Kyle Busch will have three new pit crew members, including a jackman and two tire changers, on his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing team during Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix (Ariz.) Raceway.
The latest over-the-wall crew swap — which is the third change for the No. 8 team in four races — is part of an effort by RCR to fix the costly mistakes they’ve been making on pit road.
Their missteps last week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway — including several 15-plus-second stops and a penalty for pitting out of the assigned pit box — were just another nail in the coffin.
“All-in-all, just a frustrating day to have the disaster that we did on pit road of just being really slow. And then for me to slide through to kind of add insult to injury on my behalf, we otherwise would have been a top-10 finisher,” Busch said.
As the NASCAR Cup Series prepares to wave the green flag on its fourth race of the season, Busch is hoping RCR can find the right “players” quickly.
“I know everyone at RCR is busting their tails and working hard. I know that Ray (Wright) and everybody in the pit crew department is — we just have what we have. We’ve got to work through it, and if that’s changing players around, then we have to change players around,” Busch said.
“We’ve got to find something that’s going to strengthen our front line, our defense, whatever it is or whatever you want to call those guys…special teams. We’ve got to find the players that are going to make it roll.”
Busch has also stumbled several times in his attempts to make up for the pit-road miscues. In addition to his slide past the pit box in Las Vegas, Busch was penalized at Atlanta Motor Speedway for speeding on pit road.
“When I feel like I’m in a downward position, where I’m behind and I’m going to try and get extra (tenths) or more, yeah that’s led to my speeding penalties,” Busch explained. “That’s led to my sliding through the box because I know I have to makeup time on pit road myself to kind of compensate for what we’re losing when we’re stopped in the box.”
It’s been a point of frustration, as RCR has struggled to match the fine-tuned pit road processes Busch was used to during his time at Joe Gibbs Racing.
At the same time, the 38-year-old also noted that the pit-road game in the Cup Series has leveled up considerably in recent years.
“When I had my heyday of pit crews at JGR, let’s just say we were running 12-second stops, where the rest of JGR were running 12.5-second stops and the rest of the competition were 13-second stops,” Busch explained. “Now, the whole field is…if you’re not under 10 seconds, you’re nobody. You might as well not even play. You have to get to that threshold.”
The average pit road stop is now around 9.4 seconds.
With the Next Gen cars further equalizing the competition on track, there is added intensity for pit crews to outperform the rest.
“The easiest place to pass somebody else is when they’re sitting still, on pit road. So we have to be better on pit road…we can’t be going backwards, at least,” Busch said.
Busch will start 31st during Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500.