Randall Burnett returns as crew chief for the No. 8 team and driver Kyle Busch at Richard Childress Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series. The 2024 season is Burnett’s fifth leading the team and his eighth as a crew chief at RCR since joining the organization in 2017.

The 2023 season was the first for Burnett and driver Kyle Busch. The team enjoyed a strong start together, winning in just their second Cup Series points race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., in February. The win was history making for Busch, who set the all-time NASCAR record with 19 consecutive seasons with a victory, breaking a tie with Richard Petty. The victory also marked the third consecutive season that Burnett led the No. 8 team to the Cup Series Playoffs.

The 2023 season would yield two more victories for the No. 8 team with Busch winning at Talladega Superspeedway and World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Ill. The victory at Talladega was the second for Busch and the 13th for team owner Richard Childress.

But it was the group’s third win of the 2023 season at World Wide Technology Raceway that was extra special for Burnett. Located near his hometown of Fenton, Mo., Busch scored a convincing victory, winning the pole position and leading the most laps (121 of 243). Burnett raced go karts at the track while growing up in the area and called team’s dominating victory “a big deal.” In addition to the three victories and earning a spot in the Playoffs, Busch and the team finished the season with 10 top-five and 17 top-10 finishes and placed 14th in the final driver standings.

Burnett built and raced his own late models near his hometown and later moved south to attend The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he earned a degree in mechanical engineering.

Soon after graduation, Burnett started his NASCAR career with Chip Ganassi Racing. He spent 10 years with the Ganassi, serving as data acquisition engineer, lead race engineer, 7-post analysis engineer and lead team engineer. He played a key role in the team’s victories in the 2010 Daytona 500 and later that season in the Brickyard 400. In 2014 Burnett worked closely with Kyle Larson during this rookie season in the Cup Series, assisting the team in securing eight top-five and 17 top-10 finishes.

In 2016, Burnett got his first opportunity as crew chief in the Cup Series when he joined JTG Daugherty Racing and driver A.J. Allmendinger. He led the team to two top-five finishes and nine top-10 finishes, highlighted by second-place finish at Martinsville.

One year later Burnett joined Richard Childress Racing as crew chief in the NASCAR Xfinity Series working with a variety of drivers, including Austin Dillon, Paul Menard, Matt Tifft and Ben Kennedy. He and Tift were teamed together in 2018 and made the series Playoffs, finishing the season sixth overall in the final driver standings.

Burnett remained in the Xfinity Series in 2019 and was paired with Reddick. The duo won the series championship, collecting six wins in the process. The team was also incredibly consistent, racking up 24 top-five finishes in 33 races (average finish was 6.3 despite failing to finish three races).

In 2020, Burnett made the leap with Reddick to the NASCAR Cup Series where he has steadily built the team into a unit that consistently runs up front. The group scored nine top-10s in their first Cup season together then racked up 16 top-10s, won their first pole at Circuit of the Americas, and qualified for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs in 2021.

Burnett and Reddick enjoyed a breakout season in 2022. The team claimed its first Cup victory at Road America and backed up that performance with a dominating win from the pole at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The team scored their third win of the season in September at Texas Motor Speedway, Reddick’s first Cup win on an oval.