Richard Childress Racing announced that Jim Pohlman will be replaced by Andy Street as the Crew Chief for Kyle Busch’s No. 8 Team.

In a press release, the team stated, “Andy Street will assume crew chief responsibilities for the No. 8 Chevrolet, working alongside driver Kyle Busch for the remainder of the 2026 season. Jim Pohlman will transition into a leadership role within RCR’s competition department.”

“This move is about putting our people in the best position to succeed,” said Richard Childress, Chairman and CEO of RCR. “We have strong talent across this organization, and we’re focused on having each person in the right position to help deliver the results we expect.”

“We strongly believe in the people we have,” said Mike Verlander, President of RCR. “At the same time, we expect better results, and that requires us to continually evaluate and make adjustments. Jim has more than two decades of success in this sport and will remain an important part of our team. We believe Andy and Kyle’s previous working relationship positions us to improve the No. 8 team and compete at a higher level.”

Street was previously the team’s Performance Director and was the Crew Chief for the team’s No. 33 entry. He served as the Busch’s interim crew chief after Randall Burnett departed to be the Crew Chief for Connor Zilisch at Trackhouse Racing. Street previously was the team’s Xfinity Series Crew Chief. He had 10 wins with Austin Hill between the 2022-2024 season. He also had another win with Myatt Snyder.

The change comes in the wake of Busch finishing 10th at Talladega on Sunday evening. He is currently 27th in points and his 10th place finish was his first and only top 10 of the season so far.

It also comes amid public comments Busch has made about the team’s struggle in a public feud with Denny Hamlin. Ahead of the NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas, Hamlin spoke about Busch’s struggles saying, “Clearly, RCR is not good right now. But you’re a Hall of Fame, Mount Rushmore driver. Carry it better than your teammate then. If you’re the greatest, then carry it better than your teammate who’s won 10 races [in his career]. Find a way. I think that that’s what he should be able to do. But it’s not happening. It’s time to be honest about what’s going on. I think he’s searching. I think that he doesn’t know how to get the speed out of the Next Gen car on a consistent basis.” 

Busch fired back telling Jeff Gluck, “If Denny wants to switch cars, I’ll switch cars with him any day of the week, any time. I would love for him to show me that he can carry it better than I can. … And in this instance I don’t  feel like Denny Hamlin even knows what the hell he’s talking about. So he can bash me all he wants and I can certainly make his life hell.”

He also admitted, “Success-wise, you know, is certainly not really gone right. But relational-wise, I think thing have gone really well. Working with Richard and Mike Verlander and Jim Pohlman and all the guys and everybody there. RCR has been a great place for me. I’ve had great relationships with everybody there. So, it’s been fun on that regard that they’ve all got my back and support me and we just continue to try and build on that.” 

Busch also told Sean Hannity on his “Hang Out With Sean Hannity” podcast, “[RCR] were ahead of the game. They were ahead of everybody else [in 2022]. As everybody has learned this car, the little tricks of the trade, the little things that you’ve got to do, now the Gibbs and Penskes and the Hendricks have got it all figured out. And they are the top teams and we haven’t really come up with any more advancements to it. And so we’ve fallen behind.”

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