Shake-ups, lackluster results mark RCR's year

WELCOME, N.C. -- In no way did the performance of Richard Childress Racing during the 2002 season measure up to their lofty expectations.

	Robby Gordon (left) and Richard Childress. Credit: Autostock

Coming off a year in which Kevin Harvick won the Raybestos Rookie of the Year Award and finished ninth in the standings, and Robby Gordon broke through with a victory in the New Hampshire season finale, great things were expected this season.

As it turned out, the newest RCR driver, former NASCAR Busch Series champion Jeff Green, had the best team. All the misfortune that Harvick dodged in a truly magical 2001 season bit him in 2002. And Gordon, while extremely competitive at times, struggled equally and saw few bright spots in the results column.

The depth of Childress' despair was reached in early June, when he made wholesale swaps of the crews of Harvick and Gordon. From crew chief on down, virtually the entire crews of the No. 29 GM Goodwrench Chevrolet and No. 31 Cingular Chevrolet switched uniforms, beginning at the Pocono 500.

In the end, even Green's team, which bested his mates by finishing 17th in the drivers' standings to Gordon's 20th and Harvick's 21st, wasn't exempt.

In a big-picture move made after the end of the season, Childress hired veteran crew chief Mike Beam to head Green's operation and moved Green's head mechanic, Todd Berrier to head RCR's organization-wide research and development program.

Richard Childress Racing  •  Robby Gordon's 2002 Stats  •  Jeff Green's 2002 Stats  •  Kevin Harvick's 2002 Stats  Kevin Harvick scored RCR's lone victory this year: the Tropicana 400 at Chicagoland.

Green and Berrier were confounded in 2002 by an inability to reach Victory Lane. Throughout the season they were the most consistent of Childress' teams. At the time of the team switch they were 23rd in the standings to Gordon's 27th and Harvick's 30th.

Consistency was the only thing Green had going, as he ended the season with four top-fives and six top-10 finishes.

Speaking of confounded, that was the state of Harvick and crew chief Kevin Hamlin through the first 13 races of the season. From the depths of missing the race at Martinsville due to a one-race suspension for an incident in a Craftsman Truck Series race, Harvick did well to rebuild his season. At the point of the switch, he had only one top-five and two top-10s.

At Pocono in June, Harvick was paired with Gil Martin, who along with Gordon had scored his first Winston Cup victory in 2001. In the final 23 races of the season, they rebounded to score a victory, four top-five and six top-10 finishes.

Year in Review  •  Petty Enterprises  •  The Wood Brothers  •  Hendrick Motorsports  •  Bill Davis Racing

Harvick was the only RCR driver to win a Bud Pole in 2002.

In many ways, Gordon remained an enigma. Through 13 races with Martin, they never recaptured the magic they had at the end of 2001, with only one top-10 finish.

After joining with Hamlin at Pocono in June, their results through the rest of the year were better -- with a top-five and four top-10s to go with only one DNF in the last 23 races.

That puts the pressure on all three of Childress' teams to come out of the box in 2003 with their new Chevrolets, immediately racking up top shelf results that are more in line with everyone's expectations.