As NASCAR arrives in KC, Richard Childress Racing may be discovering its magic of old

Welcome back, Richard Childress Racing.

The once-powerful NASCAR Cup team best known for starring the late Dale Earnhardt, has fallen on hard times recently and has not seriously contended for a championship since Ryan Newman finished second in the standings in 2014.

But RCR will come roaring into Kansas Speedway for Thursday night’s Cup race riding the momentum of a 1-2 finish by Austin Dillon and rookie Tyler Reddick Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway.

Dillon, the grandson of Hall of Fame owner Richard Childress, won for the first time since the 2018 Daytona 500 — a span of 88 races — and nailed down a spot in the postseason playoffs. It was the first 1-2 finish by RCR cars since Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton at Talladega in 2011.

Since then, RCR has taken a backseat to the likes of Joe Gibbs Racing, Team Penske, Stewart-Haas Racing and Hendrick Motorsports, who have combined for 14 of the last 15 Cup titles while Childress hasn’t won a Cup championship since Earnhardt won his seventh in 1994.

“This means a lot because we’ve struggled and everyone knows that,” Childress said after Sunday’s win. “But Chevy has really worked hard and put together a lot better racecar for us than we’ve had in the past. This car is closer to what the other manufacturers we’re racing are doing. I think that’s going to be the difference this year.

”I’ll never forget ‘98 when Dale Earnhardt came and said, ‘I want to retire, it’s me.’ I said, No, it isn’t, Dale. We haven’t given you the cars.’ We haven’t given Austin the cars he needed until this year. I think Tyler Reddick will win a race this year.”

Dillon’s two previous career Cup wins in 247 starts came in prestigious races — the 2018 Daytona 500 and 2017 Coca Cola 600 — but one was on a restrictor-plate track and the other is considered “a fuel-mileage” race. The Texas win was more satisfying because it came in a conventional finish with him holding off Reddick and Joey Logano with three late-race restarts.

“We took (the race) from them,” said Dillon, who drives the No. 3 that Earnhardt made famous. “That feels good. You just had to have confidence that in the moment we had a car that had potential. It didn’t really run well in traffic. If you can get the track position at some point, you can be fast.”

Dillon’s Cup career has fallen short of expectations, considering he won the 2011 NASCAR trucks championship and the 2013 Xfinity title. His best points finish in the Cup series is 11th in 2017.

“As much as I hate to say it, I’ve got a lot of experience now in the Cup Series,” said Dillon, 30. “For a long time I was looked at as kind of a young gun. I still feel young. The biggest thing is I’ve had to step up in the role that I’m in. When I first came in the Cup Series, I thought I was going to have Kevin Harvick as my teammate. He left. Ryan Newman was really great for a long time. We didn’t have what we needed last year,

“You bring Tyler in, who has absolutely crushed it from the Xfinity Series with two championships, brought something to push me. I think that’s something that everybody needs, competition. Bringing him in, it really kind of changed the dynamic this year as far as the competition goes.”

Indeed, Reddick, winner of the last two Xfinity series titles, is on the precipice of playoff contention. He moved from 41 points to just 14 points behind the 16th playoff spot Sunday. He could fulfill Childress’ prediction of winning this week at Kansas. Reddick finished second in Xfinity races in 2017 and 2019 at Kansas and posted a respectable ninth-place finish in the spring race last year in just his second Cup start.

“We’re not where we need to be,” Reddick said, “but with eight races, 14 more points to get, having Austin locked in (to the playoffs), I think it could be a benefit to us. We just got to keep running races like this. (Sunday) we saw the capability of both of these cars.

“It was a nice little uplift to take us into the next race Thursday at Kansas, a good track for me.”

This week’s TV schedule at Kansas Speedway

Thursday: 6:30 p.m., NASCAR Cup Series Kansas 400, NBCSN

Friday: 6 p.m., Kansas 200 (NASCAR trucks), FS1

Friday: 9 p.m., ARCA Kansas 150, FS1

Saturday: 12:30 p.m., Kansas 200 (NASCAR trucks), FSN

Saturday: 4 p.m., Xfinity Kansas Lottery 250, NBCSN

This story was originally published July 20, 2020 at 12:05 PM.