Have a FaceBook, Twitter, or other social networking account?

Link them to your fanatic account!

Add An Account

TAKE ME TO...
NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: RCR Looking For Long - And Big - Haul
RCR drivers are all in the top six in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted March 10, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Jeff Burton, (Left) Clint Bowyer (Center), and Kevin Harvick (Right) make up the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Richard Childress Racing team. (Photo: Getty Images)

Jeff Burton says fans shouldn’t get overly excited about Richard Childress Racing’s excellent start this Sprint Cup season. He isn’t.

“I appreciate the attention, and I appreciate that we’ve done some things that make people say we’ve stepped our program up because we have,” Burton said Wednesday. “But we need to step our program up based on how we do the first 26 races (ending with the Chase cutoff). We’re here for a reason, and the reason is to win a championship.

“This company has to be built on championships, on winning at the highest level – not on fifth, not on seventh, not on competing for championships. It has to be built on winning championships. And until we do that we’re not a success.”

Although RCR is winless through the first four races of the season, its other numbers are impressive, especially when compared to last season. All three RCR drivers are in the top six in points. Kevin Harvick leads the point standings and has finished in the top 10 each race. Clint Bowyer is third, and Burton is sixth.

It’s unusual to report that one Chevrolet team has three drivers in the top six and that that team is not Hendrick Motorsports.

Still, Hendrick, winner of the past four championships, is the measuring stick. RCR hasn’t won a championship since the late Dale Earnhardt won one for the team in 1994. That’s a long drought for one of the sport’s marquee organizations, and it remains as a black cloud over RCR’s sprawling compound of buildings in Welcome, N.C.

“It’s hard to win a championship,” Burton said. “If you had told me 16 years ago that RCR will not win a championship for 16 years, I’d be shocked. But the sport has grown and changed and gotten harder.”

To address some of that change, Childress made some of his own last season. The year started dismally for the organization, and it became quite clear quite early that things were in disarray.

Childress made some moves within the teams, promoted crew chief Scott Miller to director of competition and oversaw a reorganization of both the departments within the shops and the networking that linked them.

“It was a complete overhaul,” Harvick said. “We got to the beginning of the year (2009), and we had taken the wrong direction on a lot of things. When you do that, you basically have to start over. It takes time.”

The RCR teams dumped some of the cars they had built and built new ones with different ideas and basics. “Our show car program has picked up,” joked Clint Bowyer about the number of rejected cars.

“Things were weighing on us,” Bowyer said. “We worked so hard last year trying to find the answers and just couldn’t. There’s nothing more disappointing and frustrating than that. It wasn’t like everybody was at home sitting on their butt. They were working harder than ever but didn’t get any reward out of it whatsoever. Everybody was chasing their tails trying to find the answer and causing even worse performance. We were able to finally hit on things and learn some things about this car and getting everybody back on board.”

With the exception of last week at Atlanta, RCR cars have been in contention to win every week. All three have a top-five finish.

The thing that’s currently missing is that victory. RCR hasn’t visited victory lane in a Sprint Cup points race since Oct. 11, 2008, when Burton won at Charlotte.

“We want to win,” Harvick said. “That’s what we’re here for. You’re not going to hear us complain about not doing well because we’re running better. But the fire to win is what drives us all. It’s what makes it all go around.”

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

Tunnelheads, Pick Your Starters! Win Weekly! Win Monthly! Win The Championship!
mike.hembree's avatar

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Hembree

MORE BY THIS AUTHOR
Advertising | Jobs | Feedback | FAQ | Terms of Use | NEW Privacy Policy | Ad Choices | Site Map
Fox Sports | FUEL TV | FX Network | National Geographic | IGN | AskMen
The Motor Sports Authority, SPEED and associated logos are registered trademarks of Speed Channel Inc.
All Rights Reserved © Speed Channel, Inc. 2012

All external links will open in a new browser window. SPEED.com does not endorse external sites.