RICHARD CHILDRESS AFTER RECENT CHANGES AT RCR: ‘WE NEED TO HAVE MORE RACERS’

Richard Childress isn’t sitting back and watching with glee as his NASCAR Cup Series team falls way short of expectations in 2024.

The legendary team owner of Richard Childress Racing has seen his Cup drivers, Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon, fall on hard times throughout this NASCAR season. Over the last week, changes were made within the organization, with Andy Petree retiring from the role of competition director.

Additionally, Childress called a meeting last week as well, which he’s hoping will light a fire under his team to get back on track in 2024.

“We need to change the culture,” Childress said, via FOX’s Bob Pockrass. “We need to have more racers.”

That’s pretty blunt from Childress regarding his Cup Series team. Things were looking up at this time last season, with Busch joining RCR and winning multiple races in short order, but his performance has tailed off since. Still, the team owner has all the confidence in the world in the two-time Cup champion.

“I feel as strong about Kyle Busch as I did when he became a part of this company a year-and-a-half ago,” Childress added. “I feel as good about that. We’ve got to change some things. You’ll see it.”

Will the changes made by Richard Childress be enough to get Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon to where they want to go in 2024? That remains to be seen, but RCR is listening to the criticism, both internal and external, and hoping their shakeup leads to improvement, sooner rather than later.

Kyle Busch hopes RCR improves after retirement of competition director Andy Petree

Continuing, Kyle Busch is hoping the big change RCR made last week, with competition director Andy Petree stepping down from his role in the NASCAR organization, will help them improve their less-than-stellar season

With Petree retiring effective immediately, it gives RCR a new opportunity. Loyalty is important in motorsports, and keeping the right personnel is just as important as having the best driver.

One way or another, Kyle Busch and RCR are in a new era, that’s for sure. Petree is out and now the organization has to focus on results. At this point, Busch is about in a must-win situation if he wants to make the playoffs, and it seems like Busch is happy with the change, even if he does like Petree.

“I mean, change sometimes lends itself to an open opportunity, hopefully for the better,” Busch said, via Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports. “So, you know, I respect the hell out of Andy, and what he’s done and what he’s done in this sport and the legacy that he holds. We had a lot of fun together and some good laughs and some good relationships and um, hopefully, we can better our program without him there and carry on in the future.”

Kyle Busch and Richard Childress Racing have to get it going. At this point, there are few options to make it into the playoffs outside of a win. Or a complete turn around over the course of the final eight races of the regular season.

On3’s Jonathan Howard contributed to this article.

The post Richard Childress after recent changes at RCR: ‘We need to have more racers’ appeared first on On3.

2024-07-01T20:23:45Z dg43tfdfdgfd