Harvick OnLine: Top Story: RCR Team Ready To Roll

RCR Team Ready To Roll

TALLADEGA — Not so long ago at Talladega Superspeedway, DEI was just “die” misspelled.

Now, even the most novice race fan knows that DEI stands for Dale Earnhardt Inc. — and when it comes to restrictor plates: Dominance.

But what people sometimes forget is that nine of Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s track-record 10 series victories came under the banner of Richard Childress Racing; The last one was in the fall of 2000.

Since then, the parking spot in victory lane has been occupied by other drivers on other teams — namely those in the DEI cars — and who some make out to be their arch-rivals — the crew at Hendrick Motorsports.

But just like an eager shopper at Christmastime, there's someone lurking to whip right in DEI's spot.

With a multi-year rebuilding process now looking like it is near completion, RCR is poised to retake its place on the restrictor-plate throne.

The drivers will start the tune-up process for Talladega today, as they hit the 2.66-mile tri-oval for a practice session before Saturday's qualifying for Sunday's Aaron's 499.

The leader of the Childress crew, Kevin Harvick, has proven he can qualify at Talladega Superspeedway, claiming the pole for the 2005 Aaron's 499.

Recently he proved he can drive a restrictor-plate car to a win, too.

With the field wrecking behind them, Harvick edged Mark Martin by the slimmest of margins — 0.02 seconds — at the season-opening Daytona 500 to break Childress' restrictor-plate drought.

Since then, the Childress trio of Harvick, Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton looks like the finely tuned machines they're driving.

Burton is second in the point standings, Clint Bowyer is ninth and Harvick is 11th. If The Chase for the Nextel Cup started today — now that it takes the top 12 drivers — Childress would be a very happy man.

By Murphy's Law, things just can't be that perfect. Something bad has to happen.

It could have been the fact that Harvick is without his prize-winning car, as they place the car that wins the Daytona 500 on display in Daytona USA for a whole year.

But even that, too, went RCR's way.

“No, we didn't plan on running that car at Talladega,” Harvick said. “The cars have become so different from Daytona to Talladega.

“At Daytona, you work so much on finding the right setup so it will handle in the draft and late in a run. I think it has become a different car for almost everyone. I know for us, we had planned on bringing a different car to Talladega so it isn't that big of a deal that we don't have our 500 car.”

With Harvick bringing a car to Talladega different than the one he drove at Daytona- not exactly the norm among most drivers, come Sunday it might go to show who exactly is in the know.

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