{"id":183210,"date":"2025-10-01T19:03:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T19:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/183210\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T19:03:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T19:03:07","slug":"richard-childress-nascar-retirement-rumors-explode-as-rcr-responds-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/183210\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Childress NASCAR retirement rumors explode as RCR responds &#8211; Motorsport &#8211; Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Childress Racing, which has just one race win this season courtesy of Austin Dillon, has halted suggestions that its team namesake and owner could retire after the 2025 <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.the-express.com\/latest\/nascar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> season in their tracks.<\/p>\n<p>A rumor emerged on social media on Tuesday that the 80-year-old was planning to step away, with the team as yet unsure who would take over his position. However, RCR wasted no time in commenting, \u201cThis is not accurate. Richard Childress is not planning to retire following the end of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This came around a week after it was announced that <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.the-express.com\/latest\/kyle-busch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kyle Busch<\/a>\u2019s crew chief, Randall Burnett, <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.the-express.com\/sport\/motorsport\/185578\/denny-hamlin-kyle-busch-Randall-Burnett\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">would be leaving RCR after the season<\/a> comes to a close to work with Xfinity Series starlet Connor Zilisch during <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.the-express.com\/sport\/motorsport\/181269\/connor-zilisch-nascar-cup-series-Trackhouse-Racing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">his first Cup Series season with Trackhouse Racing<\/a> in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>During his two seasons with two-time champion Busch, he has been unable to help the 40-year-old return to victory lane, with the 63-time race winner now winless since 2023 and continuing to struggle to consistently perform in the NextGen car.<\/p>\n<p>In an announcement on Wednesday, RCR revealed that Andy Street would take over as Busch\u2019s crew chief effective immediately. His first race in the role will be Sunday\u2019s Bank of America Roval 400 in Charlotte, with Burnett not set to \u201ccontinue contributing in a support role with the organization through the end of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.the-express.com\/newsletter-preference-centre\/?view=Solus&amp;mailingListId=9761f86a-69c1-4771-b7da-6a7feddacc61&amp;utm_source=solusarticle\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The team went on to add that \u201cAdditional information regarding future competition roles will be shared at a later date.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This comes after Busch\u2019s spotter, Derek Kneeland, was heard <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.the-express.com\/sport\/motorsport\/185472\/kyle-buschs-spotter-rcr-team-radio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">engaging in a brutal rant over the team radio<\/a> during <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.the-express.com\/sport\/motorsport\/185339\/chase-elliotts-breakdown-astonishing-nascar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the Hollywood Casino 400<\/a> on Sunday. With Busch down in 25th on lap 130, Kneeland told the No. 8 crew, \u201cI know you&#8217;re trying your a\u2014&#8211; off and I know we&#8217;re struggling, but we&#8217;ve got to try to keep him and everybody upbeat. We are not going home 35th tonight. If we do, I&#8217;m going to jump off this f\u2014&#8212; spotter stand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Later, Kneeland added, \u201cWe&#8217;ve got to try to keep everybody upbeat, including him. I know we&#8217;re bleeding spots right now, but we&#8217;ve got to finish.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>DON&#8217;T MISS&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Busch\u2019s afternoon later went from bad to worse when, with 15 laps to go, a tire blew out on his No. 8, forcing him onto pit road as the caution flag flew. Eventually, he would go on to finish 19th after double overtime, as Hendrick Motorsports\u2019 Chase Elliott crossed the line first after a last-lap overtake of a duelling Denny Hamlin and Bubba Wallace.<\/p>\n<p>After the race, Busch said, via <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nascar\/news\/what-drivers-said-after-cup-win-by-chase-elliott-at-kansas-speedway-denny-hamlin-bubba-wallace-zane-smith\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NBC Sports<\/a>, \u201cThe entire No. 8 Chevrolet team worked throughout the race to make adjustments to make us competitive today.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe made forward progress, but it just wasn\u2019t enough to get us where we needed to be to contend for a victory this afternoon at Kansas Speedway.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis race is in the books, and our attention is now on securing that first win of the season next weekend at the Charlotte Roval.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard Childress Racing, which has just one race win this season courtesy of Austin Dillon, has halted suggestions&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,8661,2332,634,92371,9535,92372,82],"class_list":["post-183210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-kyle-busch","tag-motorsport-section","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-retirement-rumors","tag-richard-childress","tag-richard-childress-racing-rcr","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}