Childress likes 2010 prospects

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Cold rain postponed the 500-lapper at Martinsville Speedway yesterday, but cold rain didn't dampen Richard Childress' racing spirit.

When the Sprint Cup celebrities return for a noon start today, the three Childress drivers will line up based

on their season points totals: Kevin Harvick first, Jeff Burton seventh and Clint Bowyer 12th.

They're only five races into a 36-race marathon, but they're light years ahead of last year, when no Childress driver ranked high enough to make the 12-team championship chase.

"We're not working any harder this year than we did last year," Childress said. "We're just doing some things a little differently or better. To see everyone getting their rewards, it really helps make me feel good."

Change of direction

In the dry summer of 2009, there were few rewards and a few ruffled feathers. Harvick looked like a driver with one lead foot halfway out the door, although he had a year left on his contract. The Childress operation issued a statement emphasizing that Harvick's Shell-Pennzoil sponsorship would stay in the Childress shop regardless.

Childress reorganized the competition department, made other personnel switches and emphasized engineering advances. When Jack Daniel's ended its sponsorship, RCR reduced the Cup stable to three cars.

"We started our changes in July," Childress said. "It's like turning a big ship. You just can't turn it that quick. We really started seeing the improvement the last five or six races last year."

The momentum has accelerated. Harvick finished seventh at Daytona and second at California, seizing the points lead. Only months ago, garage heads assumed that Harvick was bound for Tony Stewart's conglomerate. Now, folks aren't so sure. Could the Childress-Harvick relationship work out?

"It could," Childress said. "We've talked. We both know what we can accomplish if we work hard at it. Kevin's a great race driver. We've just got to give him the equipment and people, and he can get the job done."

Harvick, thrust into the spotlight after Dale Earnhardt's death in 2001, has been getting jobs done all over the sport lately. He won the truck race at Martinsville Saturday, his second victory in two starts this season. He ranks fifth in NASCAR's Nationwide Series. "You can go and really push the limits and find those limits and do things you normally wouldn't do, just because there is really nothing at stake," Harvick said. "It is fun. It eases my mind. It lets me relax."

Looking ahead

Childress will assess sponsorships and make decisions for next year by June. One major question: three teams or four?

All the future questions seem simpler when the current answers have a positive tint. Under gray skies, Childress smiled comfortably as he discussed wife Judy's recovery from illness and the emerging racing careers of grandsons Austin Dillon (ninth in truck points) and Ty Dillon.

On the Sprint Cup tracks, the news is better than it has been for quite a while.

"We've been through it," Childress said. "When you've been in the sport as long as we have, you're going to see those peaks and valleys. It's probably no different than '88 or '92. I can go on down. We haven't had the years we should've had since 2000-2001, but I think we're back to getting closer. You can't rest. If you think you're there or getting close enough, you're just getting beat."

Burton concurs. "You are what your record says you are," he said, "and our record says that we haven't been good enough to win yet."

The record shows that Burton hasn't won since Charlotte in October 2008, 46 races ago. The Bowyer winless streak is 67 races. Harvick has run 112 times since winning the 2007 Daytona 500.

As the rain dripped on Martinsville Speedway, the promoters kept the victor's grandfather clock dry. They couldn't do much about the .526-mile track. Childress will return, looking for that elusive something.

"A win," he said. "One more big clock."

The timing seems just about right.

lrawlings@wsjournal.com.