“We’re Missing Something!” Richard Childress Exposes Reason’s for RCR’s 2026 Struggles
Hall of Famer Richard Childress has explained why his team RCR is struggling in the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season.
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Austin Dillon and Richard Childress (Sportscasting)
The 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season so far hasn’t been kind to Richard Childress Racing. Their drivers Kyle Busch an Austin Dillon is struggling to produce a competitive run, with the redesigned Chevy introduced for the season. They veteran drivers are currently outside the top-25 in the points table and boss Richard Childress is concerned.
In his latest interview, the Hall of Famer admitted that the season so far hasn’t played out the way they wanted and asserted that the whole RCR crew is working hard behind the scenes, under the leadership of John Klausmeier to find the weakness. He is confident in RCR’s ability finding the missing link to get their season back on track.
It hasn’t been the season none of us had planned for sure. We’re working hard at it. John Klausmeier, his whole group, engineering, is working on it. We’re missing something. We’ve got to find — people say ‘what is it?’ If we knew, we’d fix it. But we’re working hard to figure it out and we’re going to get there.
Richard Childress said in a recent interview.
The ex-racer then shifted his focus to the upcoming race at Bristol Motor Speedway, a venue where both Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon have produced strong runs in the past. Richard Childress pointed out that he is more concerned about finishing the race, as it’s one of the most unforgiving venues in the Cup schedule.
You’ve got to finish first. Bristol can be one of them tracks that will take you out. We’ve loaded three of them on the wrecker and we’ve finished 1-2-3 there before. So, it’s Bristol.
Richard Childress added via Chris weaver’s YouTube channel.
Further talking about the point, the veteran highlighted how the new Chevy design has been a major challenge for them. Unlike in the first six races of the season, they have hopes as with Chase Elliott’s win last Cup week, Chevy seems to have figured out how to win with the new car and RCR is looking to take advantage of it.
I feel good about going there. I felt good. This new car has threw us a little bit of a curve, this new body. But Hendrick seems to have found some success with it, and we’re all going to get it. We’re working hard together to get it up there.
Richard Childress asserted.
Richard Childress defends RCR’s Cleetus McFarland experiment
In the same interview, Childress talked about his team giving the inexperienced YouTuber turned racer Cleetus McFarland a NOAPS debut at Rockingham. It was his grandson Ty Dillon’s idea and he backed the project because the social media personality had a massive fanbase NASCAR could tap into.
You know, Ty Dillon, when he came to me, and he talked about it, I said, ‘What a great idea, not just for RCR but for our sport’. Here, Cleetus, which is Garrett (Mitchell), has close to five million followers. And if we can get 10% of those new fans coming to races and looking at the racetrack because of Cleetus… and I know he brought people to Rockingham, brought people watching the race.
Richard Childress said.
The comments from the RCR owner shows, Garrett Mitchell (McFarland) got the opportunity because of his social media presence predominantly not his racing skills. It would be interesting to see how the team is going take advantage of the multi-race part-time racing deal they have signed with the driver.
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