2015 Reviews: Richard Childress Racing
Welcome to our 2015 reviews. Instead of going driver-by-driver we’re going to review teams this year. We’re starting from the bottom of the standings and working our way up. Let’s poke some holes in RCR’s season. Or something.
Drivers (standings in parenthesis): Ryan Newman (11th), Paul Menard (14th), Austin Dillon (21st)
Highlights: Newman led the Richard Childress Racing brigade once again, though he couldn’t top-10 his way to the final round of the Chase like he did in 2014. Newman had five top-five finishes and 15 top 10s.
His best three-race stretch was at the beginning of the season. Newman finished third at Las Vegas and Phoenix and fifth at Fontana, making early-reacters wonder if his run to (almost) the title in 2014 was something that could easily be repeated.
Menard made the Chase for the first time and was like a poor man’s Newman. He did it by simply avoiding bad finishes. Case in point. Menard had two top fives and five top 10s all season. And somehow ranked as one of the 16 best drivers in NASCAR after the first 26 races. Credit it to 14 finishes between 11th and 20th in those first 26.
Dillon was running in the Cup Series for the second season. He was one spot worse than the first. He grabbed a singular top-five finish (Michigan in August) again and upped his top 10s from four to five.
Lowlights: Newman got a 50-point penalty and his crew chief Luke Lambert was suspended for tire manipulation. That penalty came after the Fontana race. Given what we said in the highlights section above, it’s hard not to wonder just how much tire manipulation (reportedly poking holes in the tires to maintain air pressure throughout the course of a fuel run) played in Newman’s success in 2014 and early in 2015 given his performance dropoff after the penalty.
Menard was eliminated after the first round of the Chase thanks to a first-round best finish of 15th. Dillon was part of that crazy crash at Daytona in July, when his car flew into the frontstretch catchfence. Yes, that was played as a highlight by many media outlets, but we’re considering a lowlight because our stomach drops every single time we see a car go flying at a plate race.
Overview: OK, so we’ve established that RCR can get decent finishes week after week and put itself in a position to make the Chase. But to be blunt, that’s how the team has to do it. Newman, Menard and Dillon led a combined 69 laps in 2015 (Dillon led the way with 39). 13 drivers each led more than 69 laps the entire season (yes, the Cup Series is top heavy).
It’s not a breakthrough observation to say that if RCR wants to return to the glory days of Dale Earnhardt that the team has to find more speed. It’s something that’s been uttered for the last few years. How can it find it without poking holes in the tires?
The question remains. Dillon needs to take a step forward in 2016 while Newman and Menard should once again be top-20ing their way towards Chase berths.
If there was ever a NASCAR apocalypse, Newman and Menard seem like very good bets to be two of the last drivers standing. But if any of RCR’s three drivers is going to be the last one standing and celebrating at the end of a season, the team has some gains to make.
Previous Reviews: Chip Ganassi Racing, Michael Waltrip Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports, Roush Fenway Racing, JTG-Daugherty Racing and Germain Racing, HScott Motorsports, Front Row Motorsports, BK Racing and Tommy Baldwin Racing.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
