Yeah, they\u2019re not race-winning teams right now. They don\u2019t have that pace, but they don\u2019t have 30th-place pace. That\u2019s something that driver-individual team has a role in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyle Busch mired in career slump in NASCAR<\/p>\n

Busch\u2019s winless streak, which dates back to June 2023, is now up to 99 races. The 40-year-old has stalled out at 63 career wins, still good enough for ninth on the all-time wins list. <\/p>\n

Set winning aside, however, Busch simply is finding it difficult to run inside the top-15 on most days. That\u2019s the part of this slump that has to be hard for Busch to wrap his head around. Sure, the Next Gen car doesn\u2019t exactly suit his driving style, but should it look like this? <\/p>\n

There\u2019s still plenty of season left and perhaps Rowdy can find his old form. Right now, it doesn\u2019t look good for Busch, whose contract with RCR is up after the 2026 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kyle Busch, perhaps more than any driver, needed to get off to a fast start to the 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-557311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}