Richard Childress Racing has long been one of the marquee teams in the NASCAR Cup Series. RCR has accounted for six championships at NASCAR’s highest level, all of them fashioned by driver Dale Earnhardt Sr.

The organization, however, hasn’t reached the pinnacle of the sport since Earnhardt won his final title in 1994. Kyle Busch would like nothing better than to end the drought in his first year with NASCAR Hall of Fame team owner Richard Childress.

“It would be phenomenal—it would be awesome,” Busch said. “That’s what we all strive for. I don’t care what team I’m at, I’m going to go try to win a championship, right?

“But to have the history and the legacy of RCR and everything that they’ve done over the years—with Earnhardt and with the other drivers that have been there… yeah, it’s been a little quiet lately, but that would be nice to shake that up.

“I feel like when you’re in the final four, that is a championship season. You’ve just got to go out and execute in that last race, and there are so many things that can go against you in that last race to not let you win a championship, but that’s a title season.”

A two-time Cup champion, Busch has won three times in his first year with Childress, but that’s below the benchmark he sets for himself.

“(Five) is always my number,” Busch said. “Anytime you look at a championship season of a driver, they’ve got around five wins. That’s been a good year. You can always bank yourself as being a championship guy if you’ve got five wins…

“So, let’s win two of these final 10, and then we’ll really have something to talk about.”

Busch knows that he’s not considered a favorite at the moment. He knows that they enter the postseason backing themselves in with finishes of 36th, 21st, 3rd, 37th, 36th, 14th, 7th in the last 7 weeks, but he also knows that the playoffs is a completely new season and anything can happen.

They just can’t get in their own way by pit road mistakes or putting himself in a perilous position on track. If they do what they’re capable of doing, then the Busch that had 8 top 10 finishes in a 10 race span that included 2 wins and a runner-up could show up and help him advance to his first Championship 4 since his title in 2019 too.