Tough Guys, Tough Times

As the sound of cars roaring around the track is muffled by the walls of the hauler for his No. 29 Goodwrench Chevrolet, Richard Childress talks about his three-car team’s struggles this season, paying equal attention to questions coming his way and practice speeds being posted on a monitor inside the hauler.

“I’ve been here,” Childress says of the sport that has consumed over 30 years of his life. “We’ve had bad years. We had bad years before with (Mike) Skinner. We’ve had bad years with Dale (Earnhardt). We had four or five bad years and everybody had written Dale off in ’97. We came back in ’98 and really ran good, won races.

“Sometimes you don’t understand—this is a really humbling sport. You don’t understand sometimes why you’re running good and why you’re winning races and why everything is really working. Then all of a sudden it can go the other way just as quick. You can’t understand why the caution flag comes out or why it seems you get hung up in all these crashes and stuff. That’s part of the business. It’s a tough business to be in.”

Tough is being redefined at RCR this season, as drivers Jeff Green, Robby Gordon, and Kevin Harvick have spent much of the season trying to claw their way up the points ladder. By the time the schedule was one-third complete, Green was 23rd in points, tops among the group, besting Gordon’s 29th and Harvick’s 33rd. All were winless.

It’s not just the lack of wins and the poor points showing that have hounded RCR. Rumors have circulated about other teams attempting to steal Harvick away, and Gordon appears to get no respect on the track. During the running of The Winston, NASCAR’s annual all-star event, Kurt Busch spun Gordon out, then, in post-race interviews, admitted to doing it on purpose in order to bring out a caution. And there are the incidents at Bristol and Martinsville involving Harvick, which together led NASCAR to suspend Harvick from the Winston Cup race at Martinsville.

Even without all the wild stuff, this is not going to be a typical year for RCR. Childress expected growing pains from adding a third car to the mix, while also bringing in two new drivers and building a new shop to house all three cars in an integration process intended to mold the teams into one unit.

“We knew it’s like anything in any business besides racing: Sometimes you’ve got to take a step backwards to go two forward, and we think that’s hurt us a little,” says Childress. “But we do see the daylight hopefully at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not the train.”

Eye Of The Storm

Yet the organization that twice put Harvick in Victory Lane as a Winston Cup rookie last year, while also guiding him to the Busch Series driving championship, and the organization that finished the 2001 season by giving Gordon his first Cup win, was surprisingly weak in the early part of the schedule, recording just two Top 10s and four Top 12s in the first dozen races.

“You’ve just got to take it and never give up,” says Childress. “You just never give up, and you just know that you’re better than where you’re running and where you’re finishing.”

In an attempt to improve performance, Childress announced in late May that he would swap the entire crews of the Harvick and Gordon cars. The decision came during the week after the Coca-Cola 600, an event in which Harvick finished 34th and Gordon 16th. Childress’ decision was not totally without precedent at RCR. In 1998, Childress reversed the roles of his crew chiefs, putting Kevin Hamlin with Earnhardt’s No. 3 car while placing Larry McReynolds with the No. 31 car of Skinner.

Childress makes no secret of his preference for drivers who race aggressively. It was a style that made a legend of Dale Earnhardt and helped deliver six Winston Cup titles to Childress’ Welcome, North Carolina, shop. Aggressive action isn’t limited to the track with RCR’s current group of drivers, however.

At the spring Busch Series race at Bristol, Harvick’s car hit the wall after getting a nudge from Greg Biffle. Harvick was knocked from the event but waited for Biffle to exit his car at the conclusion of the race. With television cameras in tow, Harvick rushed Biffle, hurdled the rear decklid of Biffle’s car, and grabbed the collar of Biffle’s uniform. The two stay locked up, nose to nose, as Harvick screamed at Biffle. NASCAR responded by fining Harvick $15,000 and placing him on probation until August 28.

The next day at Bristol, Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. tangled after the Winston Cup race. Gordon spun Earnhardt Jr.’s car around on pit road. NASCAR slapped Gordon with a $10,000 fine and, like Harvick, placed him on probation until August 28.

After heading for Texas, the Winston Cup Series rolled into Martinsville. Harvick entered a Craftsman Truck Series race the day before the Winston Cup event. During the truck race, Harvick spun out Coy Gibbs’ truck, and NASCAR ordered Harvick off the track. The sanctioning body then suspended Harvick from the next day’s Cup race, fined him $35,000, and extended his probation until the end of the calendar year. The one-race suspension was unprecedented in Winston Cup.

The next day Childress chastised NASCAR for the suspension: “NASCAR had to do something in response to Kevin’s actions during the Truck race yesterday, but I think their response was completely wrong. I have not seen the clip of Kevin’s actions during the Truck race so I can’t comment on what he did. He has had problems in the Busch and Truck Series and had been on probation for his actions, but the decision to ‘park’ him during the Winston Cup race is wrong. NASCAR should keep the actions and punishments separate to each series.”

Searching For The Right Mix

A contrite Harvick issued a statement two days after the Martinsville race, saying the suspension “definitely got my attention.” He also said, “I’m still learning how NASCAR works and what is involved in the decisions they make.” Asked later to elaborate on what he learned from the Martinsville incident, Harvick says the sport has “a lot of politics.” He then talks about the far-reaching ramifications of his actions. “The politics are magnified,” he says. “The media is magnified. Everything is magnified times 100 compared to what it’s like anywhere else. Like I said, I learned a lot in that situation. The biggest thing I learned is how many branches are hanging off our tree, and there’s a bunch.”

Five weeks after Harvick’s suspension, Childress, sitting in the No. 29 hauler, was asked if he could have done more to prevent Harvick’s Martinsville blow-up. “Not really,” he says. “I look at all the things that built up to it. Oh sure, right now I would tell him, ‘Hey, you can’t go out and do that.’ But I don’t know the whole story—I wasn’t there. As far as being able to comment on it, it just was one of them deals that we all wished hadn’t happened, and Kevin wished hadn’t happened. All of us do. It wasn’t good for any of us.

“I have told him, ‘You’re going to have to keep driving as hard and, yeah, you may get in a little trouble. You’ve got to stay on it, but you’ve got to be smart. You’ve got to be smart in whatever you do. That’s the difference—you’ve got to be smart.’”

Harvick, when asked if he feels handcuffed by NASCAR, answers swiftly. “Oh no,” he says. “The day that they handcuff me and tell me that I can’t race, I’ll quit.”

Apparently there’s not a lot he’d change in his driving style.

“There’s obviously situations where you’re going to want to go up and knock the hell out of somebody and know you’re not going to be able to do it, and probably don’t need to anyway,” says Harvick. “It’s something that the day that I can’t race is the day that I don’t want to be here.”

Gordon’s Best Shot

Harvick is 26 and in the middle of his second season in Winston Cup, having been thrust into Cup competition a year earlier than planned following the death of Earnhardt last season. Gordon, meanwhile, is 33 and has never campaigned a full NASCAR schedule. Morgan-McClure Motorsports released him after five races in 2001. The Childress ride marks the 10th owner Gordon has driven for in Winston Cup, counting a partial season in a car Gordon himself owned and drove. So while Harvick’s impetuous nature is flavored with youth and inexperience, Gordon’s is seasoned with a checkered Winston Cup past.

Gordon’s lone Cup win, at New Hampshire the day after Thanksgiving last year, was not without controversy, as Gordon was able to draw the ire of NASCAR’s quintessential good guy, Jeff Gordon. As the two Gordons raced for the lead at New Hampshire, Robby, running second to Jeff’s lead, slammed Jeff’s car from behind and slipped by him. After a caution flag slowed cars due to an ensuing tangle between Jeff Gordon and Mike Wallace, Jeff drove around the track to return the hit to Robby, drawing a one-lap penalty from NASCAR. “He should be embarrassed to win like that,” Jeff Gordon said after the race.

Back up to the middle of last season and see that Robby Gordon cost himself a shot at a road course win by racing with future teammate Harvick at Sears Point. While trying to prevent a hard-charging Harvick from getting back on the lead lap, Gordon, leading at the time, reportedly ignored pleas from his crew to let Harvick go—allowing Tony Stewart to slip by for the win.

Despite past problems, Robby Gordon professes to be learning from his experiences: “I even push the button sometimes and tell my guys, ‘OK, I learned from that now,’” Gordon says. “Don’t just talk about it—learn from it. That’s some of the things we’ve been trying to work on this year, to try and position ourselves where if we have a 12th-place car we take a 12th-place finish and bring it home.

“We should have won two races last year. One time the TV camera catches fire, and what do you do different there? The other deal, yeah, maybe you let Kevin Harvick go by. Then again you’re thinking he’s going to be your teammate and he’ll give you a little bit of room, too.”

Philosophy Of A Veteran

Green, who will turn 40 in September, has the more mature, steady personality of Childress’ trio. But by no means is Green, the 2000 Busch Series champion, a pushover. Childress says Green caught his eye when he battled hard with Matt Kenseth in a Busch Series race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in May 2001, a race won by Green. “Matt pushed him out of the way and he came back the next lap and pushed Matt out of the way and won the race,” says Childress. “I mean, all of them (the RCR drivers) are aggressive.”

Channeling that aggression has offered the biggest challenge for RCR this season, but Childress insists he would have it no other way. “It’s a challenge,” he says, “but I had rather have that challenge, having the different personalities, than have a driver who you’ve got to sit there and try to get pumped up to drive the car harder or get a driver you have to say, ‘Hey, you’ve got to get a little aggressive’ when it comes time to get aggressive. You’ve just got to know when to do it and how to do it.”

Green’s driving philosophy has been built on years of racing experience—the type that brings a 616-point championship margin and 25 Top-5 finishes in the Busch Series. Both are series records and both came during his 2000 title run. “I think the guys know I drive them as clean as they’ll drive me, and that’s my philosophy,” says Green. “I’ll drive that guy as clean as he’ll drive me, and I’ve got a good memory. I’ve got a good memory that if somebody drives me dirty I’m going to drive them dirty. For the most part, all these Cup drivers know what they’re out there to do. They’re not going to take anything away from you if they don’t have to. Then that’s my philosophy, too.

“You know, if you knock people out of the way, sure, it might help you that particular night, but nights down the road it’s not going to help you. It’s going to hurt you more than it’s going to help you. That’s just the way I think about it. If you keep that in your head, a level mind, and get your car working good, you ought to be able to pass a guy without knocking him out of the way. When you’re sitting over there in Victory Lane and you did all the right things and didn’t knock people out of the way to do it, I think it means more to you when you do that.”

Adapting To Change

Victory Lane was an elusive destination for Richard Childress Racing as the schedule neared its mid-point. Green’s 11th at California was his personal best in the first 12 races. He followed that up with a 13th at Richmond. Gordon was 12th at California, 13th in the season-opener at Daytona, and eighth at Dover, marking his top finishes. Harvick, meanwhile, appeared ready to turn the corner with a third at Darlington and a 10th at Bristol, in consecutive races, before dropping to 25th at Texas. Then the Martinsville debacle hit. In the four races following his Martinsville suspension, Harvick finished 28th, 35th, 40th, and 34th.

“The competition level is so high in NASCAR Winston Cup racing today that very small interruptions in your strategy or your planning can set you back for a period of time,” says Geoff Smith, president of Roush Racing.

Smith speaks from experience. During the 2001 season, three of Roush’s four drivers were winless and only one, Jeff Burton, finished in the Top 10 in points. By late June this year, only Burton was winless and all four Roush drivers were in the Top 11 in the point standings. That improvement took a concerted effort that consumed much of last season, Smith says.

“We went through our entire program from top to bottom last year—from the aerodynamic program to the chassis, from the R&D program to the engines, to the drivers, to the shock absorbers, to tires, to pit stops,” says Smith. “Every piece of the competition puzzle had to be polished on over the course of last year, and it took us awhile to just get all the chemistry back in place.”

The process went beyond changes in hardware, however, as Roush began the season with a crew switch that moved Mark Martin’s long-time crew chief, Jimmy Fennig, over to Kurt Busch’s team, while Ben Leslie and crew moved to Martin’s team.

“We switched entire teams, crew chiefs and all the way through, as did Richard,” says Smith. “There will be an uplift in spirit that comes from making chemistry changes, because obviously those people are good people. They’ve had successful experiences before. When the chemistry begins to fade a little what happens is they have a tendency to believe they can’t get any more out of one another, that everyone is trying as hard as they can, and so frustration starts to set in. Chemistry changes like this, when you’ve got really solid people like Richard does, I would expect that would boost the team up.”

During his 30 years as a car owner, Junior Johnson won six Winston Cup titles and dealt with his share of adversity. As an observer of the sport today, Johnson is aware of, and can relate to, some of the situations faced by RCR this season, from Harvick’s suspension to Gordon’s problems. “When some of that stuff wears off, after you see stuff like that happen, that team and that organization will turn around,” Johnson says. “They’ve just got to go back and put all their stuff in place and go forward with it. Their team has got too much talent in it to say it’s in a slump or something like that.”

Childress clearly understands the dynamics involved with regrouping. “It’s a different NASCAR today, in terms of policies and a lot of things,” Childress says. “It’s just like RCR is a different organization today than we were. The whole sport has changed and you have to change with time. Today, being as visible a sport as we are, and as visible an organization as RCR is, we all have to change operations and how we operate.

“But it’s really, really hard to accept some change. But if you don’t change and you don’t accept change, then you need to get out of the business.”