CUP: RCR Turns 40/Martinsville Notebook

Sprint Cup

CUP: RCR Turns 40/Martinsville Notebook

Richard Childress began his NASCAR career 40 years ago...

Tom Jensen | Posted October 23, 2009 Martinsville, VA

Richard Childress celebrated his 40th NASCAR anniversary at his team’s headquarters Thursday. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

RCR TURNS 40 — Richard Childress Racing hosted a gala 40th anniversary celebration Thursday at the team’s headquarters in Welcome, N.C. The day began with a fan appreciation event and concluded with a 700-person dinner followed by an auction to benefit the Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Thursday’s auction raised $200,000. Previously, Richard and Judy Childress donated $5 million to establish the institute.

One of the highlights of the evening was a panel discussion with Childress, Junior Johnson, Bobby and Donnie Allison, NASCAR President Mike Helton and legendary MRN Radio broadcaster Barney Hall.

Johnson had the best line of the evening: Queried about the displacement of a customer engine of questionable legality he’d built that Bobby Allison used to win a race on the West Coast, Johnson refused to divulge exactly how many cubic inches it had. “We never sold the really big ‘uns,” Johnson said of his fabled “mountain motors.”

Childress recalled his first race at Talladega in 1969, when his prize money totaled about $7,000. “I’d never seen that much money in my life,” he said. “I thought I’d never have to work again.”

RATTLE HIS CAGE — The late Dale Earnhardt immortalized the phrase, “I didn’t mean to wreck him, I just wanted to rattle his cage a little” after he stuffed Terry Labonte into the wall at Bristol Motor Speedway to win the August night race in 1999. But with Earnhardt long gone, can anyone rattle the cage of points leader and three-time defending NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson? Maybe, maybe not.

“Jimmie’s cage can definitely get rattled but I think it’s harder to rattle his cage than most other guys,” said Brian Vickers, Johnson’s former Hendrick Motorsports teammate. “He has a very calm demeanor. It’s just his personality is similar to mine. You can definitely get under his skin. It’s a lot easier to get under Chad’s (Knaus, crew chief) skin than it is Jimmie’s. Chad gets a little worked up and I don’t think that’s any secret. He can get a little worked up, but his fire, I think, makes him good at what he does too. He’s very passionate about it. That’s why they make a good combination.”

“I think you do have to rattle their cage, but to me, the way you have to rattle their cage is you have to outrun them,” said Jeff Gordon. “You have to show what kind of team you are. That is obviously a tall order. They have been very, very strong.”

STILL LOOKING FOR SPEED — Roush Fenway Racing took NASCAR Sprint Cup championships in 2003 and ’04, following those up a year later by putting all five of the team’s cars in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. And in 2008, the team won 11 races, placing Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle second and third, respectively, in points. This year, though, has been a struggle, and a baffling one at that, something Biffle readily acknowledged Friday at Martinsville Speedway.

“It’s funny how it goes in cycles,” said Biffle. “You would think when you won all those races like that, you wouldn’t think about just throwing that whole notebook in the garbage can and starting over for this year and literally that’s what we’ve done. We’ve had to do that because the way we ran them last year just isn’t competitive anymore, and it really is mind-boggling to us why. Why are they not competitive when we won nine times and you just can’t run like that anymore? That’s really mysterious to us why that’s happened, so we’re looking around.”

The good news, Biffle said, is the team has improved in recent weeks.

“We’re hitting and missing on some stuff, but it’s gonna take us a little bit to really fine-tune that in – being at the race track for the first time with something quite a bit different,” he said. “We’re gonna have to keep dialing it in until we get back competitive again. I think we’re gaining on it. We’re definitely gaining on it.”

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Tom Jensen

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