In Kansas, Richard Childress Racing drivers struggled. Austin Dillon rolled off the grid in 16th place, but it did not take him long to stumble. Dillon sputtered and slipped all the way back to 30th in the early stages. A similar fate visited Kyle Busch. Despite climbing up from a 27th-place starting spot, the veteran hit the wall in the last few laps and had a tire go down. Amidst this reality, fans are upset about a rumor turning out to be false.

Richard Childress forayed into NASCAR way back in 1969, emerging from a humble background. His lengthy tenure has established the Cup Series team owner as a veteran of the sport. Yet the past two years have earned him a large swathe of detractors, who fumed against a recent update.

The garage will still have Richard Childress

A jaw-dropping piece of news rocked social media recently. Although not confirmed, many fans deemed that it was a long time coming. NASCAR Central posted on X, “Richard Childress will be retiring following the conclusion of the 2025 NASCAR season.” The 80-year-old team owner has indeed been discussing management opportunities with his grandsons, Austin and Ty Dillon. Having contributed to the team’s 6 Cup Series championships, Childress has contemplated the future. What is more, Austin Dillon told Dale Jr. in mid-August that his grandfather has started to stay home “a couple of more times a year.”  

However, just as this rumor began to settle down in the NASCAR community, RCR snapped back. In a public response to NASCAR Central’s post, the official X account of the team denied the claim. Their post read, “This is not accurate. Richard Childress is not planning to retire following the end of the season.”

Clearly, Richard Childress still has the energy to continue his work just as he did before. He sold peanuts in the Bowman Gray Stadium grandstands as a youngster and raced tough short tracks in high school. Although he likes fishing and hunting, nothing drives him quite like racing. Shortly before he turned 80 in September, Childress said he hoped he was still around the sport a decade from now. But he does not feel pressure to win because of his age. Instead, he defines it as a “drive to win.”

What is more, Richard Childress feels it is his duty to bring Kyle Busch’s 88-race winless streak to an end. “I felt like we let (Kyle) down some last year by not winning a race,” Childress said. “There’s things that we’ve changed a lot to try to win. This car is a lot different (from the previous car). It’s so engineer-driven that we’re stepping our engineering up more.”

However, Richard Childress’s motivation to persist in the sport did not impress the fans. They are growing impatient with every lackluster weekend.

Echoes of disapproval across the community

Well, RCR has not been in the fans’ good books in recent times. In the past two years, controversies like Austin Dillon’s bump-and-run in Richmond and Austin Hill’s intentionally wrecking Aric Almirola in Indianapolis have popped up. What is more, Kyle Busch’s winless streak has shown no sign of improvement. So when RCR said that the rumor of Richard Childress retiring is “not accurate,” a fan simply replied, “Well it should be.” Another fan pointed out a different part of the response. Since Childress would not retire “following the end of the season,” they hoped that he would at a different time. The comment read, “Very specific with your wording……so at the beginning of next season?”

What bothered most fans was Kyle Busch‘s prolonged streak of misery. The two-time Cup Series champion and 63-time Cup race winner was once a fiery contender. But ever since shifting to RCR in 2023, he has entered a slump. So one fan took Richard Childress’ rumor as a good sign, and lamented: “Dang, we thought Kyle may stand chance to win again.”

From countless crew shuffles to roping in new sponsors like Lucas Oil and Rebel Bourbon, RCR’s efforts to level up have been immense. However, none of them worked to uplift Kyle Busch, so another fan snapped at RCR’s X response. They wrote, “Yeah, well, leave us alone. We’re trying to manifest it in to existence. Since no one in your organization has the b–ls to tell him to retire.” Busch could not crack the playoffs for the second year in a row, and Austin Dillon bowed out of the Round of 16. Given the sordid state of affairs, another fan wrote, “This clarification could not have come at a worse time.”

Evidently, Richard Childress’ reputation is going through a tough time. Let’s wait and see if his prolonged stay can bring about the much-awaited changes in his team.