Healing ongoing as RCR returns to prominence

It was in January during a Lowe's Motor Speedway media tour stop at the sprawling Richard Childress Racing complex in Welcome, N.C., when Childress confronted multiple questions about the various changes and challenges facing his race teams this season.

"You're going to have to be on the money this year," Childress said. "You're going to have to be on your game."

No one was on their game more than RCR in the season-opening Daytona 500, when Childress-owned cars finished first and third, respectively. And no one made more money.

Kevin Harvick's stirring victory came precisely six years to the day that Dale Earnhardt died in a last-lap wreck on the same Daytona International Speedway track, and emphasized more than ever the steely Childress resolve not to let his operation suffer the same fate in the aftermath. Childress said after Harvick's win that not a day goes by when he doesn't cherish the memory of Earnhardt, his good friend and longtime driver.

Capturing another Daytona 500 doesn't change that, and never will. But it does help in some small yet significant way with the ongoing mental healing process, which is likely to last the rest of Childress' life.

"You know, winning [the 2007 Daytona 500] is great for today's deal," Childress said. "But I don't think anything will ever replace a friend -- Dale Earnhardt, a great American race driver. Winning the race with him was great.

"I think the healing started for me when Kevin won in Atlanta, the third race [after Earnhardt's death]. I think when Junior won here in the [following] July the Fourth race, that was some healing. And to win this race [again, with Harvick], just everything is healing.

"But we still all miss him today as much as we did the day we lost him."

The day RCR lost the driver of the famous black No. 3 Chevrolet, many thought it spelled the professional end for Childress as a top-notch Cup team owner, too. But he put Harvick behind the wheel the very next week -- albeit not in the No. 3 -- and kept on racing.

With Jeff Burton's No. 31 Chevy placing third in the season-opening 500 this year, and coming off a strong showing last season when both he and Harvick made the Chase, RCR is beginning to take on the look of a program that is closing in on possibly becoming as formidable as it was during Earnhardt's finest hours. Earnhardt captured 67 of his 76 career Cup victories while driving for RCR, and captured six of his seven points championships after joining forces with Childress.

Childress has been a race-team owner for 34 years. Earnhardt still dominates his history as an owner, and likely always will. But Harvick now has 11 career wins himself since jumping in an RCR car under the most difficult of circumstances in 2001, and RCR has registered a total of 15 victories overall since Earnhardt's passing.

This year Harvick and Childress caught some flak for changing the major sponsorship on Harvick's car. Harvick had inherited the black GM Goodwrench paint scheme, although in the No. 29 instead of the No. 3, but this year is driving a more colorful Shell-Penzoil car that couldn't contrast more with the past -- and even is causing controversy in the present, as Sunoco, the official fuel of NASCAR, had vehemently objected to Shell-Penzoil's suddenly prominent presence.

Harvick said he is looking forward to putting that controversy in his rear-view mirror as quickly as he did the other 42 competitors in the 49th running of the Daytona 500. But he cautioned that the past should never -- and will never -- be forgotten at RCR.

"No matter what the colors, GM Goodwrench and Dale Earnhardt and Richard are all the people who got RCR to the point that it is today," Harvick said. "Things change and sponsors change, and we had to move forward. But winning is what makes the shadow less, being on the racetrack and making things happen."

Being on and around the racetrack and making things happen is what keeps Childress going.

He said that he heard all the talk about how Toyota was supposed to come in and start dominate Nextel Cup racing this year. He heard folks complain about the change in the points system that determines the champion. He saw fellow owner Jack Roush take on a heavy-hitting financial partner in John Henry and the Fenway Group, and heard how that coalition might change the way everyone in racing does business. He heard drivers complain about the new Goodyear tires used at Daytona, and he's heard all sides of the arguments both for and against the Car of Tomorrow that will debut in the spring at Bristol.

But Childress said he never worried about any of it. He said he just stayed focused on what he thought RCR needed to be doing.

"I just try to handle all of our employees," he said. "I don't worry about what Ford and Toyota and everybody else does. If they want to go and pay somebody else a lot more than we can pay them, and I think it's a good move, I'll tell an employee that I think he should go.

"We're not concerned about the competition. We're just trying to make sure we're ready for all the changes that are taking place. ... I think we're as ready to compete for a championship as anyone in the sport."

While more controversy unfolded at the track in the days leading up to the 500, with several teams caught cheating and paying severely for it through fines and points deductions and suspensions, the folks at RCR kept their heads low and their eyes on the most immediate prize ahead.

"We've been extremely focused on our racecars and let them do the talking for us. We laid low [through Speedweeks] and over the winter," Harvick said. "We just really were trying to do things kind of on our own agenda, and we felt like we really stuck to our agenda and did things as we wanted to."

That included Harvick turning down overtures to join one of the Toyota teams, so he could stay at the place he calls his racing home.

"You have to follow your heart and let it guide you sometimes, and let things happen how they're supposed to happen," Harvick said. "I've got a lot of friends and a lot of loyal people that were behind me at RCR. I felt like staying was what I needed to do, and that's what I did."

As they head into Sunday's second race of the 2007 season at California Speedway, they can see that all of the hard work and focus and loyalty that melded at RCR in the offseason -- and indeed, in the years since Earnhardt's tragic death -- are paying heavenly dividends.

"They wrote us off in '88, '92, '96. We've been written off a lot," Childress said. "It's good to be around that long, but I'm sure there were a lot of people who thought we were done [after Earnhardt's death]. A lot of times it would have been easier to say the hell with it and do something different.

"But I'm just not made that way. I want to get back out there again. I want to win races; I want to win championships. That's what drives me."