Richard Childress Talks Austin Dillon’s Suspicious Radio Chatter
What’s Happening? Austin Dillon’s win last night made many headlines for NASCAR, but one side of the story has raised eyes…
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After a tough 2024 season, Richard Childress Racing will take a stab at 2025 with the same four drivers they did this season. Hoping for an improvement on a down year, 2025 could paint the picture of RCR’s future.
Following a season in which he won four races, Kyle Busch entered 2025 with high hopes and another shot at Daytona. While one of those hopes flamed out early on, the other looked good heading into the summer.
However, the summer turned into a series of disappointments, and Busch came up short of a playoff appearance twice at Daytona and Darlington. This not only ended a lengthy playoff streak but a 19-season winning streak.
While this was going on, his teammate and grandson of Richard Childress, Austin Dillon, put up his worst career season, capitalized by a controversial win at Richmond. However, the nature of this win, with AD wrecking two drivers in the final turn of the last lap, resulted in a revocation of playoff contention and bad press for AD and RCR.
What’s Happening? Austin Dillon’s win last night made many headlines for NASCAR, but one side of the story has raised eyes…
All of these things combined for a tough year for the historic organization. The larger fanbase views Dillon as disappointing, and Rowdy’s passionate fans are calling for him to leave the team by all means necessary. However, both Rowdy and AD will give it a shot with the team in 2025, just like the team’s two Xfinity drivers, who had a much better season than their Cup Counterparts.
RCR and Austin Hill gave it another shake in the Xfinity Series in 2024, with Hill winning the season opener at Daytona for a third consecutive season. He followed this up with three more wins and a career-best fourth-place points finish.
Hill also started several part-time races for RCR in the Cup Series. However, these did not go his way, with a best finish of 25th at Daytona. Hill and new teammate Jesse Love will be back with RCR next season.
For Love, his rookie year went beyond most’s expectations, with Love winning at Talladega, something Sheldon Creed failed to do in the No. 2 car. Love also made a solid attempt at the championship, finishing eighth and beating out four-race winner Shane Van Gisbergen to take home Rookie of the Year Honors.
For RCR, their Xfinity Series program continues to be a shining light. However, no driver has been called up to Cup since Tyler Reddick did so in 2021, leaving questions as to what RCR could do if things at that level do not improve.
The team has once again shuffled ahead of the 2025 season. Andy Petree is out as Vice President of Competition, and Keith Rodden, Austin Dillon’s former Crew Chief, will take his place. Justin Alexander, a former Crew Chief with Dillon, took over that role from Rodden early in 2024. Now, former Chase Briscoe Crew Chief Richard Boswell will call the shots for the No. 3 in 2025.
While Boswell is well respected in the garage area, Dillon’s inconsistency could be part of his struggles to stay on track. This year may go two ways for RCR. First, they could find their speed from 2023 again, or, like Kaulig and Trackhouse, they could find themselves rebuilding for 2026.
If so, that raises many questions as to what a shake-up at RCR could look like. Would Busch leave? Could Dillon step down or go part-time? These hypotheticals are made even more interesting by the prospect of young talent like Jesse Love. Even if things work, should RCR take the drastic step, such as expansion or reshuffling, to get Love into a car?
The simple answer is we dont know. All that is known is that success will be very important next year for RCR and its drivers.
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