RCR should be better, but good enough for Harvick?

CONCORD, N.C. -- He has been at Richard Childress Racing for 11 years, nine of them as driver of the team's flagship vehicle, and in many ways Kevin Harvick's stern gaze has become the face of the organization in the post-Dale Earnhardt era. He was, after all, the man they rallied around in those trying weeks in early 2001, the driver who buoyed their spirits with an emotional victory at Atlanta, the figure who helped restore a certain measure of the program's former prominence. It's difficult to imagine an RCR without him.

Kevin Harvick's victory at Atlanta in March 2001 allowed a team to honor a legend and begin to heal.

And yet that separation may very well be nearing, a product of performance lapses that kept RCR out of both Victory Lane and the Chase last year, and led Harvick to speak openly about seeking new pastures once his current contract expires at the end of this season. No question, RCR made marked improvements during the final weeks of the 2009 campaign, when a flurry of personnel moves and technological changes at last bore fruit. There is real confidence that this outfit can return to championship status in 2010. And yet, would it all be enough to entice Harvick to stay?

"It will all just happen how it's meant to happen," the driver of the No. 29 car said Tuesday during the preseason Media Tour. "I'm not going to touch that side of it. They'll all talk and do their things behind the scenes. I just want to be the driver. I don't want to get into a big political war with anybody."

Publicly, at least, that's the way Harvick has handled the issue since news of his potential departure broke last summer -- coyly, as if he knows the answers but isn't willing to share them. Only in a few interviews has he explicitly expressed his intention to possibly "turn the page," as he put it, following this year. And yet there he was Tuesday morning, sitting to Childress' immediate right during the RCR portion of the Media Tour, playing the good soldier, saying all the correct things about the moves the team has made to right itself since its unexpected plummet into mediocrity early last season. Obviously, there are issues still yet to be worked out. But it all makes you wonder.

Will Harvick stay, or will he go?

"This is what I can tell you," teammate Jeff Burton said, in his best professorial tone. "I can tell you that Kevin Harvick wants to be part of an organization that consistently does what it takes to win championships. That's what Kevin Harvick wants. If Kevin Harvick in June, July, or September looks at RCR and the way RCR is doing things and believes that he's going to have the best chance to be successful at RCR, then he'll be at RCR. If he looks around and thinks, no, that's not the case, he's going to be somewhere else. That's just the way it is. I can't speak for Kevin, and I'm not about to speak for Kevin. I don't know what Kevin is going to do. The only thing I know is that Kevin wants to be in a situation that allows him to be successful, like any car owner, like any driver, like any crew member."

There's little doubt that Harvick's stated intention to potentially explore other options strained the relationship between him and Childress, particularly last summer when the driver was more likely to finish 34th than in the top five. Even the car owner will admit, things were a little testy at times. But in NASCAR performance cures many ills, and by the end of 2009, Childress said, the two had found some kind of tenuous common ground. That Harvick finished inside the top 10 in half of the season's final 12 races surely helped.

"I think he knows internally the big changes we've made," Childress said. "We made some huge dollar investments on some equipment, we made some huge dollar investments on some engineering stuff that hopefully will carry us down the road. The changes with [competition director] Scott Miller and adding some engineering and stuff, he sees the things that all the drivers see that we're doing to be a better organization."

And clearly, the relationship between Harvick and Childress seems to have improved -- especially from the times last year, when the team obviously was searching, that the two sniped back and forth on the radio and were rarely even seen in the same room together. That's not the case anymore.

"I think our relationship is good," Harvick said. "I think we're all on a common ground and have common goals as far as how we want to work together and how we want to succeed and make things right this year. We went through a few bumpy weeks last year, and I think we all really understand we want the same things, it's just a matter of getting there."

Burton has seen the change, as well. "I think last year that for Kevin and Richard, it was stressful there for a while. I think that they both were able to step back from it a little bit and understand that Richard Childress wants Richard Childress Racing to be successful, Kevin Harvick wants Richard Childress Racing to be successful, they both need to be successful, want to be successful," he said.

"It was stressful there for a while, and I think some emotions got out of hand. But now all that's cool, all that's calm. It isn't an emotional thing. It's business, and I don't think it's going to be a problem at all. I see Kevin as extremely committed, I see Richard as extremely committed. It is obviously not the best situation in the world, but it is what it is, and I think they both are handling it exceptionally well right now, I really do."

Does that make it more likely that Harvick will remain with RCR after this season? On that topic, nobody gives an inch. Childress expresses the respect he has for his senior driver, says the door is open for him to come back, but adds that they'll talk when it's time to talk. Harvick, who hasn't won at the Sprint Cup level since the 2007 Daytona 500, seems content to allow events to take their course. As for the contract issue potentially compromising the No. 29 team's rebuilding effort, Harvick isn't concerned.

"The best year we ever had was a contract year," he said, referring to his best season at RCR, a 2006 campaign where he finished fourth in final points. That "was a contract year, and we won five races, and had a chance to win the championship, and won the Nationwide championship. That was the last contract year, so that one went pretty good."

So now everyone waits, and observes the on-track performance of a team that's dropped down from four full-time cars to three, and wonders if it's enough to coax the Bakersfield, Calif., native to remain with the organization that called upon him to step into the sizeable gap left behind by Earnhardt's fatal crash eight years ago. And if he leaves? Well, it once seemed just as unthinkable that Dale Earnhardt Jr. would ever leave Dale Earnhardt Inc., or that Mark Martin would ever separate himself from Jack Roush.

And Childress, as savvy with people as he is with a rifle, just might be grooming a successor. The car owner announced Tuesday that Bass Pro Shops would back most of a full-season entry on the Camping World Truck Series for Austin Dillon, Childress' grandson, who made a couple of promising starts on that circuit last year. The vehicle will be black and bear the No. 3, marking the numeral's return to full-time competition on a NASCAR national series for the first time since Earnhardt last used it.

"It's not like we've given this ride to Austin. He's had to go out and earn it," Childress said. It's a big jump for a High Point University student, and driving the No. 3 brings with it plenty of outside pressure. But Dillon, a smart kid who recognizes the bigger picture and has used the number throughout his short career, is used to it. It was, after all, his granddaddy's number before the Intimidator made it famous.

So if Dillon does well in Trucks, what's next? Nationwide? Sprint Cup, still in the No. 3? Right now, Childress said, there are no such plans. But he didn't exactly rule out the possibility, either. "You never know," he said. "If an Earnhardt comes along some day, or a grandson or a great-grandson or whatever, you never say never no to nothing. You never know what we may do."

We don't know what Harvick's going to do, either. But Tuesday, as Harvick talked around the possibility of leaving and Dillon announced he was moving up, it was impossible to escape the feeling that some sort of loose succession plan was in place. For almost a decade, Harvick and his No. 29 have been the public face of RCR. One day, Dillon and his No. 3 may be. For each of those things to happen, many variables still have to play out. But Tuesday morning felt less like a routine Media Tour visit, and more like a passing of the torch.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.

Related:
• Improvements in late 2009 give RCR hope for rebound
• Childress' grandson Dillon to run No. 3 in Truck Series