As The World Turns With Richard Childress Racing

Previously on “As the World Turns with Richard Childress Racing,” presented by 3Chi ...

When we last saw the Richard Childress Racing clan, there was trouble in paradise.

RCR’s golden boy, Tyler Reddick, dropped a bombshell that “shocked” his racing family. Only weeks after the team popped champaign at Road America, Reddick was a surprise guest star on an episode of “Days of Our 23XI Racing Lives,” presented by Dr. Pepper.

Denny Hamlin dramatically revealed that Reddick would join its cast in 2024, 18 months away.

What did this mean for RCR’s future? Is Reddick’s job secure for 2023? Will Hamlin ever find out about his evil twin brother, Danny Hamlin?

Find out on this week’s episode of “As the World Turns with RCR ….”

*dramatic music, fade in*

Richard Childress strolled into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway media center on Sunday (July 31), a bottle of champagne in hand.

After a news-filled July that had elated then shook his race team, Childress was ending the month on a high note.

About an hour before, Tyler Reddick had held on in overtime to earn his second career NASCAR Cup Series victory and his second in five races.

Why was this a big deal?

For Childress, 2022 is the first time his Cup team has earned multiple wins in a season with one driver since 2013, the final season of the Kevin Harvick era. It is also the first time RCR has won more than once period since 2017.

Despite wins in the Coca-Cola 600 (2017), the Daytona 500 (2018) and at Texas Motor Speedway (2020), RCR’s Cup operation had more or less been lost in the wilderness for almost a decade.

Was RCR “back”?

“The doors have been open, the lights have been on, but we haven’t been competitive,” Childress said. “But it feels great to come to a racetrack and know you’re going to be one of the teams that’s going to be racing for the win.”

That surge in competitive edge has seen RCR’s duo of Reddick and Austin Dillon combine for 10 top fives and 16 top 10s through 22 races.

But the brunt of RCR’s success over the last two seasons has been produced by Reddick. In 2021, Reddick had three top fives and 16 top 10s, compared to Dillon’s one top five and eight top 10s.

For those two seasons, RCR was steadily building toward a return to relevancy.

Now the backbone of that steady rise has an end date after Reddick’s surprise 23XI Racing announcement two weeks ago, made from a hotel conference room in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, soon after he…