NASCAR CUP SERIES: GEICO 500

April 23, 2023

Randall Burnett

Richard Childress

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: Good evening, everyone. We've been joined by team owner Richard Childress of Richard Childress Racing.

Richard, congratulations on another win. Tell us a little bit about the final laps from your vantage point.

RICHARD CHILDRESS: I think my stomach was in knots, but not as bad as the crew chief.

Randall was, Pit, pit.

Kyle said, Look, we done made this deal, we done made our decision, let's ride it out no matter what.

He just stayed out. We were on the border of running out of fuel. I was just holding my breath. It wasn't going to be fun if we run out of fuel.

It was a good day, a great day. Great crowd. One of the best crowds I understand at Talladega since Dale Jr. won in 2008 or last one that he won.

THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for Richard.

Q. Your 13th win here at Talladega, second only to Hendrick. What does it feel like to win at Talladega? Such a difficult place to win.

RICHARD CHILDRESS: It's such an important win. If you win at Talladega, so much can happen during the race. But Talladega has been so great to RC. I raced here in 1969. One of the biggest breaks I got. I left here with about 1,500, 2,000 dollars, thought I'd never have to work again. Here I am still racing (smiling).

Talladega has been great. Winning with Dale here in the Winston I guess 2000 was the last win for him here.

Q. RCR has had such a resurgence with Kyle. How do you feel as an organization?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: I think he's helping us build RCR back to where we want to be. I have to give all the credit to Austin Dillon. He's the one that came to me, he knew Tyler was going somewhere else. He said, Pop, what do you think about bringing Kyle Busch over here?

I said, I'll talk to him if he wants to.

We sat down, put a program together. The credit goes to Austin for bringing him on.

Q. You talk about Austin. How do you keep that team from not maybe getting into desperation mode?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: Which team?

Q. Austin's team, considering how far back they are in points, looking at the Playoffs. Last year they won the last race to get in. Is there anything you do or want them to do to avoid being in desperation mode?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: Well, you start the season out in desperation mode. That's the way we always look at this deal.

He knows now he's got to win. We know we've got to get a win for him. We'll be digging extra hard to get him there, those 60 points, we got an appeal. I feel we have a decent chance. I don't know who the panel will be, but that will be who will decide it. I think we got a decent chance.

Q. You've had some struggles in recent years, but now when you go back to last season, you've won six of the last 29 races. I don't know if you're going to say you're back or you consider yourself back, but what does it mean to be more of a player than what you had been for a number of years?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: Thank you, Dustin. That's a good question.

Racing is like life: there's peaks and valleys. When you get in on a peak, it's harder to stay there. You got to be prepared when you're at the top. We've been there. We've also been in the valley, the very bottom. You got to work harder and have the right drive and emotion to put you up to the top. That's what we've worked hard to get there. It's took a long road. It's been a fun deal.

Q. What does it mean to you personally?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: Me personally, it means a lot. I'm still doing this. People say, Why do you do it? If you see all those fans up there, that's why we do it. We're all in this for that reason.

We got some great partners that we've been involved with. Chevy, Bass Pro, so many of them over the years. Just long-term partnerships drive you.

And our crew chief, Randall Burnett. Can you breathe yet (laughter)?

RANDALL BURNETT: Yes (smiling).

Q. A lot of people dread coming to this place. It's been good to you over the years. Why do you think it's been good to you? What is it about this place?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: Back even when I was driving, they used to say it was an Indian burial ground. I don't know if any of you remember that. It was always supposed to be the ghost of Talladega to be here.

I just always shook it off and just enjoyed it. I loved racing here as a driver. I love being an owner here. We've had some great runs, great wins. I'm excited about the future of RCR, Kyle, Austin, the whole team.

Q. Richard, it's been 15 races for Kyle since he's won here. 22 for you, back since Clint Bowyer won here in 2011. Did you wonder if you would ever get back to Victory Lane? Did you see this as being one of those it's just going to be a battle?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: Talladega is always a battle of survival. That's what the battle really is. If you can be there at the end, you got a chance to win. That's what we wanted to do. That's always our goal here and Daytona. You got to be there at the end.

Both drivers talked about coming out here racing, racing as hard as they could, and they did. It was a good day for one. Austin didn't have that good of a day, he was involved in that crash. But Talladega will give you that, give you the peaks and valleys.

Q. Randall, obviously the pit strategy, a big question. What does it mean to you to be on the box, have your driver say, This is what we're doing, I have control?

RANDALL BURNETT: It's hugely helpful. For him to buy into what we're doing, the communication is there, Hey, man, this is where we're at in the race, this is what we've got going on. For him to understand that, process that, do everything he can to help us along the way, is huge for us, how we play our strategy.

Q. The opposite side of that is can you look at Talladega Superspeedway and say if we need something great to happen, can you come to Talladega and say maybe this is where things turn around for us?

RANDALL BURNETT: Well, yeah, it's a nice shot in the arm for us, honestly. We kind of hung out, tried to stay out of trouble all day. Everybody was kind of along the same lines of just being conscious of how much fuel they were using, all that.

We've came off a rough three or four races for us. To be able to come back out and win this race, it's good for everybody on the team, get a good shot in the arm.

Really looking forward to going back to some of these mile-and-a-half tracks, get back to the meat and potatoes of the schedule, seeing what we've got there.

We've got some work obviously to do on our short track stuff. That will give us a little bit of a break, realign on that, come back, see what we got.

Q. Richard, you've seen a lot of races, ups and downs at Talladega. The optimism of coming to Talladega...

RICHARD CHILDRESS: Like I said earlier, it's all about survival here, one thing, to put yourself in a position to win. All day long, Kyle sit there in that bottom line, when some other lines were moving, kept moving up, moving up. Pit strategy, the calls that Randall made there for the amount of fuel, saving fuel, use less fuel to get you out in front of them. That paid off. That's what it takes.

I'm going to go celebrate with my friend J.P. Morris, Johnny Morris, all the friends at Bass Pro because we're going turkey hunting tomorrow (smiling).

Q. Randall, what happened on the final sequence when you called Kyle in? When did you make the decision?

RANDALL BURNETT: Yeah, we'd had the talk when the first caution came out there like 184, 185. I'm like, Hey, man, we're going to be in a bad spot here possibly if we get too many green-white-checkereds.

He was like, Let's try to give it a go, the first one, see what happens.

He was fully aware. He was aggressively saving us fuel, doing everything he could. He knew the situation at that point. I saw a couple of 'em getting ready to duck off in front of us. They were kind of in the same fuel situation as we were. There were a bunch of us.

Honestly, I called it too late. It was a fortunate mistake, you know what I mean? We kind of lucked out there. He saved enough under those cautions to make it till the end. The caution coming out on the white flag lap there, who knows if we would have ran all the way to the end. We might not have made it.

Just kind of better be lucky than good at that point.

Q. 11 races with him. He's a unique talent, temperamental. Never know what you're going to get. How has it been working with him?

RANDALL BURNETT: It's been great. His ability speaks for itself obviously. What he knows about the cars and the strategy, just how the race plays out, what he needs in a car, all that is hugely helpful.

I think it helps me be better, be more detailed, and really be on top of my game because he's going to challenge you if you're not.

I think everybody on the 8 team has really stepped it up in that manner. I think it's been good so far. I think everything has been great. We have a good relationship, communicate a lot, communicate well. I think that shows.

Q. Kyle hasn't won at one of these tracks in a points race in a long time. When you talk about this style of racing, does he tell you he's good or that he hasn't won in over a decade?

RANDALL BURNETT: Well, no, honestly, when he got there, that was one of the big things that he wanted to get with Derek on. He knows Derek has had some success, our spotter Derek.

He came over, Man, I'll tell you what, I've really struggled at these places. I don't know what it is about my approach, what we do, but I've struggled at these superspeedway tracks.

He was very interested to see how Derek goes about approaching his day and how that communication goes. They spent a lot of time over the winter talking about it, listening to tape, doing all that. I think it paid off.

Obviously we were in a great spot at the 500. Really fast there all weekend. Just kind of missed out on winning that one. Got wadded up at the end. Obviously put ourselves in position there, as well.

I think their relationship is really good. I think Kyle has put a lot of trust in Derek at these places. It's been paying off.

Q. Since you won with Tyler at Road America, you've won five races among the two drivers. How have you been able to build this team that when you have the talent, you can take advantage?

RANDALL BURNETT: I mean, this 8 team, it's strong. The road crew guys, they're all racers. They've grown up racing. We've got great engineers. This team's really strong. We're really close, really connected. We've spent the last three or four years together all through Tyler's coming up through the Cup side, now with Kyle.

Everybody's really dedicated. Everybody wants to come out and win races. Everybody works hard. They pull their weight. They take their responsibility for their part in it. It just makes a great team.

Obviously we've been fortunate enough to have two very talented drivers. Tyler is an incredible talent. Now we got Kyle. His résumé speaks for itself.

Just very fortunate to have those kind of caliber of drivers drive the car, and for our team to stay close-knit and work as hard as they do. It's been great.

Q. Even with the talent you have, how did you have to build it up as a coach?

RANDALL BURNETT: It's one of those deals, we missed a lot of opportunities when Tyler was driving the car. We finished second I don't know how many times. Everybody sees that and they taste that and they want it, right?

It's not hard when you're running up front to keep everybody motivated. It's when you're struggling and things aren't going right. It's tough to keep everybody pulling together in the same direction.

Fortunately, like last year, we had a lot of fast cars all year long. Tyler did a great job. We finally figured out how to break that barrier. Once we did, it started working out better for us.

Kyle came aboard. He's been great to work with. He's a proven winner many times over. Just to be able to get him in the car, us kind of adapt to him, him adapt to us, we kind of found a good middle road I think. Looking forward to getting to more of these tracks.

THE MODERATOR: Congratulations on the win.