Richard Childress shares memories of Bristol Motor Speedway

By Allen Gregory
Sports Writer / Bristol Herald Courier
Published: June 10, 2008

BRISTOL, Tenn. – While the setting was formal, Richard Childress seemed right at home at Bristol Motor Speedway. And for good reason.
Childress has watched nine of his cars win at the fearsome theatre of speed, and one of his longtime engine gurus is from nearby Washington County, Va.
“This is a heck of a race track and there is always hard racing,” said Childress, who was honored by the Bristol Rotary Club Tuesday evening. “I’ve had some bad times and good times here.”
The most recent Sprint Cup event at BMS ranks as one of those good times. In fact, drivers from the Richard Childress Racing team swept the top three positions in the Food City on March 16.
“When you come to Bristol, you would just like to take your cars out of here in one piece,” Childress said. “To finish 1-2-3, in Bristol of all places, that’s just unbelievable.
“It was a special night.”
Childress entered the 2008 season with 86 Cup wins and six series championships. However, RCR drivers had never earned the top three finishing spots before Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer accomplished the feat in March.
True to his maverick form, Childress celebrated that historic feat in unique fashion.
The avid outdoorsman flew to Mongolia in search of wild sheep. To be exact, Childress went after the largest of all sheep – the Altai argali which are found high in the Altai mountain range. The horns of mature males normally weigh 45-50 pounds and up to 75 pounds.
“I hunted 12 days the first time I went over there and didn’t get one,” Childress said. “I hunted two days this last time and was able to get one.
“It’s one heck of a sheep, and would be way up in the record book.”
Childress knows hunting. His resume includes the coveted Grand Slam of North American sheep – the bighorn, desert bighorn, Dall and Stone.
“I’m just now starting to look at something called the Super Slam, but I might be too old to climb that many mountains,” Childress said. “I am planning a trip to Newfoundland to hunt caribou soon.”
Despite a limited formal education, Childress has reached the peak of NASCAR. In addition to his six titles with Earnhardt, his RCR team has made resurgence in recent years under the leadership of Burton and veteran employees such as Spenny Clendenen of Glade Spring.
Clendenen now works Earnhardt Childress Racing, a joint effort of RCR and Dale Earnhardt, Inc.
“I remember the night I came down here and hired Spenny in that little town (Abingdon) he worked in,” Childress said. “He had a little garage and he was working on a farm tractor.“Spenny is quite a guy, and he’s really contributed a lot to the success of RCR.”
Longtime RCR fans will remember that Earnhardt often took the time during national television interviews in Victory Lane to credit Clendenen after a victory.
“Spenny will be at RCR as long as he wants to be,” Childress said. “Spenny actually used to drive back and forth every day from Abingdon to our shop in North Carolina.”
That sense of family and loyality has long been a guiding force for the RCR team. With the help of beloved longtime employee and former crewman Chocolate Myers, Childress operates one of the most expansive museums in motorsports in Welcome, N.C.
In a glitzy age of million dollar motorhomes, supermodel wives and corporate jets, Childress remains a throwback to the gritty days of NASCAR when a blue-collar man named Earnhardt earned respect the old-fasioned way.
“Dale and I hunted two or three times every year and fished a couple of times ever year,” Childress said. “I miss those days…I miss those as much as anything.”
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