Childress looking for increased speed from his team's cars
By Jared Turner - SceneDaily Staff Writer
Saturday, May 10, 2008
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DARLINGTON, S.C. – Car owner Richard Childress doesn’t mind that his driver Clint Bowyer’s unlikely win last weekend at Richmond International Raceway was largely overlooked.
Childress did point out something else on Friday at Darlington Raceway, however: his formidable three-car stable still has room for improvement.
“We know we’ve got to be better," the six-time Cup champion car owner said. “It’s kind of like playing golf. You can’t have two or three birdies and then a bunch of balls in the water. We’re trying to keep our balls out of the water.”
Heading into Saturday night’s Dodge Challenger 500, the Richard Childress Racing entries of Jeff Burton, Bowyer and Kevin Harvick are second, fourth and fifth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings, respectively. But none of the RCR cars have spent the amount of time out front in the season’s first 10 races that Childress would like to see.
Even on the two occasions in 2008 when a Childress car has gone to victory lane – Burton at Bristol in March and Bowyer at Richmond – the winning RCR drivers have combined to lead just 15 laps.
“We just need to have enough speed to lead more laps,” said Childress when asked what he deems his organization’s biggest weakness. “We’ve got the consistency, we’ve got the performance, we’ve got the long runs, we’ve got a lot of stuff working but I’d like to see more speed to be able to lead more laps.”
Though Bowyer led only 13 laps en route to his victory last Saturday at Richmond, the win would have likely garnered more media attention had it not been for the late-race contact between Hendrick Motorsports’ Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch.
The contact, which sent Earnhardt Jr. into the wall while he and Busch raced for the lead, allowed Bowyer to inherit the lead that he never lost. It also set off a firestorm of criticism towards Busch that essentially trumped Bowyer’s second career Cup triumph.
“I learned a lot time ago, ‘Don’t let what everybody talks about bother you,’” said Childress. “If you did, I’d have been crazy years ago. It’s a little frustrating. Everybody wants to talk about two of the big organizations [Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing] and we’ve been there for the last couple years and I think we’re making a statement that we can be a contender.”
Childress knows that if his teams can lead more laps and perform at an even higher level, the publicity will take care of itself.
“We’ve just got to keep being consistent, we’ve got to keep working on our cars, getting them better [and] getting them a little closer,” he said. “We’ve had a couple of cars this year in a position to be there to win at the end. The competition’s tough.
“Just to be where we’re at we feel really good about that but we know we’ve got to get better. We’ve got to get better.”
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Clint Bowyer
Comments
1 response to "Childress looking for increased speed from his team's cars"
Tim Edick said:
May 10, 2008 at 1:43 PMWhen you talk about class and who's got it, well remember Richard Childress. He's right up there with Rick and Joe, and maybe even a better spokesman for the sport. He has a stable of talented drivers and the respect of his peers, and fans. His whole organization is better now than it was when Dale was his kingpin.
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