Recharged Richard Childress Racing hopes for strong start to 2025
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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Change was needed, and Richard Childress Racing made plenty of it, starting in the middle of the 2024 season and extending into the offseason.
Shortly after the 2024 season finale at Phoenix Raceway, RCR promoted Keith Rodden as interim competition director to become vice president of competition. Johnny Klausmeier also joined the organization as its technical director. Richard Boswell was another key hire from a shuttering Stewart-Haas Racing to become crew chief for Austin Dillon‘s No. 3 Chevrolet. The changes continued into Daytona Speedweeks with Mike Verlander being promoted to team president while Terry Galida, who served as president since 2014, has been named vice chairman.
"The attention to detail that I already see from our group is more focused than the last couple of years," Dillon said on Daytona 500 Media Day. "Working with [Boswell], he‘s very meticulous in the way he talks about things, and I think it‘s going to benefit us on the [No.] 3 team. He leaves no stone unturned, which is good, whereas I feel like the last couple of years some stuff has been thrown on my shoulders. It‘s nice because I feel like I have someone that I can lean on more and it‘s really good."
Dillon put RCR into Victory Lane last season in controversial fashion at Richmond Raceway, with incidents involving Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin on the final lap. NASCAR officials deemed Dillon‘s actions during the final lap crossed the competition line and the win wouldn‘t lock the No. 3 team into the Playoffs, though it stayed on his resume. Richard Childress estimated being cut from the Playoffs cost RCR $3 million.
Meanwhile, two-time Cup champion Kyle Busch had near misses in the second race of the regular season at Atlanta Motor Speedway, placing third in a three-wide finish. He lost out on the penultimate race of the regular season at Daytona to Harrison Burton by .047 seconds. Busch had other close calls at Darlington Raceway when Chase Briscoe held off a hard-charging No. 8 car. In the Playoffs, he spun from the lead at Kansas Speedway. It was Busch‘s first winless season of his 20-year full-time career.
Busch was in favor of adding new blood to RCR.
"Anytime you add more people or add new people, you hope it’s for the betterment of your team and organization," he said. "I‘m excited for it, looking forward to it. Changing some personnel in some places and putting some better cars on the race track for myself and Austin Dillon."
After two races last season, Busch was leading the championship standings. Two weeks later, he dropped to 11th and never cracked the top 10 in the championship standings again over the final 32 races. He ended the campaign with several career lows, including top fives (five), top 10s (10), laps led (230), and his worst average finish (18.3) since his rookie season in 2005.
Meanwhile, Dillon has one top-five finish in each of the last two seasons. The No. 3 team‘s five top-10 finishes were the lowest he tallied in a single season since 2017. Dillon was never higher than 25th in points last year.
Both drivers know that it‘s paramount to get off to stronger starts in 2025.
"For the [No.] 3 team, we have struggled for the last two years getting off to a good start," Dillon said. "Really had to dig ourselves out of holes and it‘s put us behind and we‘re always playing catch up. We have some good runs, but it doesn‘t amount to the points gained that we need when we have them.
"It‘s huge to get off to a good start, and that‘s something that we‘re putting a lot of focus on. These first two races, you can be in a hole pretty quick with the way everything lines up. Just trying to get out there and run all the laps and put ourselves in a good position to hopefully win because you‘ve got to look at every race as an opportunity."
Busch knows that if the No. 8 team can start strong, it can build the momentum internally quickly.
"You‘ve got to keep that momentum," Busch said. "Two years ago, when I joined RCR in 2023, we had a good 16 races — I think we won three of the first 16 — and then tallied off after that. You have to keep the strength all year long. You can‘t fumble; that‘s when these other guys will take advantage of you and these other guys will take advantage of you. Stage points in this era is important."
RCR is usually among the best at superspeedways. Busch isn‘t shy saying he was the leader at the 500-mile mark in the 2023 Daytona 500, only for Lap 200 to be run under caution. He was involved in a wreck after the restart.
In 2023, Busch snapped a 15-year winless skid at superspeedways. He knows the first two races of the 2025 season being held at superspeedways could bode well for RCR. A trip to Circuit of The Americas begins the rest of the 2025 season.
"Daytona and Atlanta are some good shots for us to win races," he said. "The first two weeks are good with our RCR speedway program. From there, I enjoy the road course stuff and getting back out to Vegas. We ran strong there last year, probably one of the only cars to keep up with [Kyle Larson]. It would be nice to get that momentum rolling at the start of the season and try to run stronger each week."
Dillon qualified seventh in Wednesday night‘s qualifying session and will start fourth in the opening Duel on Thursday evening. Busch turned in the 13th best qualifying lap and will start seventh in that same Duel race.
