Friday Faceoff: Who Should Run RCR’s No. 33 for the Rest of 2026?

1) What is your favorite memory of Kyle Busch?

Christopher Hansen: The epic finish between Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson at Chicagoland Speedway in 2018. You could feel the intensity as Larson ran Busch down in the closing laps. As he celebrated on the front straightaway, Busch famously said, “if you don’t like that kind of racing, don’t even watch.” Comments like those were only a small part of what made Busch one of the most polarizing drivers in NASCAR and someone you loved to root against. While his personality mellowed out slightly in the past few seasons after moving to Richard Childress Racing, the passion and desire to win every race he entered never wavered.

Michael Bellifemini: Chicagoland in 2018 against Larson for the win. Larson got into him, and knew he had to get away from Busch, but he didn’t get out far enough. Busch got him back, Larson drifted while Busch smacked the wall and Busch won a wild battle for the win. His celebration and post-race interview was also a classic. Busch had a countless amount of great interviews. My favorite one was the “everything’s great” on repeat at Phoenix Raceway in 2017, one week after his fight with Joey Logano on pit road at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Gabriel Goodman: The 2017 Bristol Motor Speedway sweep. That year was the first time I closely followed NASCAR, and him winning in each of the three national series in one weekend felt like a big deal. That was only the second time the tripleheader sweep ever happened, with the first being Busch’s sweep at Bristol in 2010. To this day, it hasn’t happened again. Busch drove three different vehicles and turned 1,000 laps in a single weekend, yet his focus never wavered. He was a wheelman in every sense of the word.

Ben Lloyd: The bow. In general, it’s such an iconic celebration, and I think that will be the thing we remember him by in pop culture. He knew many people hated to see it, and that’s why he did it. I grew up a Busch fan, so I will feel this loss forever.

2) At the halfway point of the NASCAR Cup Series regular season, which driver has been the most pleasant surprise, and which has been the biggest disappointment?

Thomas Dunn: In terms of pleasant surprises, I’ll roll with last week’s winner, Daniel Suarez. We didn’t know what Suarez’s future would look like once he departed Trackhouse Racing and what type of resources/buy-in he’d have at Spire Motorsports. So far, so good. Sitting in the top 10 in points while also winning a crown-jewel race has defied expectations. The most disappointing, though, is William Byron. The No. 24 hasn’t shown a semblance of race-winning speed and has had an alarming amount of races where it’s looked slow only to backdoor a top 10 at the end. Part of this is due to the new Chevrolet nose, but all things considered, last year’s regular-season champ is far from being locked into The Chase at this point.

Lloyd: Suarez has absolutely blown me away. This year was seen as his last chance to prove it, and he’s just been exceptional. Even before the Coca-Cola 600 win, he had speed on a consistent basis and was in or around The Chase all year. This win just gives him security going forward, at least for a few weeks. I have been disappointed with Chase Briscoe. Fresh off a Championship 4 berth last year, the No. 19 team has carried seemingly none of that momentum over. Despite running well at times, including the 600, it just can’t earn the points.

Bellifemini: At the beginning of the year, most didn’t see Suarez sitting 10th in points after his win in the 600. He has been very solid in the No. 7 that had struggled for years prior. His former teammate Ross Chastain has been a disappointment, though, mainly because of Trackhouse’s struggles as a whole. Sometimes he gets outrun by Shane van Gisbergen on ovals, which tells me that the No. 1 team is still not clicking like it should. Chastain has a new crew chief this year, and it looks like they’re still trying to build chemistry.

Hansen: Suarez has exceeded expectations since joining Spire ahead of 2026. In his early Cup career, Suarez bounced around the series, driving for several different teams. Through 13 races, Suarez sits 10th in the standings with one win, two top fives and four top-10 finishes, along with a 13.9 average finish. If he continues to put together solid performances, Suarez could be a dark horse contender in The Chase. Joey Logano is having a season to forget. The three-time champion is winless and is 18th in points. Additionally, Logano’s average finish of 21.3 in 13 races, if it held up, would be his worst average finish since his rookie season in 2009. Logano and crew chief Paul Wolfe have had their share of success over the years, but they need to figure out how to find more speed on race day, as more often than not, Logano is left searching for the same race-winning speed his Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney displays on a weekly basis.

3) Last weekend was the first tripleheader in NASCAR history where none of the races made it to the scheduled distance. Should NASCAR have made more of an effort to get to the full race distance, particularly in the Coca-Cola 600?

Goodman: I get that the powers that be shortened the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race to not compete with the Indianapolis 500, but there was clear weather in Charlotte. Televise the end of the race afterward or put it on YouTube. We can’t be shortening races because there is another race happening in another part of the country. The end of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race I feel mixed about. It was obvious NASCAR had no intention of restarting and paced under yellow until the end of stage two to make the race official. I understand it, considering there wouldn’t be a good time to get the race in until Monday, but it is NASCAR’s job to make sure the race gets in. There were teams that pitted, thinking the race could go back green, that lost valuable points due to it ending prematurely. I understand why NASCAR wanted to get the event finished, but it was a big disappointment. As for Cup, NASCAR did everything it could. Unlike in the O’Reilly race, the entire field knew rain was coming, and it was likely the race could be called at any time. By the time the rain would’ve stopped and NASCAR could’ve dried the track, it would have been hours.

Bellifemini: With how late it already was, the track wouldn’t have been race-ready until about 1:30-2 a.m. I’m sure after such a long, tough weekend, NASCAR didn’t want its Cup teams to wait around until Monday to finish 27 laps. I know it was an anticlimactic finish, but it didn’t make sense, logistically, to try to run all 600 miles.

Lloyd: The 600 was probably the race where there was absolutely nothing NASCAR could do with pesky rain that picked up every time they got ready to go again and a 10-minute monsoon with more rain a couple hours away. In the case of O’Reilly and Trucks, NASCAR should have started the truck race at 9 instead of 10, especially knowing it had a hard cutoff. If it was going to try to run at 8 on Saturday morning, I don’t understand the idea of starting at 10 on Sunday. especially with no Formula 1 to go against in the morning. Most Truck races are under two hours, so I understand the logic, but you don’t have much wiggle room if you get a lot of yellows (which they did). The remainder of O’Reilly should have just been pushed to Sunday or Monday, too. I understand when the weather presents challenges it can be tough to fit everything in and try to keep events as close to the original day as possible, but I would rather them set an 11 a.m. start on Monday and have a 10 or 11-hour window to get to halfway under green than have them pace for 17 laps and not even see the cars because of the fog.

Dunn: With how the rest of the weekend shook out, I understand the gripe about not getting the 600 in at the full distance. However, some weekends, it’s just not meant to be. On an incredibly tough week, it almost seemed fitting that NASCAR had its parade rained on one last time. Sunday was an extremely late night, and it got to the point where the timing would’ve been ridiculous.

4) Who should be in the No. 33 Cup car for Richard Childress Racing for the rest of the year?

Hansen: Austin Hill. It would make the most sense, given Hill’s veteran status in O’Reilly. Having one driver fill in for the remainder of the season would make the most sense from a continuity standpoint. Plus, Hill has worked with crew chief Andy Street before, when the duo paired in the NOAPS from 2022 through 2024, during which they compiled 10 victories and an appearance in the Championship 4 in 2024.

Dunn:  I’d put Jesse Love in the No. 33, mainly because you can get a good look at the long-term upside of what Love could look like in a Cup car. He’s already a championship driver, and in theory, he has more years to play with and grow compared to veteran teammate Hill. I’d doubt that RCR looks outside the family for any one-off events, and if it keeps the status quo, give me Love. 

Goodman: Whoever is the easiest for RCR. That organization has been through a lot in the past week, and it needs some stability, even if it is just in the short term. Either Hill or Love are going to be its best bet, most likely.