Just days after trading sharp words in public, Denny Hamlin was back talking about Kyle Busch again, only this time, the reaction came with genuine surprise. Richard Childress Racing’s latest decision to reshuffle leadership around the No. 8 car added another twist to what has already been an unsettled start to Busch’s 2026 campaign. With the team still searching for stability and results, the move felt like another sign that Busch’s season, and perhaps his footing within the organization, is still very much a work in progress

And Denny Hamlin was not going to be the one to hesitate to speak out about RCR’s revolving-door reputation when it comes to leadership atop the No. 8 team.

“Oh, s—t, really?” the JGR driver said on the April 28 episode of the Actions Detrimental podcast. “Has Andy Street been in that car? I feel like these guys, they’re off and on, and they’re off. Now wait a minute, let me. I can’t keep up.”

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The latest twist sees Andy Street return as Busch’s crew chief for the rest of the 2026 season, while Jim Pohlman shifts into a different role within the organization. Street is not new to Busch’s camp either, having worked with him during the closing stretch of the 2025 season after longtime crew chief Randall Burnett departed for Trackhouse Racing, giving the pairing some recent familiarity heading into the switch.

However, this comes at an awkward time for the 40-year-old, whose season has felt stuck in neutral despite flashes of speed.

Ironically, the announcement dropped just after Busch delivered his best result of the year with a top-10 finish at Talladega Superspeedway, a race largely overshadowed by Carson Hocevar grabbing his first Cup Series victory.

For the RCR driver, the frustration runs deeper than just one decent finish. The two-time champion hasn’t won a Cup race since June 2023, a drought that has now stretched past a hundred races and become the longest winless streak of his career. hat stretch looks even sharper in contrast to his arrival season with RCR in 2023, when Busch won three races in the first half of the year at Auto Club Speedway, Talladega, and Gateway before the momentum began to fade.

Every season carries pressure, and this one feels heavier. Ten races into 2026, Busch is still searching for rhythm, consistency, and perhaps more importantly, stability. Instead, the surrounding team is changing course again before the year has even settled. The struggles have also extended beyond the No. 8 car alone, with RCR managing just one top-10 finish as an organization through the opening stretch of the season, pointing to broader performance issues rather than a problem isolated to one driver.

What makes the situation more interesting is Hamlin’s own history with the decision. Back in late 2025, he publicly supported RCR’s pairing of Busch and Pohlman, calling it “probably the best option” at the time. However, the 45-year-old isn’t too pleased with the constant swaps.

Pohlman brought championship credibility after winning an Xfinity title with JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier, and the expectation was that his experience could help unlock Busch’s potential and put him back on track. But with the results failing to arrive quickly enough, that experiment appears to have been cut short before it truly had time to breathe.

Now the question shifts from why the change happened to whether it even matters. Crew chief swaps can spark momentum, but they can also create more chaos and clarity.

For RCR, the latest move feels less like a master plan and more like another attempt to stop the bleeding. However, as they take a new step in what they hope will be a fruitful direction, Busch remains unsettled, especially after what went down at Talladega Superspeedway.

Part of that longer slide traces back to changes after his early-2023 success, when Busch later explained that NASCAR instructed the team not to return with elements of a setup advantage they had been exploiting in a competitive gray area following his Gateway win, removing what had briefly helped put the No. 8 car ahead of the curve in the Next Gen era.

A potential penalty puts Kyle Busch in deeper water

After finally landing his first top finish of the season, the 40-year-old isn’t completely done with the weekend just yet. NASCAR confirmed that Busch’s No. 8 Chevrolet from the race at Talladega Superspeedway will undergo additional technical inspection following the race.

While post-race checks officially cleared race winner Carson Hocevar, officials selected Busch’s car, along with the No. 38 Ford driven by Zane Smith, for a deeper look at NASCAR’s R&D center in Concord.

The two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion’s 10th-place result marked a rare bright spot in what has otherwise been a frustrating campaign. This result, however, did nothing to boost Busch in the driver standings, as he still sits 27th.

The added inspection now places another layer of uncertainty over an already tense season, especially as he attempts to break free from his winless streak. For NASCAR, these inspections are often routine rather than punitive.

According to the sanctioning body, cars are occasionally transported to the R&D Center for educational and technical analysis, but this is not necessarily because of suspected violations.

Similar reviews took place earlier this season after the recent Las Vegas when the cars of Christopher Bell and Erik Jones underwent additional checks without any penalties being issued. Still, for RCR and Busch, the waiting game now becomes another subplot in an already pressure-filled season.