Childress refutes rumors, vows to rebound

CONCORD, N.C. -- For the first time in recent memory, Richard Childress doesn't own a car ranked in the Winston Cup top 10. In fact, none of his three cars rank in the top 20. Subsequently, RCR has been linked to several rumors of late.

Childress on Wednesday offered insight about the talk surrounding his organization, quickly nixing the gossip that he might soon leave the Winston Cup scene.

"Everybody has to have an exit strategy -- if you have a business plan you have to have an exit strategy in it," Childress said. "I have somewhat of an exit strategy, but at no time soon do I plan on getting out or selling out, or moving to Montana and sit on my porch and watch the river run.

"I don’t have any intentions of getting away from it. I have flustrations just like everybody, but it's my job. It's my life."

The last time his team needed a jump-start, in 1998, Childress set a precedent by flip-flopping crew chiefs, sending Larry McReynolds to direct Mike Skinner's crew and Kevin Hamlin from Skinner's bunch to Dale Earnhardt's team. With the team's current struggles, it was rumored that another switch could be in order.

"Well, there's a lot of rumors going around. Any time you're down people kick the (crap) out of you," Childress said. "They try to stir more stuff up, try to beat on you more, beat on you harder. So you've just got to be tougher when people beat on ya with all these things.

"We've talked about every scenario to make these racecars go better and these teams perform better. I'm not above making changes when the time comes, but right now we've got other issues at hand that we have to handle. Hell, I may make a change in the morning or I may make a change six months from now. That's the way I operate."

Though discontent with the results, Childress is inspired by the effort.

"I see us struggling a little, but I also see great potential in the people, the teams, the drivers, our sponsors," Childress said. "We have a tremendous amount of potential here, and this is when you really find out how good you are -- when you're not having a great season and everybody's trying to stick it in your … Well, that's how I feel."

Currently, Jeff Green ranks 24th in the Winston Cup point standings, and Robby Gordon 29th. Harvick is 31st, but when you consider that the Goodwrench team has fallen victim to four accidents and an engine failure, as well as NASCAR disallowance of Harvick in the field at Martinsville, it hasn't been as bad as it appears on paper.

"All we'd have had to do was have top-15 finishes in those races and it wouldn’t be such a disastrous looking year in the points," Childress said. " Our goal is to get these cars back in the top 15, and hopefully get one of 'em in the top 10 and to win races. Those goals aren't beyond reaching."

Some folks are comparing RCR's situation to that which Roush Racing endured a year ago. All four Roush teams struggled, but this year all have rebounded to rank in the top 10.

"I think adding the third team, that we were gonna do anyway with Kevin as the driver, we knew at that point it was going to be a tough transition, and it's been a tough transition," Childress said. "At the end of the day, it's like any business.

"When you plan for the future and you try to do things for the future to make things better for your company and your business, sometimes you have to take a step backwards to go two forwards."

All in all, Childress is still quite content doing what he's doing, and plans to be around a while.

"Times have changed a lot, and I guess you measure happiness in different ways," Childress said. "In today's world, yeah I'm happy. I've been happier winning championships and races -- and we'll get back to winning races and championships -- but a lot of things have changed.

"I still enjoy racing, though, and I want to keep racing."