Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Richard Childress Talks Austin Hill Incident, NASCAR Today & History of RCR | Lights Out With John Roberts

Transcript

Richard Childress Talks Austin Hill Incident, NASCAR Today & History of RCR | Lights Out With John Roberts · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  You know, I think one thing it hurt him maybe a little bit was
• 0:02
  the comments after the race. But he's a high strung, very
• 0:07
  competitive, hard racer. He's just a old school racer.
• 0:12
  And sometime you say something no different than me a few
• 0:18
  minutes later. Why did I say that?
• 0:20
  And I'm sure he's asked himself. It is time to go lights out with
• 0:28
  the boss at Richard Childress Racing, that of course, the one
• 0:30
  and only Richard Childress. Richard, it's so great to see
• 0:33
  and we appreciate your time. You know the guys around
• 0:36
  welcome. Tell us that you're still the
• 0:37
  first guy in there in the morning and the last guy to go
• 0:40
  in the afternoon. With all you've achieved.
• 0:42
  Richard what? What still motivates you?
• 0:44
  What keeps you going day after day?
• 0:48
  You know, I think just the, the love for the sport, the, you
• 0:52
  know, the all the employees, fans, you know, and I want to
• 0:56
  win that next championship for the company.
• 0:59
  You know, I want to be involved in it when they win it.
• 1:02
  So Richard, I've seen a couple of documentaries recently and it
• 1:05
  kind of caught my eye that when you were starting out as a
• 1:08
  driver that you guys were against the 8 ball, you were
• 1:11
  buying used tires, you were struggling to get by.
• 1:14
  What were those days like? You know, if, if you told people
• 1:20
  that in today's world, they wouldn't believe it.
• 1:24
  Most of the modern day race fans thinks I'm just some real rich
• 1:28
  guy that come along that can, that owns race teams.
• 1:32
  But no, we, we, it was a struggle, you know, back in the
• 1:35
  day, but I was fortunate. I was blessed.
• 1:39
  I had good people around me, had some people that helped me out
• 1:43
  and I was just really blessed by it.
• 1:45
  What was growing up like for you, Richard?
• 1:47
  Where, where'd you grow up and what was what?
• 1:49
  What were you what? What's things like when you were
• 1:51
  growing up? It was it was tough.
• 1:55
  We had my dad died when I was six years old.
• 1:59
  I always said I become a man at that time I because I had my
• 2:02
  fight my way through life hadn't stopped yet, but you know it.
• 2:07
  It was tough, you know, coming up as a kid and we were
• 2:10
  fortunate to as a family. We loved each other.
• 2:14
  We got everything we wanted, we needed as far as food, you know,
• 2:19
  hell, I had to work in the cafeterias, pay for my lunch
• 2:24
  sometime. But that's that's just part of
• 2:26
  life, you know, and I learned a lot.
• 2:29
  Those are life lessons that I carried on in the life.
• 2:33
  And that's what makes a lot of us who we are these days, right?
• 2:36
  Not necessarily the good times, but the bad times, the
• 2:39
  struggles. Yeah, I wouldn't call them bad
• 2:42
  times. I'd call them struggles and
• 2:44
  challenges in life. I've been fortunate to have a
• 2:50
  lot of a good family to help me through it, you know, and even
• 2:53
  today with our family, we're a family Operation RCR is, and we
• 2:58
  all work hard to try to keep this thing rolling and winning
• 3:01
  those races and going after that next championship.
• 3:05
  It never gets easy, does it? Running a race team.
• 3:09
  No, never. I know we'll forget, Bill France
• 3:14
  Junior told me one day, said Pal.
• 3:17
  It just isn't going to get any easier.
• 3:20
  And this was back in the early 80s, and boy, did I ever
• 3:23
  realize. I didn't realize then what he
• 3:25
  meant. So Richard, you've seen a lot of
• 3:28
  different things as an owner from the days back with Dale was
• 3:32
  Racing for You and The Way just just the whole business model,
• 3:36
  the whole thing has changed. Just how much has it changed
• 3:39
  over the years? You know, it's, it's totally
• 3:44
  changed. That's one of the big questions
• 3:46
  I get. What's the biggest changes you
• 3:48
  see in NASCAR today? You know, safety is one thing.
• 3:53
  Safety has gotten much better. You know, after we lost Dell,
• 3:56
  you look at every bad thing. You got to see anything good
• 4:00
  come out of it. And the the cars are safer,
• 4:02
  tracks are safer. The technology that's in our
• 4:06
  sport today is just unbelievable.
• 4:08
  These cars are racing, they are all engineer driven.
• 4:12
  And I knew that going into the season.
• 4:15
  And it's when we built it. We built the very first one.
• 4:18
  We worked with Delara and the NASCAR about building it and
• 4:22
  Austin tested the first one at Richmond.
• 4:25
  And you know, when all that was going on, I could see it was all
• 4:28
  engineer driven. Then we've got behind a little
• 4:31
  at RCR on our engineering, but we're on the right path to turn
• 4:35
  it around and get it going in the right direction.
• 4:38
  It's pretty easy to fall just a little bit behind these days,
• 4:42
  isn't it? Because when you look at the
• 4:43
  finishing orders or the qualifying times, sometimes,
• 4:46
  Richard, we're talking about thousandths of a second or
• 4:50
  hundredths of a seconds. That's the difference between
• 4:53
  real successful and not so successful at NASCAR's top
• 4:56
  series. It is and it's this car
• 5:01
  especially is is like on a sitting on a razor blade.
• 5:05
  You can at Oh well, not last week, but the week before Kyle,
• 5:12
  they on his right front, they took 2/10 of a pound of iron out
• 5:17
  at Dover and put 3/8 of it around the wedge in the back and
• 5:24
  he got so loose he couldn't drive it.
• 5:26
  I mean I'm sitting there scratching my head.
• 5:28
  Give me 3 rounds of wedge or 2 lbs of air and today's world you
• 5:33
  just. It's thousands.
• 5:36
  Yeah, it is amazing how tight it is and how close it is.
• 5:39
  You know, Richard, when you hired Kyle Busch, I think a lot
• 5:42
  of people said a lot of things. You you probably heard a lot of
• 5:45
  it that we heard, but I don't think people really know the
• 5:50
  real Kyle Busch. You you see a certain competitor
• 5:53
  on TV, but man, there I think there's so much more to the Kyle
• 5:57
  Busch that's behind the scenes and you probably know better
• 5:59
  than anybody. Yeah, I really, really learned a
• 6:03
  lot about Kyle over the last three years.
• 6:08
  We've been very blessed to have him up here at RCR.
• 6:12
  He's sort of our, you know, he's got so many championships, 1 /
• 6:17
  200 races. To have a driver like it to come
• 6:20
  in and say here's what you need, what we need to do, it's great
• 6:24
  having him up here and his personality.
• 6:27
  A lot of people didn't think it work with he and I, but it's
• 6:30
  just been, you know, a great experience working with Kyle
• 6:34
  Busch. And you recently extended the
• 6:37
  contract with him. I think you guys probably must
• 6:40
  feel like you're going in the right direction.
• 6:42
  I know it's got to be very frustrating when you guys are
• 6:45
  used to winning when Kyle's used to winning and you've had so
• 6:48
  much success. It's got to be a little bit
• 6:50
  frustrating trying to get back to where you both want to be.
• 6:54
  It is, it is frustrating and we're know we're working
• 6:58
  together. At the end of the cars were
• 7:00
  really good. We were 6th and 9th at the end
• 7:02
  of the first stage and both of them ended up in that wreck,
• 7:06
  knocking the front ends off of them.
• 7:09
  Kyle had two good finishes going in prior to that and it was
• 7:14
  unfortunate that I guess the 21 missed a gear or something.
• 7:17
  Didn't miss seven or eight cars up there.
• 7:20
  I think we have had a good shot to run good if we hadn't had
• 7:23
  that challenge, but you know that was behind us.
• 7:27
  Now we're going to Iowa and going up there to win that race.
• 7:31
  So Richard, when you guys look at what you have as a team when
• 7:35
  you're going to one of these races, are are you guys
• 7:38
  identically preparing these cars?
• 7:40
  Are the cars pretty varied? You know, they will vary just a
• 7:44
  little. The the biggest thing is we try
• 7:46
  to get it or the driver wants it and each one of them will run
• 7:50
  the simulation and they'll determine kind of what they they
• 7:54
  think is the best for their driving style.
• 7:57
  It's not a lot of difference. You're talking, you know, maybe
• 8:01
  thousands difference in it or, you know, 25 LB different in the
• 8:06
  spring or something. But and then occasionally
• 8:09
  they'll go worse 1000 lbs different in the spring.
• 8:12
  But I I don't see that as much as I see them.
• 8:15
  All of them are pretty close really.
• 8:19
  So Richard, from a business owner's standpoint, I know you
• 8:21
  guys are in this business. You're you're not in it for a
• 8:24
  hobby. It's a it's a way to for a lot
• 8:26
  of people to make a living. But how is the business model in
• 8:30
  NASCAR's Cup Series right now? I know NASCAR wanted to improve
• 8:33
  it. If it's not a good model, people
• 8:36
  aren't going to do it. How are we right now in terms of
• 8:39
  making this business model what owners need and and what owners
• 8:43
  want? You know, I, I, I think the
• 8:47
  business model has got a long ways to go before it will, it'll
• 8:50
  work good for the car owners. This car came out being much,
• 8:55
  much more expensive than any of us thought it would be.
• 8:58
  Some of the traveling we're having to go now, Mexico, San
• 9:02
  Diego next year, all these things add up to extra dollars.
• 9:06
  I think that there's got, there's got to be a little more
• 9:10
  work done on the business model before it becomes a really,
• 9:15
  really solid business model. Because you guys, Richard, you
• 9:19
  have those cars stickered up week in and week out.
• 9:22
  It seems like you guys have very solid sponsorship.
• 9:25
  And I know that's something you work really hard on, but is it
• 9:29
  enough sometimes even when you sell those great sponsors,
• 9:32
  sponsorships to, to make it a profitable venture?
• 9:37
  Not really it. These are great sponsors and
• 9:41
  we've been we've been fortunate to have the kind of partners
• 9:45
  that we have. They're great and and they pay
• 9:48
  the bills, but the expenses has outwent the expenses as well.
• 9:52
  But this way and the revenue has went kind of like that.
• 9:57
  So not to it's not our partners fault, it's just the cost of
• 10:02
  racing today has escalated so much over the last several years
• 10:07
  it's unbelievable. So Richard, going back to the
• 10:10
  Xfinity Series race last weekend, when I think when a lot
• 10:14
  of people look back at the video and things with what went on
• 10:18
  between Eric Almarola and Austin Hill, once you guys have had a
• 10:23
  chance to look back at that, I know what your opinion was right
• 10:25
  away on that. But that was something that when
• 10:29
  you look back and I think you can see both sides of that
• 10:31
  story. Yes, I think there was a lot
• 10:36
  more than once NASCAR. I hope they take a deep dive
• 10:40
  into it like we have. If you look where the 00 was, he
• 10:44
  actually turned, caught the 21 car and hooked him.
• 10:51
  So it was all so close and happened so fast.
• 10:56
  I went up to Austin after the race and asked him.
• 11:00
  I said awesome, don't lie to me, tell me, did you do it on
• 11:03
  purpose? And he would tell me if he did.
• 11:06
  I know he meant good. He said no, I was fighting.
• 11:09
  I hang on to the car and it went left on me.
• 11:12
  And I think when it went left on him, that's when the 00 got into
• 11:15
  his left rear quarter panel and you look at his hands and
• 11:20
  everything. He's made a heck of a save.
• 11:23
  He's coming down. He's still fighting it.
• 11:24
  When you he was still fighting the car to save it.
• 11:29
  You know, I think one thing it hurt him maybe a little bit was
• 11:32
  the comments after the race. But he's a high strung, very
• 11:37
  competitive, hard racer. He's just a old school racer.
• 11:42
  And sometime you say something no different than me a few
• 11:48
  minutes later. Why did I say that?
• 11:50
  And I'm sure he's asked to sell. But we got great partners with
• 11:54
  Dennis and we've been talking to them.
• 11:56
  And I just hope the fans understand that, that, you know,
• 12:03
  you got to look at the whole picture looks the SMT where the
• 12:06
  00 was and kind of he was in his left rear quarter.
• 12:12
  That's what I looked at when I looked at it.
• 12:14
  And and when I asked him if he told me the truth and he's told
• 12:19
  me before when he got in a little trouble at Darlington, he
• 12:22
  said, hey, I've done that. I'm sorry, you know, motions
• 12:25
  right then. But Sunday, Saturday, he did not
• 12:29
  do it on purpose. Now you know, NASCAR will make
• 12:32
  the call. Whatever it is, it is.
• 12:34
  And the social media is great, but it does have its ups and
• 12:39
  downs. Everybody looks at things and
• 12:42
  posts what they want. To the guy sitting up in the
• 12:45
  booth, they got Sackets sometime before they start rattling off
• 12:51
  what they thought they'd seen or what they seen, and that sticks
• 12:56
  to the crowds and that sticks to TV and that sticks to social
• 13:00
  media is on through. And Richard, that's what you
• 13:03
  guys need, isn't it? I've heard so many owners and
• 13:05
  crew chiefs talking about you'd rather grab that rope and pull
• 13:09
  it back on a driver then then try to push it.
• 13:12
  I mean, going back to the the late great Dale Earnhardt, I
• 13:16
  don't think if you're if you're fired up, if you're not fired up
• 13:20
  and I don't think if you're not excitable, I'm not too sure
• 13:22
  you're going to be a very successful driver.
• 13:25
  You better have a passion. That's the reason I'm still in
• 13:28
  it. I got a great passion for the
• 13:30
  sport, got a passion to win, got a passion to give every partner
• 13:34
  we have their money's worth at the end of the year.
• 13:37
  I like to we, we send out a thing to all of our sponsors and
• 13:42
  partners at the end of the year and make sure they know that
• 13:45
  they got their, you know, ROI back on it.
• 13:49
  Yep, and that's got to be a touchy thing right now, Richard,
• 13:53
  I would think. Is it helping you at all that we
• 13:56
  have more butts in seats these days?
• 13:59
  The TV ratings are peaking up. There's a little bit of
• 14:01
  excitement with new TV partners. Is that helping you at all right
• 14:05
  now when you go after these sponsors?
• 14:08
  Yes, and the sponsors realize it too.
• 14:10
  They know it and it's a positive for the sport.
• 14:13
  The sport is definitely on a on a high right now and I think
• 14:17
  it's great. We're all excited about where
• 14:19
  the sports going, the potential. I think this challenge was
• 14:22
  great. I think the playoffs have been
• 14:25
  great. I think before the end of the
• 14:26
  year you're going to see some great moments in the sport.
• 14:30
  So Richard, do you think we really crown a true champion
• 14:34
  these days? It's this is my opinion.
• 14:36
  Everybody has their own opinion, right?
• 14:37
  This is my opinion that the way things are set up right now, you
• 14:43
  reward winning, you reward consistency, and I think you get
• 14:47
  a truer champion because you have to be the best of the best
• 14:50
  on one particular day. I know there's a lot of people
• 14:52
  that will argue on the other side of that and I'm not a
• 14:55
  competitor so it's easy for me to say, but as a competitor, it
• 14:59
  is this the right way to crown a champion in your opinion?
• 15:03
  You know, I like it better than it was before.
• 15:07
  I know we finished second, third several times.
• 15:11
  And what would happen? One guy would get out front and
• 15:14
  he had built so many points. It was no excitement for the
• 15:18
  crowd or the fans. And I think that's the reason
• 15:21
  you see a lot of sports, from golf to so many different
• 15:25
  sports, going to playoffs. And I think they see the success
• 15:29
  of NASCAR's playoffs, and that's the reason you're seeing it.
• 15:32
  I just think it's is it fair to the competitor?
• 15:36
  Yeah. If you're winning every race,
• 15:37
  you're running up front. Yeah.
• 15:38
  You want to you, you want to, but if you want to put on a show
• 15:42
  for the the race fans that we all work for, that we're out
• 15:46
  there working to put on a show for, I think the playoffs is the
• 15:50
  best thing we have going for our fans today.
• 15:54
  Man, I, I got to agree with you, Richard, and I hope people don't
• 15:58
  change it, but you know, I know when there's a lot of clamoring,
• 16:01
  you never know what's going to happen.
• 16:03
  Richard. We had Austin on our trackside
• 16:05
  live show not too long ago and we asked him, we said we don't
• 16:08
  want to take you out of the car anytime soon.
• 16:11
  Hope you drive for a long time and continue to have success.
• 16:15
  But Austin is a is a smart young man.
• 16:19
  He obviously knows this business of racing.
• 16:21
  Is there any type of plan or have you guys broached the
• 16:24
  subject at all about what he does after he leaves the seat
• 16:27
  and how he might continue to to contribute to the company?
• 16:32
  Well, he and Ty both are, are getting more and more involved
• 16:36
  with the company. Austin runs the Carolina
• 16:40
  Cowboys, their PBR team, which will be playing in Greensboro
• 16:44
  the September the 11th and 12th or something.
• 16:48
  I if you look on a schedule, but he understands now what it is to
• 16:53
  deal with agents, driver agents, which now he's dealing with
• 16:57
  rider agents, which he told me said after the first year, he
• 17:02
  said, pop pop, I know why you dislike his agents.
• 17:06
  He's after having to deal with all these rider agents and it's
• 17:09
  just a it's just a deal that we're setting him up for down
• 17:14
  the road. You know, hell, I ain't going to
• 17:16
  be here forever. I wish there was, but I'd be
• 17:19
  racing that long. But at some point, good Lord's
• 17:23
  going to call me up to the big racetrack and I'm I'm won't tell
• 17:28
  these these guys keep going. We don't know what's going where
• 17:31
  RCR is going to be in years, but I'm not getting any younger for
• 17:35
  sure. Wished I could say I was.
• 17:37
  Yeah. And also Richard, by the same
• 17:38
  token though, this thing in, in terms of all the different
• 17:41
  things that go on, I just kind of remember people going back to
• 17:45
  going to race tracks and just going there to race.
• 17:48
  But when you look at the running the business, keeping it afloat,
• 17:53
  hiring people, hiring drivers, that there's so much that seems
• 17:56
  to go into the day-to-day operation.
• 18:00
  Yeah, it's the same deal with the PBR.
• 18:03
  You know, you, you got to deal with sponsors.
• 18:05
  You we got sponsors there. You got to deal with the
• 18:07
  sanctioning body. There's so much about the PBR
• 18:12
  and so much about NASCAR. It's a like and that's the
• 18:14
  reason he's doing a fantastic job running it and I hope he
• 18:20
  will let me turn this off. He will.
• 18:24
  Hopefully he will, you know, when it comes time.
• 18:28
  He and Ty both ties involved at the winery some, so hopefully
• 18:32
  they'll be able to carry this ledge.
• 18:35
  You know everything we've built here on.
• 18:38
  So Richard, that's got to be a dream for I'm I'm a fellow wino
• 18:40
  too, that that's got to be quite a dream for you to be able to
• 18:44
  establish that vineyard and have that near the property like that
• 18:49
  for you to enjoy. That's we've been up there a
• 18:51
  couple times. Took my mom up there on her
• 18:53
  birthday. That's got to be a big dream of
• 18:56
  yours, isn't it? And pretty satisfying to look at
• 18:58
  that vineyard. Yeah, it just keeps growing.
• 19:02
  And like I said, my daughter runs it, Tina Dillon runs it.
• 19:06
  We're in the military business and all other businesses and
• 19:09
  Mike Dillon runs those. And like I say, we're a family
• 19:12
  operation. Austin's running the Carolina
• 19:16
  Cowboys and ties involved with the winery some.
• 19:19
  So we, we got a whole family and my wife looks after the real
• 19:23
  estate that we have. So we, we got a good operation
• 19:26
  here with our family, but it's rewarding to pull in down there.
• 19:30
  And I'll say, I can see on here, I'll say how in the hell did
• 19:34
  this happen? You turn in at RCR and you see
• 19:37
  all these buildings and things and I'll just say how did this
• 19:41
  happen? Or you pull in at the winery or
• 19:44
  properties or something and you say, how in the hell did this
• 19:48
  happen? You know, that's just the way it
• 19:50
  is. So, Richard, going back a little
• 19:52
  bit, remember at Charlotte last year you were with then
• 19:56
  candidate Trump. How cool was that to have the
• 19:59
  president of the, well, the eventual former and eventual
• 20:02
  president of the United States on the pit box with you for the
• 20:05
  Coke 600? That was really something cool
• 20:07
  to see where you're standing near the pit box.
• 20:10
  But it looked like that was a pretty cool situation.
• 20:14
  It really was and, and I knew President Trump way before he
• 20:17
  was President Trump in the 90s. He was Earnhardt fan and he'd
• 20:21
  come down to Daytona each year in a 9394 right in that area 95
• 20:27
  and he would we'd hang out together and he'd sit on the box
• 20:31
  up there with me and then he'd go up to France's suite after
• 20:35
  the first caution or something. But he is he is a real deal and
• 20:39
  so honored. One of the biggest honors of my
• 20:42
  life is assistant Nicole Cole. Sandra and sit down.
• 20:46
  President Trump wants to know if Richard's coming to well, then
• 20:50
  to be President Trump coming to Charlotte to a rally.
• 20:54
  She said I'll find out. I said yeah, tell him I'll come.
• 20:56
  He wanted me to speak. She calls the next day and says
• 21:00
  President Trump to be President Trump said.
• 21:06
  How about having Richard? Would he be interested in
• 21:08
  introducing me? And I've done some pretty cool
• 21:11
  things in my life. But to introduce the past
• 21:14
  president and the precious president to be was one of the
• 21:17
  biggest honors I've had in in, I think in my life other than my
• 21:21
  family being born. Yeah, we can.
• 21:24
  We can only imagine, Richard, but also you mentioned about
• 21:27
  your company, your family and how much you guys give back to
• 21:31
  the military families. I think that's fantastic that
• 21:33
  you guys do that. How important is that to you
• 21:36
  guys to make sure you honor the military?
• 21:39
  It, it is. And I think that we're all
• 21:42
  blessed to have a free country. And the reason we have a free
• 21:45
  country is so many sacrifices from so many people, our
• 21:50
  veterans, men and women, and you do everything you can for them.
• 21:54
  We have a veterans coffee every second Wednesday of each month
• 22:00
  and we'll have you know, from 506 hundred veterans.
• 22:04
  Some we filled it up on celebrating D-Day.
• 22:08
  We had over 1200. So we have a large crowd and
• 22:11
  then we do helping heroes for the the veterans that's lost
• 22:15
  limbs and that needs special homes and we go out there and
• 22:20
  build homes. We have this at the winery and I
• 22:24
  just met with the tunnels for towers yesterday, towers for
• 22:29
  tunnel and met with them and I think there's going to be some
• 22:32
  more exciting things to come at RCR and Richard Chills will be
• 22:36
  involved in. That's a very cool.
• 22:39
  Richard. On a personal note, I just
• 22:41
  wanted to say, you know, as soon as we started doing this thing
• 22:44
  back in the early 90s, you have always been open, honest,
• 22:48
  friendly, and help me out a tremendous amount when I was
• 22:52
  covering races. And I just always appreciate the
• 22:55
  warmness and the warmth and the friendliness that we felt out of
• 22:59
  Welcome NC over the years. We just really appreciate it,
• 23:02
  man. I just wanted to say thank you.
• 23:05
  Yeah, thank you, John. And that's one thing I've never
• 23:07
  forgot. You know, I made the comment and
• 23:10
  I shouldn't the other day, but I said we're a blue collar team
• 23:13
  and that's really what we are. And and we believe in in
• 23:17
  everyday working men and women. And and that's what we have
• 23:21
  here. We got people that want this
• 23:22
  thing so bad. And John, I remember when you
• 23:25
  started, you know, you was one of those guys that that really
• 23:29
  wanted it and wanted it bad and worked hard for it.
• 23:31
  If you see people wanting to put everything they have into
• 23:35
  something they have a passion for, they're going to succeed
• 23:38
  and that's what you did. Thank you.
• 23:40
  Well, that thank you Richard. I appreciate that.
• 23:42
  Richard also thank you for your time.
• 23:44
  Hey, I hope we're talking about a victory at Iowa are very soon.
• 23:47
  We got to get you guys in the playoffs.
• 23:50
  That's our plans. We don't have much left, but
• 23:53
  we're giving it all we got. You can believe that.
• 23:56
  All right, Richard, thank you so much for the time, man.
• 23:59
  Always great to talk to you and we'll talk to you very soon.
• 24:02
  All right. Thanks, John.
• 24:04
  See you buddy.