Earnhardt’s Death Remembered

When Dale Earnhardt died at Daytona five years ago, a little bit of Richard Childress Racing was gone, too.

“I still can’t talk about it without getting a little emotional,” said Childress, Earnhardt’s boss, hunting buddy and mentor. “I think about him every day and miss him every minute.”

Childress was a journeyman driver/owner when he signed Earnhardt in 1984. Together, they won 65 races and six championships.

But a lot has changed since The Intimidator’s death.

RCR is no longer considered among the NASCAR elite, and the team’s most compelling story is off the track -- whether Dale Earnhardt Jr. will eventually drive his late father’s No. 3 car for RCR.

Making matters worse, star driver Kevin Harvick has refused to commit to another contract amid speculation he may leave the team. Harvick wants to see improvements.

So does Childress, whose team has won only eight races since Earnhardt’s death and two in the last two seasons.

“Certainly, they’ve had more reasons to go into a slump than some other teams,” said NASCAR president Mike Helton, a close friend of Earnhardt’s. “I think it’s cyclical in our sport for teams to go up and down, whether it’s chemistry changes or what have you.”

Childress has poured more money into the operation in recent years and made several changes, but results have been mostly negligible.

“We knew it was time to do some things that were more painful,” Childress said. “We had to make some changes with some people who have been with us for 20 years or more and we had to bring in some new people with some new ideas.

“We’ve completely reorganized our company from just about the top down. It’s been good, even the positives we’ve seen so far and even at the end of last year. We’ve still got a ways to go, but I think we’re a lot closer than we were at this time last year.”

Childress has taken on outside investors and spent money on improving the team’s technological capabilities. He also hired veteran Jeff Burton in the middle of the 2004 season and has brought in promising rookie Clint Bowyer. Along with Harvick, they will form RCR’s three-car team in today’s season-opening Daytona 500.

They already have shown promise.

Burton won the pole for the Great American Race, while Bowyer and Harvick also showed speed.

“It’s a good start,” Childress said. “But we’ve got to start winning. That’s the most important thing.”

And consistent winning -- maybe even a championship -- is about the only thing that will truly help the team recover from the loss of Earnhardt on Feb. 18, 2001.

“We live that from the day that it happened until right now,” Harvick said. “Everybody wants to forget, but you can’t. You go out and try to do the best you can and carry the legacy forward.”

A legacy that included a leadership role at RCR.

“I think he had his hand in a lot of things,” said Harvick, who has won only three races since his rookie year in 2001 and failed to qualify for the Chase for the championship the last two seasons. “When things needed to be changed, when he told them to change it, they would change it.”

Now, Harvick said, “there’s just a little bit of insecurity, unsure of when the right time is to change things.”

Childress is thinking only about turning his team around. “I believe we’ve made the right changes and upgraded our equipment and personnel,” he said. “If things don’t improve now, we’re in real trouble.”