by Patrick Zier | Aug 20, 2025 |
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.
by Patrick Zier | Aug 12, 2025 |
It was a mistake, and Shane van Gisbergen doesn’t make mistakes, at least not on road courses. And here he was, leading the race on the last lap at Watkins Glen, hounded by Chris Buescher with only a few corners to go. No matter. He had this.
And then he didn’t. Going into one of the final turns, SVG got a bit high, allowing Buescher to close on him. Buescher tapped SVG’s bumper, causing him to wobble, then got inside him to take the lead.
SVG would close on Buescher one last time, but as he tried to go outside, Buescher came down to block, SVG fishtailed slightly, and Buescher took the checkered flag.
That was then, 2024 to be exact, and this is now. Then, SVG was running 12 races in a car prepared by Kaulig Racing, a nondescript NASCAR team which has never been competitive.
Now, he has a fulltime ride with Trackhouse Racing, a well organized tier two team just a notch below the top Toyota, Chevy and Ford organizations.
Trackhouse is led by Ross Chastain, who has won at least one race every year since NASCAR’s Next Gen car came on line in 2022, and the pairing of road course king SVG and Chastain, who has been very competitive on the ovals, has given the group some extra juice.
The team also has a third driver, Daniel Suarez, but he has been a disappointment and is being let go at the end of this season.
SVG’s rise to the top in NASCAR has been meteoric and totally unexpected. From New Zealand, the 36-year-old is a veteran of the Australian Supercar series which runs strictly on road courses.
But he was a complete unknown when he ran the Chicago street race in 2023, his first time in a stock car, and won. And he hasn’t looked back.
Last Sunday, he avenged his 2024 loss at Watkins Glen by winning there, his fourth straight road course win of the year. Although he is only 25th in points, that makes him second in the NASCAR playoff standings (SVG is sixth in the Old Guy Sport competition index) and the four wins are the most ever in NASCAR for a rookie driver.
Justin Marks, who owns Trackhouse and brought SVG to Chicago for his first race, is not surprised by his road course success. “What he’s doing right now is sort of why he’s in the car,” Marks commented on NASCAR’s media site after SVG’s win at the Glen. “We feel like he had an opportunity to do this.
“But when these wins just keep coming in the way that they are and the fact that the rest of the series, the rest of the drivers, are watching him and getting better but he’s getting better too, and it seems like they can’t do anything with him right now, is just an amazing thing to watch,” Marks said.
While it’s easy to concentrate on SVG’s success, all of it has come on road courses. It’s been entirely different for him on ovals, where his best finish so far is a 14th at Charlotte. He is simply not competitive on the tracks that host the majority of NASCAR races.
And while he intimidates the competition on road courses; mentally, the other drivers almost concede the victory to him and admit they are racing to be best in class, his performance on ovals must improve markedly before he can be considered among NASCAR’s elite.
“I’m very encouraged by his rate of learning on the ovals,” Marks remarked. “I think he has only just begun to put it together. I think the ceiling is really high for him, and he’s here for a while.”
That may be, but it hasn’t really shown up yet. SVG has consistently run around 20th on ovals this year. Still, he’s made the playoffs, he’s proven he can win and he seems to be getting more comfortable in his car.
Plus, Trackhouse has put everything it’s got behind him. “If you can catch lightning in a bottle like we have with SVG, you’ve got to really lean into it,” Marks declared. Hard.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Richmond: 1-Chase Briscoe, 2-Denny Hamlin, 3-Kyle Larson. Last year’s winners at Richmond: First race-Hamlin. Second race-Austin Dillon. Top five in first race: 1-Hamlin, 2-Joey Logano, 3-Larson, 4-Martin Truex, 5-Chase Elliott. Second race: 1-Dillon, 2-Hamlin, 3-Tyler Reddick, 4-Bubba Wallace, 5-Ross Chastain.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport competition index picks at Watkins Glen: 1-Shane van Gisbergen, 2-Elliott, 3-Reddick. Watkins Glen winner: Shane van Gisbergen. OGS season record: 10-9.
OGS competition index after 20 races: 1-Hamlin 470 points, 2-Larson 365, 3-Briscoe 328, 4-William Byron 326, Christopher Bell 326, 6-van Gisbergen 295, 7-Ryan Blaney 258, 8-Wallace 149, 9-Elliott 147, 10-Ty Gibbs 122.
OGS competition index on short tracks (tracks similar to Richmond): 1-Hamlin 211, 2-Larson 135, 3-Briscoe 112, 4-Bell 110, 5-Byron 80, 6-Elliott 50, 7-Blaney 37, Brad Keselowski 37, 9-Gibbs 40, 10-Alex Bowman 34.
by Patrick Zier | Aug 10, 2025 |
Last year, Ford’s Joey Logano won the NASCAR Cup championship. He didn’t deserve it. In 2023, Ford’s Ryan Blaney won the championship and he didn’t deserve it, either.
They won despite the fact that Ford, and it’s top team, Penske Racing, have struggled to be competitive in NASCAR’s Next Gen car, which came on line in 2022. And despite having had four years to work with it, Ford’s performance has been getting worse, not better.
In 2022, all three manufacturers, Chevy, Ford and Toyota, were new to the car and competition was close as they all tried to figure it out.
Using the Old Guy Sport competition index as a guide, which awards points based on winning races and competing in them rather than just finishing, the most important criteria in the NASCAR system, Logano won the championship but four other drivers were within 63 points of him.
All told, the three Penske drivers, Logano, Blaney and Austin Cindric, totaled 805 points. In 2023, Chevy’s Kyle Larson, who had been one of the four drivers right behind Logano in 2022 with 438 points, was first overall with 643 points.
Penske, meanwhile, started to tail off. Blaney, with 311 points, was Ford’s top finisher in eighth place. Logano added 202 and Cindric just one for a total of 514.
In an effort to help Ford, NASCAR allowed the manufacturer to redesign its body to improve aerodynamic downforce, and for a while, that seemed to be working, although the other manufacturers were doing more to make their cars better as well.
Penske’s three drivers showed definite improvement over 2023 although none of them were competitive with Larson, who collected 739 points, far more than anybody else and almost double Penske’s best driver, Blaney, who finished sixth with 392. Logano added 250 and Cindric 101 for a team total of 743.
That led to some optimism going into this year, but once again, the Penske Fords are struggling. Twenty-three races into the season and with the playoffs looming on the horizon, Blaney, with 239 points, is the team’s best in sixth place, far behind Denny Hamlin who has 470. Logano, with 91, and Cindric, with 37 follow.
Despite this; Hamlin’s total of 470 points is more than the three Penske drivers combined, all the Penske cars are once again eligible for the playoffs because all of them have won a race.
It’s conceivable, in fact, that because of the way NASCAR has this set up, Cindric could end up being the champion. And if people felt that Logano was an undeserving winner last year, wait until you hear the howls if Cindric pulls it off.
By themselves, wins alone should never be an automatic ticket to the playoffs. The driver’s entire body of work needs to be considered. Wins are important, but taken by themselves, they cheapen the championship.
Take Shane van Gisbergen. Like Cindric, van Gisbergen is in because he has won three races. That’s impressive on its face, the problem is van Gisbergen’s three wins have all come on road courses. Put him on an oval and he is, in a word, terrible.
He has no business being in the playoffs any more than Cindric does, yet there they are. The final irony to all this is that because only four drivers compete for the championship in the final race, and none of them might win it. the champion will be the playoff driver with the highest finish.
And that means Cindric could finish 37th in the final race and win the championship if the other three finish 38th, 39th and 40th, respectively. That’s unlikely but if there’s an early wreck…
Oh well. We’ve already had two undeserving champions in a row, might as well make it three. For sure, NASCAR doesn’t care.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Watkins Glen: 1-Shane van Gisbergen, 2-Chase Elliott, 3-Tyler Reddick. Last year’s winner at Watkins Glen: Chris Buescher. Top five at Watkins Glen last year: 1-Buescher, 2-van Gisbergen, 3-Carson Hocevar, 4-Ross Chastain, 5-Zane Smith.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport competition index picks at Iowa: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Kyle Larson, 3-Christopher Bell. Last week’s Iowa winner: William Byron. OGS competition index record after 19 races: 9-9.
OGS competition index top 10 after 19 races: 1-Hamlin 470, 2-Larson 365, 3-Chase Briscoe 316, 4-Byron 306, 5-Bell 286, 6-Ryan Blaney 239, 7-van Gisbergen 234, 8-Bubba Wallace 149, 9-Ellott 147, 10-Ty Gibbs 122.
OGS competition index top 10 on road courses (tracks similar to Watkins Glen): 1-van Gisbergen 224, 2-Bell 105, 3-Elliott 80, 4-Reddick 65, 5-Gibbs 51, 6-Michael McDowell 48, 7-Briscoe 47, 8-Byron 40, 9-Kyle Busch 38, 10-Hamlin 20, Alex Bowman 20.
