After one of the worst starts to a NASCAR Cup Series season in their 51-season history, Richard Childress Racing is rolling into the track where they've won at the most.
LINCOLN, Ala. -- After one of the worst starts to a NASCAR Cup Series season in their 51-season history, Richard Childress Racing is rolling into the track where they've won at the most.
A 13-time winner at Talladega Superspeedway with Dale Earnhardt (nine wins), Clint Bowyer (two), Kevin Harvick (one) and current driver Kyle Busch (one), RCR has needed this shot in the arm after a mostly-dismal start to the 2026 season.
For the first time in the organization's history as a full-time operation, RCR failed to score a top-10 finish in the first nine races of a season. The best finish they've had was 12th with Busch at Circuit of the Americas and Austin Dillon at Las Vegas in March.
After winning the pole and leading 19 laps in the Daytona 500, Busch and his No. 8 team have only had a decent run at COTA as the only high point. Since COTA and a 17th-place, attrition-aided finish at Phoenix, poor finishes have tumbled the two-time Cup champion from 20th in the standings to a career-low 27th.
At Talladega, Busch is hoping the past will prevail over the present.
For the Talladega Cup races since 2024, Busch has qualified fourth, fourth, second and then third in the fall when he led 26 laps. However, that all came within the first 106 laps before he faded to 19th -- his best Talladega finish since winning three years ago.
First evidenced in the spring 2023 race Busch won, the style of racing at Talladega has evolved into a heavy reliance on riding three-and-four-wide in the pack to save fuel and spend as little time on pit road to gain track position. The racing has drawn backlash and prompted NASCAR to adjust the stage lengths, starting Sunday.
Previously, the first two stages were 60 laps each and the final stage was 68 laps. Now, the first stage is 98 laps and the final two stages are 45 laps each.
With a fuel window of around 40-50 laps and caution laps likely to eat into the green flag laps in the final two stages, NASCAR's hope is to get the drivers racing all-out and to discourage fuel saving.
However, Busch believes he can see through that.
“I don’t think changing the stage lengths will make a difference," he said. “The purpose is to make the crew chiefs not have an idea of how to strategize fuel saving. But trust me, they’ll figure out a way to strategize for it. You’re always trying to figure out a way of putting the least amount of fuel as possible when it comes down to pitting."
Fuel saving to pit for as little as possible is what Busch describes as "the only true way to pass" with the current nature of the Cup superspeedway package.
"When you get back on track and everybody’s running three-wide part throttle, there’s nowhere to go. And then when we go two-wide, it’s always two-wide around the bottom. It’s hard to get a lane where there’s enough momentum going," Busch said.
NASCAR's John Probst said they're likely to bring teams to Daytona for a "Preseason Thunder"-style test in January to develop a package that could remedy those issues for the 2027 season. However, nothing has been announced yet.
In the meantime, Busch's teammate, Austin Dillon, is looking forward to what the adjusted stage lengths may do for the racing.
"I’ve not been a fan of the fuel-saving at Daytona and Talladega, so I am curious to see how this race plays out with the changes that have been implemented. Whatever happens, my goal is getting RCR and ECR to victory lane," Dillon said.
Lately, Dillon and the No. 3 team have developed a good mix of qualifying speed and race pace at Talladega. He started fifth in the last two spring races and has two top-10 finishes in the last three races: Eighth in fall 2024, 10th in spring 2025.
“We just have to do what we have done a good job with in the past – and that’s just putting ourselves in good positions. When we put ourselves in good positions along with that ECR horsepower, it tends to show up. The biggest thing I’ve learned about speedway racing is that you’ve got to pick a direction that you are going to go and stick to it," Dillon said.
This season, Dillon has been slightly better than Busch. He has five finishes of 19th or better in the seven races since crashing out at Daytona and EchoPark Speedway Atlanta.
A second teammate could help and he has that with Jesse Love this weekend. Love is making his seventh Cup start and his first in the series on a drafting track.
"I'm excited to learn a new form of superspeedway racing with the Cup car. It's going to be a lot different to what I'm used to driving in the O'Reilly car. Key for me is to adapt as fast as I can and put ourselves in position for a good result," Love said.
Love sits third in the NOAPS standings with four top-five finishes, six top-10 finishes and an average finish of 9.2. He has also led the most laps of any series regular (224).
in Cup, Dillon and Busch sit 24th and 27th in the standings, respectively, but a win at Talladega could turn that around.
The Jack Link's 500 is set to go green at Talladega just after 3 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90. Penske's Austin Cindric won last year.