Why Richard Childress Needed to Make Personnel Changes at RCR After the End of 2023 Season

The latest word to fly out of Welcome, North Carolina, Richard Childress Racing’s base town has been of groundbreaking changes in its top order. Three crucial members of its team, including Andy Petree, are promoted to higher orders with 2024 fast approaching. The reason behind Richard Childress making these shifts in his team’s dynamics isn’t a big puzzle to solve. One just has to take a good look at the season that the team just had.

Though 2023 kicked off in great shape with Kyle Busch coming in and Sheldon Creed setting himself up for a good second season, the end turned out to be quite different from what was expected.

The reason behind Richard Childress moving his executives around for 2024

On Wednesday, Richard Childress announced that Andy Petree would transition from being the VP of competition to the executive VP of the entire organization. Petree is a true veteran of the sport climbing the ranks of RCR from being a crew chief for Dale Earnhardt, back in 1993 and 1994. In his upgraded role he will have a more macro-sight of the whole organization. Childress also further named Justin Alexander as the competition director and Erik Kominek as the technical director for the team across both Cup and Xfinity.

By the humongous standards of Richard Childress Racing these are tectonic shifts in power and responsibility. And as the NASCAR community is well aware, the issues that plagued the team in the latter half of the year are no secret. Beginning with the winless streak of Kyle Busch and ending with Sheldon Creed’s spat with his teammate Austin Hill, the scenes were no less than a nightmare.

Longterm Cup Series driver and Richard Childress’s grandson, Austin Dillon, chose a bad year to have his worst season with an average finish rate of 21.8. He led the year for having the most DNFs, failing to finish 10 races. What could have possibly ended with at least one championship for Richard Childress ended with him hurling curses at his own driver Sheldon Creed. He said after the ontrack hassle that Creed and Hill had in a Championship 4 deciding race, “I’ve had drivers drive for me before but nobody as stupid as Sheldon Creed.”

If nothing else, that battle at Martinsville that led to both his Xfinity stars failing to grab Championship 4 spots ticked the team owner off enough to call for changes in senior management.

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Richard Childress places a lot of faith in his upgraded employees

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Talking about his choices’ fit for their new roles, Richard Childress was all praise for their immense contributions to his team. He said of Petree, “Andy Petree has been around racing his entire life in various roles and titles, from race car driver to car owner to two-time championship-winning crew chief for Dale Earnhardt (…) That experience and loyalty to RCR makes him the perfect choice to take on a larger role at RCR that transcends the competition side of our business.”

Justin Alexander, the new director of competition will overlook all competition-related arms. In his previous role with the team, he was the director of vehicle performance and has also worked as a crew chief with RCR for over 200 races. Notably, he led Austin Dillon to victories in the 2017 Coca-Cola 600 and the 2018 Daytona 500. Bouldering his pick of Alexander and Kominek, Childress added, “Justin Alexander and Eric Kominek are both extremely talented engineers who are proven in their ability to lead and are going to be valuable in their respective competition-focused positions.”

In 2024, Richard Childress Racing will have a new page to write its legacy on. Sheldon Creed will be a driver of the past and the young ARCA Menards champion Jesse Love will be replacing him. Along with the new promotions, the team will shine new on all fronts. Hopefully, the changes will result in more effectiveness from Richard Childress’s team in the coming year.

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