It wasn’t always like this. Richard Childress Racing wasn’t always scrambling to win a race here and there, wasn’t always living more on its reputation than its performance.
Back then, Dale Earnhardt made a difference. He was larger than life during his time at RCR with his 67 wins, six championships and get-the-hell-out-of-my-way driving style. If Earnhardt’s iconic black No. 3 wasn’t feared when it took to the track, it was darn well respected.
But those days are long gone, and so is Earnhardt and so is the competitiveness that separated RCR from the pack. Now, it’s part of the pack, struggling to break out, to regain its identity. For the most part, it hasn’t been successful, and despite Austin Dillon’s win at Richmond last week, the road ahead doesn’t look any easier.
It’s a team trapped in the past, haunted by Earnhardt’s ghost. The gap between RCR and NASCAR’s big three, Joe Gibbs Racing, Hendrick and Penske, is not narrowing and looks to be getting wider. Childress keeps shuffling the pieces but they are basically the same pieces that didn’t work before and rearranging them isn’t going to make them work now.
There is a saying in NASCAR to the effect that if you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse. That simply means that if you’re content to keep on doing the things that are working for you now, you’re not improving and others will pass you.
That seems to be what’s happened at RCR. Kevin Harvick, who took over as RCR’s lead driver following the death of Earnhardt, won 23 races in 13 years there. Harvick kept the team from collapsing, but it fell behind the big three.
When Harvick left RCR to join Stewart-Haas in 2014. his career took off. At the time, led by Stewart and his crew chief, Greg Zipadelli, S-H ranked with Gibbs, Hendrick and Penske as one of NASCAR’s Power 4.
Unlike RCR, it was innovative and aggressive and with S-H backing, Harvick became one of the top competitors in the sport, something that never would have happened had he stayed at RCR. Over his 10 years with S-H, he won 37 races and a championship.
RCR, meanwhile, became mired in mediocrity, stuck in the past. It became very much an ingrown operation, with Childress bringing in his grandson, Dillon, as the lead driver because the couldn’t get anybody else. Although he had been successful at lower levels, hiring Dillon further tarnished RCR’s image.
“Austin has earned his way from the time we put him in a Bandolero car,” Childress said as reported on NASCAR’s media site after the Richmond race. “I said you guys (Austin and his brother Ty Dillon) have to earn your way.
“He (Austin) went out and won a truck championship. He went out and won an xfinity championship. He’s won races in everything he’s ever driven,” Childress declared.
And to be fair, Dillon has won six races at RCR. While that doesn’t compare with NASCAR’s big boys, it’s a solid number for a tier two team, and RCR is now a tier two team.
At that level only Kyle Busch with 63 wins, Brad Keselowski with 36 and Tyler Reddick with eight have more among current drivers, and 60 of Busch’s wins came when he was with two of the top teams in the sport, four with Hendrick and 56 with Gibbs.
Keselowski has a similar record, with 34 of his 36 coming when he was with Penske.
Only Reddick, who drove briefly for Childress before jumping to the up-and-coming 23XI team, has all his wins at a tier two level. So, if you subtract Busch and Keselowski’s wins with elite teams, Reddick has the most in tier two with eight and Dillon is next with six. Busch would have three and Keselowski 2.
This, though, only masks how bad things have gotten at RCR. Even with Busch as its lead driver; he came on board in 2023 after he couldn’t work out a new contract with Gibbs, RCR has yet to get a handle on NASCAR’s Next Gen car, which debuted in 2022.
Busch won three races for RCR in 2023 but is currently on an 82 race winless streak. He’s 40, and his best years are behind him, but put him in a winning car and he can still win; RCR just doesn’t build winning cars.
The Old Guy Sport competition index, which measures competitiveness on the track as opposed to the NASCAR point system which is based on simply finishing races, shows how far RCR has fallen.
Disregarding superspeedway races (Atlanta, Daytona and Talladega), which tell you nothing about the driver or the team because avoiding the big wreck and being in the right lane at the right time determine the winner, Dillon currently has 64 points in the OGS competition index, and 63 came in the Richmond race.
Busch has only 38 points and has been competitive in only two races, both road courses. Truth be told, Busch would probably love to go to a better team to finish his career, but there’s nothing else available.
“We talk about it (getting better), get the key people together, talk about what we need to do to make our company better, make the cars better,” Childress said.
“These guys have stepped up to the plate; everybody, John, I call him John K Klausmeier (RCR’s technical director)- I think that’s his last name, he’s doing the job for us. Chevy has a tech center, we’re working there. Effort is being put in for sure to change it and turn things around,” Childress declared.
Still, when the team owner isn’t sure of the technical director’s last name., you’ve got a problem. When you talk about changes but don’t really change anything, you’ve got a problem. When you’re putting in effort but you don’t know what you should be working on, you’ve got a problem.
RCR’s people may be stepping up to the plate, but they’re striking out. And RCR is not going to get better unless it brings in better people who have a better idea of what you need to do to win today. Because what worked for Dale Earnhardt won’t work now.
NASCAR NOTES
No race this week. Old Guy Sport does not count superspeedway races (Atlanta, Daytona, Talledega) because winning at those tracks is almost entirely dependent on luck and has little to do with how the driver or the team performs.
Last week’s OGS Richmond picks: 1-Chase Briscoe, 2-Denny Hamlin, 3-Kyle Larson. Richmond winner: Austin Dillon. OGS season record: 10-10.
OGS competition index top 10 after 21 races: 1-Hamlin 470 points, 2-Larson 366, 3-Briscoe 328, 4-William Byron 326, Christopher Bell 326, 6-Shane van Gisbergen 295, 7-Ryan Blaney 293, 8-Bubba Wallace 160, 9-Alex Bowman 158, 10-
Chase Elliott 147.
