Team: Richard Childress Racing
Drivers: Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer, Jeff Burton, Casey Mears
Record: Zero wins, zero poles, 14 top-5s, 39 top-10s.
Season summary: Ug-lee. Harvick won at the Bud Shootout, and that was it for the entire year. A year after Harvick, Burton and Bowyer reached the Chase, Childress went 0-for-the-postseason. Questions persisted all season long about what possibly could have happened to RCR, and finally, things started turning around by the end of the year. Far too late to salvage 2009, but possibly to set the stage for 2010.
Where it went right: Almost nowhere. Burton had a decent chance to make the Chase, but a wreck late in the regular season at Bristol cashed his last hopes. Burton and Harvick were never in the hunt from the start, but Burton in particular began running well toward the end of the year, finishing with two straight second-place finishes. Mears? Well, he didn't destroy too many cars, at least.
Where it went wrong: Everywhere. Nobody in RCR got into a sustained groove at any time during the season. Drivers and crew blamed the lack of testing thanks to new NASCAR rules, and the fact that many of the teams ran better the second time around at many tracks indicated that very well could be the case.
Prospects for 2010: Very good for Burton, and Bowyer and Harvick are too good of drivers to run poorly two years in a row. Mears is in a spot of trouble, sponsor-wise; Jack Daniels has pulled out of sponsorship of the 07 car, and there's only enough sponsor cash at the moment to run the 07 in the Daytona 500.
Related RCR posts from 2009:
Jeff Burton putting it all together as everything wraps up
Jeff Burton turns heads, flutters hearts on 'General Hospital'
Kevin Harvick returns to his racing roots to restart series
Surprising no one, Kevin Harvick will return to RCR for 2010
Clint Bowyer punks Kevin Harvick out on the ol' golf course
Casey Mears the latest to feel the seething wrath of Junior
Next up: Earnhardt Ganassi Racing
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