Team Preview: RCR
RacingOne.Com
There probably wasn't a team more upset to see last season end than Richard Childress Racing.
After starting the year in a disappointing fashion, RCR rebounded in the season's second half and ended the 2009 campaign on the upswing.
That feeling of confidence has swept the organization during the winter months and the RCR squad has been chomping at the bit to get back on track.
"The whole company feels good coming off the season," said team owner Childress. "None of us wanted to end the season with the momentum we had going. That's the way it is when you get things going. It's equal for everybody starting over."
"We didn't have a typical RCR year. We didn't have a car in the Chase or running up front. This year, I feel really good with the opportunity with the changes that we made."
Those changes include a downsizing of the RCR stable which will field three teams this season after cutting its No. 07 entry and driver Casey Mears because of sponsorship issues.
Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer now comprise the trio set to compete in 2010. Whether or not that streamlining is another positive in RCR's resurgence remains to be seen but the entire organization agrees that last year's turnaround will carry over to the new year.
"We were seeing light at the end of the tunnel at the end of the season," said Bowyer, who again works with Shane Wilson as crew chief. "We were seeing those changes become a positive on the race track. With five races to go, you were seeing RCR cars running up front as a whole. It wasn't just one. It was all of them running good. That gives me a lot of optimism going into the season and thinking that we've got something for them this year."
Harvick, who has not won a points race since the 2007 Daytona 500, believes the adjustments made to his team last year will continue to reap benefits in 2010.
"Hopefully we've got a good foundation to start the year," Harvick said. "Even when we've had our bad years before, we could still finish 10th, 15th - and that's the piece we were missing last year. Our bad days, they were bad. Our good days were good at the end of the year, but those middle-of-the-road finishes are what we have to have. Hopefully we can find that consistency this year."
While optimism is very high on the brink of the new year, veteran Burton, who returns in the No. 31 Chevrolet with crew chief Todd Berrier, reminds everyone to keep things in perspective.
"What we've got to do is protect against thinking it's going to be that easy, because it's not," Burton said. "We've got a lot of work ahead of us. I feel like we're so much more prepared going into this year, compared to where we were last year. A lot of things have happened at RCR that I feel really good about."