2025 season preview: Richard Childress Racing

Editor’s Note: Today’s Richard Childress Racing preview continues NASCAR.com’s countdown of team previews for the 2025 Cup Series season.

RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING

Manufacturer: Chevrolet
Engine: ECR Engines
Driver-crew chief pairing: Austin Dillon-Richard Boswell (No. 3), Kyle Busch-Randall Burnett (No. 8)

Team outlook: Certainly, the championship organization expects to see an improved 2025 campaign. Although Dillon won a race at Richmond Raceway last year, he was penalized for aggressive driving at the finish and not given NASCAR Cup Series playoff eligibility. Meanwhile, the two-time series champion Busch suffered his first winless full-time season — his first since 2004, when he only competed in six races. Dillon will team with a new crew chief in Boswell, and Busch will start his third season at RCR with the veteran Burnett. NASCAR Xfinity Series championship contender Austin Hill will make several starts this season as well — with the hope he helps strengthen the team overall. Busch won three races in his first season with the RCR team in 2023 and last year scored season-best back-to-back runner-up finishes at Daytona International Speedway and Darlington Raceway mid-summer in the weeks immediately after Dillon‘s Richmond triumph. The Next Gen car is now firmly established — as opposed to a variable to solve — resulting in more parity across the grid as teams challenge the Team Penske dominance that has resulted in the last three NASCAR Cup Series titles.

RELATED: Busch reflects on drought after 2024

AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 CHEVROLET

Experience: 11 full seasons in the NASCAR Cup Series
2024 stats: 32nd in final Cup Series standings; 1 win, 1 top five, 5 top 10s
2025 championship odds (DraftKings): 150-1

Outlook: The 34-year-old has five NASCAR Cup Series career wins — including trophies in the sport‘s biggest races, from the Daytona 500 (2018) to the Coca-Cola 600 (2017). There is no question he knows how to win and how to raise his game. And with more than a decade at NASCAR‘s elite level, the 2013 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion would like to prove himself a more consistent title threat. His 32nd-place result in the 2024 final standings is the lowest in his career. Dillon‘s famous No. 3 RCR Chevrolet will have a new crew chief in 2025 in Boswell, the fifth crew chief for Dillon in just the last three years. The team is hopeful this new pairing will pay off. Boswell last worked at Stewart-Haas Racing, leading Chase Briscoe to a clutch victory in the 2024 regular-season finale at Darlington Raceway. Last season, Dillon led his most laps (36) since 2020 and scored his third win in the last five years. He‘s qualified for the playoffs five times.

MORE: 2025 Cup Series schedule

KYLE BUSCH, NO. 8 CHEVROLET

Experience: 20 full seasons in the NASCAR Cup Series
2024 stats: 20th in final Cup Series standings; 0 wins, 5 top fives, 10 top 10s
2025 championship odds (DraftKings): 22-1

Outlook: The two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion (2015, 2019) is absolutely ready to return to form following a frustrating 2024 season, which marked the first time in his 20-year full-time career he had not won a race. Even more puzzling, it came one year after he won three races in his 2023 debut season for the RCR team. Busch did earn a pair of season-best runner-up finishes heading into last year‘s playoffs but only managed a single top 10 (7th, Atlanta) in that final 10-race championship portion of the schedule. Busch, who will turn 40 in May, would love nothing more than to push a restart button and kick off the year with a win in the only major race he hasn‘t won yet — the season-opening Daytona 500, where he is a preseason favorite for victory. It‘s a win he is still chasing despite already earning 63 series victories over the course of his career, ninth all-time and the highest victory total of any current full-time driver. There are high expectations for the 2025 season from Busch, his team and others. He goes into the season ranked 10th among drivers DraftKings expects to vie for the 2025 title.

BOLD PREDICTION: It‘s not normally “bold” to predict Kyle Busch is in championship form, but the 39-year-old two-time champ essentially went through the most trying season of his nearly 20-career in 2024. He‘s tired of answering questions about when he might retire and more eager to get his No. 8 RCR team back on track and answer questions about competing for a title. Dillon will absolutely also turn in a statistically improved 2025, and a new crew chief could be exactly what energizes the No. 3 team.