| TEAM OWNER |
| OF THE YEAR |
| | | |
| RICHARD CHILDRESS |
|  |
Childress guided team through difficult year. |
Forget about what happened on the track after Feb. 18, 2001. The mere survival of Richard Childress' race teams alone proved difficult enough last year.
Longtime NASCAR team owner Childress, 56, lost his dearest friend and one of the stock car circuit's giants when Dale Earnhardt died in a last-lap crash at the Daytona 500. The owner-driver duo won six Winston Cup championships during 17 seasons together.
"After Daytona last year, you just wanted to be out of racing. You didn't want to do anything," Childress recalled. "And then you start talking to your people and realize how important it is to go on. We made that decision and pulled together."
But Childress' is not a sympathy award. Richard Childress Racing had a banner 2001, becoming the first owner to win championships in all three top NASCAR divisions. He also signed two new primary sponsors, AOL and Cingular Wireless, at a time many corporations were pulling out of motorsports, and signed two-time Busch series champion Jeff Green for a third Winston Cup team in 2002.
Enlisting Earnhardt's hand-picked successor, a young Busch series driver named Kevin Harvick, Childress watched in amazement as Harvick won two Winston Cup races last year, including an emotional, symbolic victory at Atlanta in the season's third race. Harvick finished ninth in the points standings and captured Rookie of the Year honors.
As for Harvick's Busch entry, also owned by Childress, it produced a gaudy five victories and the season championship.
Childress also replaced the ailing Lowe's-sponsored Winston Cup entry and injured driver Mike Skinner. Robby Gordon came on late in the season and promptly won the final race of 2001. This season, Gordon returns full time.
Childress, a team owner since 1969, marvels at the empire over which he now presides. Based in Welcome, N.C., RCR oversees five NASCAR entries (three Winston Cup, two Busch) with 230 employees and an annual budget of more than $50 million. His 220,000-square-foot headquarters will be expanded by 80,000 square feet during the next year.
"What a leader Richard is," said Brian France, NASCAR executive vice president. "To lose Dale, one of his best friends, on top of the fact that he's also so crucial to the racing and business side, it's just incredible. They did a great job dealing with all of that."
Erik Spanberg writes for The Business Journal of Charlotte.
