With time of the essence, Kyle Busch, Richard Childress need ‘to get this 500’
It was a throwaway line, a punctuation mark — a statement of the obvious to everyone.
But Richard Childress said it anyway.
“Kyle,” Childress said, “We got to get this 500.”
That was on Wednesday night in the Daytona International Speedway media center, about an hour after Kyle Busch, the all-time great driver, qualified on the pole for Sunday’s Daytona 500 for the first time in his illustrious career.
Childress is the owner of the No. 8 Chevrolet that Busch runs in now. Busch is going to race in his 21st Daytona 500. He’s never won such a trophy. And because of how this title has eluded him, Sunday’s race (1:30 p.m., FOX) is even more historically significant: No one in all of NASCAR history has won NASCAR’s biggest race for the first time after 20 unsuccessful attempts. Dale Earnhardt won on his 20th try, in 1998 — the drought has been one of many things connecting Busch to Earnhardt, but that’s a whole other story that’s been told before.
Every time the driver of the No. 8 Chevy comes down here now, he’s asked if this is the year, if his moment of vindication will come at long last. Busch has gotten good at smiling through such a nuisance, just like how Rory McIlroy became adept at politicking through questions about The Masters until that script flipped last year. On Wednesday, Busch said that “we just got to get the job done so we stop talking about it,” adding that there’s “no better time than right now here in 2026.”
It’s true that such a comment from Childress — “We got to get this 500” — could conceivably apply to anyone. Daytona, after all, is a place where desperation reigns. It’s the Super Bowl of stock car racing. It’s where Cinderellas emerge; it’s where legacies simmer. But it’s also true Childress’s words mean something specific to Busch, too.
Because time, now more than maybe ever, is of the essence.
Busch, now 40, started his NASCAR Cup Series race as a prodigy at age 18. He saw his record streak of 19 straight Cup seasons with at least one win come to an end in 2024. That winless streak continued through 2025. It’s now been 93 races since Busch has taken a trip to Victory Lane. The only full-time Cup driver in 2026 with a longer spell since their last win (and who has been a Cup driver that entire time) is Erik Jones. Jones’ last win was 132 races ago, in the September 2022 Southern 500. And with Busch in a contract year, questions bubble: Could this be his last chance, realistically, to win the Daytona 500?
Childress isn’t facing the same type of torment. But time matters to him, too. The 80-year-old car owner disclosed in a trial hearing in December that he had engaged in discussions to sell a portion of his 60% stake in Richard Childress Racing, the company he founded in 1969.
The six-time champion owner — who famously owned the car that Earnhardt drove, who saw the same Earnhardt-like-fire in Busch when Busch joined RCR in 2022 — said on the stand he didn’t want to admit to the courting of a buyer because of confidential business reasons. But when told he had to, he confirmed the reality.
However much you want to read into both components — Busch’s contract year, Childress’ potential business dealings — there’s no denying:
There’s an urgency now.
“Yeah, it’s a box we got to check,” Busch said. “Here we are. This is an opportunity to be able to do that. I’ve come down here a lot of years. I think I finished in about every position possible. It would be nice to (begin) 2026 with a victory here in the Daytona 500.”
Could this be Kyle Busch’s year to win the Daytona 500?
The good news? Busch is not only starting out front to begin the race — and thus has a lot of speed. He also may be pleasantly surprised with the fact that the superspeedway racing he has long criticized at Daytona might change slightly in 2026.
That’s because NASCAR’s postseason format has changed.
NASCAR announced before the season that the sanctioning body will be reverting to The Chase — a postseason format that takes the top 16 drivers at the end of the regular season and has them race for points over the course of the season’s final 10 races. No more “win and you’re in.” This season, points matter more. Consistency triumphs over bursts of brilliance.
Such a prospect has the entire garage wondering whether the end of the Daytona 500 — which Busch has previously criticized as a “wreckfest” — will lead to more respectful, clean racing.
Christopher Bell certainly thinks so.
“I’ve honestly thought about this a lot,” Bell said. “The Daytona 500 in the past, with the previous format, it kind of gave it a win-or-bust mentality where you would lay it all on the line and go for the win and understand if you wreck out you’re going to be fine — hopefully you win a race in the next couple, right? Certainly, in the regular season.
“Where now, those points that you potentially lose if you do wreck out are going to matter a lot more. Yeah, the risk management of the Daytona 500 certainly becomes more of a talking point.”
Eric Warren, Chevy’s VP of global motorsports competition, certainly thinks the new postseason format will change things. He said finishing every race will be paramount.
“Speedway racing is speedway racing,” Warren said. “You get to the front, people that have momentum and closing speeds and different things, it’s hard to judge that. We try to have these conversations ahead of time about that, but sometimes people see their shot to win, and they’re going to take it.
“The penalty for crashing versus the win, it’s a different ratio this year. I think there’s a little bit more thought process of, ‘Hey, second in the points for second, it’s a big gap if you try to get that win.’ Everybody is going to try to win the Daytona 500, but it’s different.”
But don’t count on the desperation aspect of this year’s 500 to be totally out of the question: Joey Logano, after winning the first of two Daytona Duel races Thursday, shrugged when discussing how the cars felt a bit more “squirrely” than usual. When asked specifically whether that is predictive of extra chaos, Logano answerd in the affirmative with a wry smile: “Say a prayer.”
‘This is the first step of it’
No one needs to tell Busch that the last two seasons haven’t been up to his standard. He’ll say it himself.
“We certainly haven’t been dominant forces of being up front leading laps and having those chances be at the regular each and every week,” Busch said.
“If you only have two opportunities to win races through the year versus having 20 opportunities to win races through the year, you’ve got a bigger opportunity, a bigger window, to get those wins having the 20 chances.”
He knows his Daytona 500 victory window is closing. History indicates so. As his owner said, “We got to get this 500.”
“This is the first step of it,” Busch said Wednesday, staying focused, centered, answering the same way he has since those questions started years ago: When will it happen?
“This is the beginning of the year, first qualifying attempt of the season,” Busch continued. “There’s a whole heck of a lot more we have to do throughout the season to be good, to be real, to be contenders.
“But it sure feels good in the moment right now.”
This story was originally published February 15, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "With time of the essence, Kyle Busch, Richard Childress need ‘to get this 500’."
