Richard Childress Racing has plans to reassert itself as the home team for NASCAR’s core blue-collar fanbase, leaning into its history at a time when newer teams are trying to position themselves as the sport’s future.
Last week, the team appointed Mike Verlander as its new president, replacing longtime leader Torrey Galida, whom will remain as an advisor and board member of RCR. Based in Welcome, N.C., the team was founded in 1969 and is famous for being the one that Dale Earnhardt Sr. won six championships for. Childress is also well-known in conservative circles politically, and he’s a conservationist and hunter environmentally, in a sport whose fanbase has historically leaned conservative.
As Verlander takes the reigns of the team, he told SBJ this past week that one of the two main goals of the team off the race track this year is to “talk about who we are and to own who we are.” Verlander is a former Stewart-Haas Racing sales and marketing executive who later ran Kyle Busch Group, the companies owned by the star NASCAR driver who now drives for RCR.
Once Busch left Joe Gibbs Racing and joined RCR in 2023, Childress convinced Verlander to come serve as COO for a year in ’24 before taking over for Galida in ’25. Now that he’s leading the storied organization, Verlander has designs on recapturing the team’s past glory and making it more of a place that not only fans want to root for but that industry members also want to work at. RCR has two teams in the Cup Series and two teams in the Xfinity Series, and its parent company RCR Enterprises has multiple non-racing subsidiaries that earn other forms of revenue.
This season, NASCAR’s two new venues on the schedule were the historic Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem as well as Mexico City, underscoring how the racing series is on dual tracks of trying to please its old-school fanbase while also going to new places. Verlander used that dichotomy as an analogy of what he sees in the team side of the sport, saying: “What Mexico is to NASCAR, we still need Bowman Gray, so we want to be that similar setting where if you’re a guy or a gal who wakes up in the morning and you bust your back all day working your butt off, and you have a little grit up your nails, you definitely have a strong work ethic, we want to be your team. That’s something you’ll hear from us a lot. Our team – it is what it is, it’s a hard-working group of folks in Welcome, N.C. We’re not going to back away from the fact that we’re in Welcome. There are teams with slicker taglines and flashier shoe games, but that’s not who we are.”
In this rough-and-tumble sport, Childress still shows up to work every day wearing cowboy boots and Wrangler jeans (Wrangler was a former longtime sponsor of RCR and Earnhardt). Verlander called Childress “one of the most authentic and passionate guys that I’ve been around, and we’re going to have a company that reflects that.” Even RCR’s corporate partners often reflect the team’s brand, with sponsors including Bass Pro Shops, the Winchester gun ammunition company, Rebel bourbon, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, Zone nicotine pouches, Dow and Boot Barn.
While having a blue-collar mentality has long been part of the RCR ethos, Verlander said it’s going to be messaged much more intentionally and often moving forward. Verlander: “You’ll hear our drivers, crew chiefs, Richard, talk about the fact that we’re not going to be out-worked, we’re going to have a gritty nature to who we are, we’re going to say things that we shouldn’t when we get out of the car because we’re passionate and we’re hot in the moment, but that’s the exact same thing that the fan in Section 302 at Talladega does, right? We want the fans to know that if you’re new to the sport or you’ve been with the sport a long time but you get up and you have that working-class mentality, you throw your boots on and you’re off to work and you’re grinding all day and you come home and just want a beer, we’re your guys, because we’ve got 400 people on payroll across all our companies with that same mentality.”
The scope of the president’s role will be similar for Verlander as it was for Galida, and Verlander insisted that the No. 1 goal is winning races. But one thing that could be different is Verlander putting a greater focus and spotlight on RCR Enterprises’ other businesses, because they’ve become more important in recent years. When NASCAR debuted its seventh-generation car in 2022, it forced teams to re-evaluate their staffing levels because the new car doesn’t require as many people to build them as the past generations. Rather than firing many of those fabricators who used to build their cars, Childress created new businesses to deploy some of that staff elsewhere.
On top of the race team, RCR Enterprises’ subsidiaries include RCR Manufacturing Solutions, RCR Graphics, ECR Engines and Childress Technologies. RCR Manufacturing Solutions is making vehicles for the U.S. Department of Defense. Childress also owns a vineyard but that is a separate company outside of the RCR Enterprises’ purview, to not complicate the technology-focused group with an alcohol-related company.
Talking about how RCR Enterprises is now far more than just a race team is one of the other main goals for Verlander. Sponsorship is in a good place, as the team has sold out of all primary positions for its cars this season.
