Kyle Busch’s pit crew woes are a symptom of issues RCR trying to

Kyle Busch will have a new pit crew this weekend for the third time in four races, pointing to a bigger issue that Richard Childress Racing seeks to address.

Busch will have two new tire changers and a new jackman for Sunday’s Cup race at Phoenix Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET on Fox). The changes come after last week’s pit road woes at Las Vegas saw him fall from second place with about 100 laps left to a 26th-place finish. It’s a continuation of issues that Busch’s team has had on pit road since the Daytona 500.

“We just need a consistent crew that is not going to be making mistakes,” Andy Petree, executive vice president at Richard Childress Racing, told NBC Sports on Friday. “One of the problems with these young guys and development guys is you put them on Kyle’s car and he’s running second, they’re trying to win. I’m not sure they’re mentally ready for it.

“They do practice and stuff and they’re just as solid as anybody. So how do you identify that in your people? That’s why we’re making so many changes. We’re trying to find a mixture of guys that can handle some pressure and deliver a solid performance, not stellar. We’re not even looking for stellar right now.”

With the cars more equal and so much driver data available, there are few differences on the track. Denny Hamlin noted on Friday that with all the data, drivers are “going to continue to morph ourselves into the same driver.” That puts more emphasis on pit road and those who go over the wall to service the car.

“The easiest place to pass somebody else is when they’re sitting still, on pit road,” Kyle Busch said Friday. “So we have to be better on pit road.

Petree said the organization is trying to get its development crew members more work.

“We’ve put a pretty big effort trying to get one of our development crews on pit road just to get them some experience,” he said. “We’ve not been successful with it. I don’t know what we’ve got to do. It’s certainly frustrating.”

Busch talked last month at Atlanta about the organization being unable to sign some free agent pit crew members, in part, because Richard Childress Racing’s location in Welcome, North Carolina, is about an hour from where most Cup teams and pit crew members are based.

Petree also mentioned that issue Friday.

“Our location hurts us,” he said. “We can’t recruit. It’s a disadvantage for us to recruit people to Welcome. It’s a more difficult challenge than Concord or Mooresville (North Carolina, where some teams and crew members are based) to be able to recruit people that are already established, really good people. It’s hard to go get them because they don’t want to drive an hour and a half to practice.”

The issue is not new for Richard Childress Racing. That’s been a selling point to some — it’s away from all the other teams — and an obstacle to others.

“Here’s where it gets real, though,” Petree said Friday. “When Richard (Childress) says ‘I don’t care what it costs. Go get somebody.’ We tried that. It didn’t work.”

So what then?

“We are looking at a longer-term solution,” Petree said.

He declined to reveal those plans. Petree said the idea of relocating the pit crews closer to Concord or Mooresville so they don’t have as long of a drive is not part of what he’s working on, but he said that such a notion is “not off the table.”

“We’re taking a fresh look at it,” Petree said of what to do next.

But that’s further away. Busch needs a better pit crew now.