Richard Childress: 2024 Has 'Been a Tough Year' Encouraged for 2025
To say it's been a struggle for Richard Childress Racing in 2024 would be an understatement. The two-car NASCAR Cup Series team failed to land either of its drivers -- Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon -- into the Playoffs, and Busch is still looking for his first win of the season, 30 races into the year.
This week, team owner Richard Childress stopped by Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour Podcast, where he talked about the trying season, and the team owner chalked up a lot of the team's misfortune to being swept up in accidents on track.
"Yeah, well, it's been one of those years," Childress explained. "You know, crashes, we've been involved in so many crashes. I think Austin was involved in [one] in the first six races this year, so that put him so far behind. Kyle, he's been involved in several crashes."
This past weekend, Busch was involved in yet another incident, this time, he spun out as the leader while attempting to lap Chase Briscoe with 30 laps remaining in the NASCAR Cup Series Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. Childress revealed that he has spoken to Busch this week about the incident, and Busch felt he could have used more restraint in his pursuit of lapping Briscoe, but Childress says he reassured his driver that they will win more races.
"I talked to him this morning, and he said maybe I should have been a little more patient," Childress said. "But you know, when you've got somebody breathing down your back, you're leading the race with 20-25 [laps] to go, you just make the move you think is right. And I told him, I said, 'Man, don't worry, we're going to win some races.'"
Childress, who is one of the more impassioned team owners in the sport, evidenced by his reaction to NASCAR's penalties toward Austin Dillon following his race win at Richmond Raceway a couple of months ago, seemed truly calm and cool on Harvick's show. Childress said that while 2024 has been a trying one for his team, he's excited for 2025, and eluded to some changes within the organization that will be revealed soon.
"It's been a tough year, but everybody has fought hard. We see that we've got to make some changes and we got more changes coming [that] you're going to be hearing about in the next month probably. And we're excited about next year," Childress stated. "You know, you can't dwell on the past, you have to learn from the past. You know, history teaches you. And that's what we've got to learn from is what happened this year and take it into next year with a positive attitude that we're not going to do it."
While Childress remains involved with his race team, the 79-year-old explains that his micromanagement days of the race team are long gone. But he still participates in team meetings and lends his advice where it's needed.
Childress Feels Changes to Next Gen Car Have Gone in Wrong Direction
This week, two race teams (23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports) issued an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR, and a large portion of the monopoly claims in the lawsuit revolved around NASCAR's implementation of the Next Gen car. Childress, whose team was heavily involved in the development of the car with NASCAR, says when NASCAR instituted the "spec"-style race car, he was preparing to have uncomfortable conversations with long-time members of his race team.
"As a company, we were going to end up having to lay a lot of people off," Childress explained. "I think about 40 people when we got this car because we built our own chassis and did so much work at RCR."
Then Childress went to the drawing board and struck deals on defense contracts with the United States military, which allowed Childress to not only not lay any employees off, but he has actually begun hiring additional hands to help out on the military work they've been doing.
As for the Next Gen car, Childress didn't hide his disdain for what the car has turned into. He feels the changes that have been required by NASCAR to the car since it was first drawn up have negatively impacted the racing product that the car puts on.
"Well, this car, Kevin, has become such an engineer-driven car. And when we first started it, I felt really good about this car," Childress admitted. "And then they kept taking spoiler away and adding horsepower and they were doing so much to it. And now it's so hard to pass. Before you had enough spoiler you could. It's always been tough to pass. But I think the changes they've made has been difficult for the racing. That's my opinion."
Passing has proven to be extremely difficult on short tracks, where some of the most beloved moments in NASCAR history have transpired. The Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway a few weeks ago was one of the worst iterations of that race from a competition standpoint that we've ever seen as Kyle Larson dominated by leading 462 of the 500 laps (most laps led at Bristol since 1977) and at no point did the race really have a wow moment.
NASCAR has been attempting to fine-tune changes on the Next Gen car to improve the racing product on short tracks, but it has fallen short so far.
The sanctioning body will hope to get things figured out for the 2025 season.
Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.