Richard Childress joined High Point University President Nido Qubein in the Power List interview, a partnership for discussion with some of the state’s most influential leaders. Business North Carolina’s annual Power List publication spotlights the state’s powerbrokers.
Richard Childress, 78, is a NASCAR icon, as a driver, mechanic and engine builder whose racing team has logged more than 200 victories since 1969. His son-in-law Mike Dillon is general manager of the team, whose drivers include his grandsons Austin and Ty Dillon, along with Kyle Busch and Jesse Love. The Winston-Salem native leads a 450-employee company in Welcome in Davidson County that includes one of the state’s major wineries. His comments were edited for brevity and clarity.
Richard, you are a legend. You have won more than 200 races. Now you have a grandson who’s winning championships. How does that feel?
Here’s a kid with a dream. When I was about 17 or 18 years old I got an old $20 race car that is sitting here today, and I’m having a conversation with you, talking about my grandsons Austin Dillon and Ty Dillon who are driving today, and the history of RCR and racing. It’s just an honor.
What makes racing so popular?
I think the fans are spectators who can relate to someone in their cars. If you win on Sunday, you sell on Monday. We have great corporations involved like General Motors, Ford and Caterpillar supporting our sport. And television has carried us to a whole ‘nother level.
It’s a big business. I toured your place and was surprised by how many engineers you hire.
Today we have close to 50 engineers. The sport is constantly changing and is a moving target to stay competitive, just like in anything. But we’ve been fortunate. We’ve been there now, I think, 55, 56 years. It goes back to people. You have to have the right people for success. You have to have the right partners, which I call our sponsors, to move to the next level. And the race fans, they play such a major part in our sport.
How does this work? You have a team that calls on a company and gets them to sponsor a car? Why are there so many decals on a car?
It takes so many different companies involved with the team and drivers. It changes year by year. We have some sponsors that would come to us and say, what are we going to do to get involved with you and whoever the driver may be.
We also have a business development group, and I have a company in New York City that we work with that goes in and makes contact. We work for these companies. I work for every sponsor we have.
How does a racer get into a race? Do you pay to enter? How do they pick which ones are going to race?
We have the Race Teams Alliance, and we have to contract with NASCAR. The 36 positions are guaranteed to start that race. I have two of those positions. I’m guaranteed every week we’re going to start. Austin drives for our company and we pay him to drive. And he has sponsors who he endorses. So that’s how the drivers are compensated.
Tell me about the pit stop. It’s the most fascinating part to me. How many seconds should it be?
It’s like poetry in motion. These guys know everything. Every movement, every step counts. We do good stops in the high 11 (seconds.) That’s four tires and 18 gallons of fuel. These guys, every one of them, are athletes. They work out. We train them. They practice every week, just like a football team.
Do you miss racing?
I got out of the car in 1981. I ran the first 20 races and put Dale Earnhardt in back then for the last 10. Going to that first race and not being a driver, I was totally lost. So I missed it for about the first year. And then I said, you know, I’m kind of enjoying watching what’s happening.
We won our first Cup race with Ricky Rudd in 1982 at Riverside, California, and then we brought in Dale in 1984.
Let’s talk about wine. Richard, you built the Childress wineries and vineyards and you’re doing very well with it. What got you in it? Why take such a risk?
I used to go to Riverside, California, in the early ’70s, and Riverside and Ontario were actually bigger wine country than Napa was at the time or as big.
We’d go there after practice and qualifying, and you’d drink wine. So I said, someday I want to get a winery. Then we went to Sonoma and started racing there and the Finger Lakes in New York, and we made a lot of friends. I said, “You know, I’m going to do a winery” and had it all planned.
I was going to do a small winery at my farm, but then 9/11 happened. I changed my mind on how to build all of our company buildings. So we built the winery where it is, and it’s one of the funnest, greatest things I’ve done. It’s become a really good, successful business.
How does one build a winery?
You start out by planting your grapes and having a vision and getting the right people. It’s like in everything that you do. It’s all about people. I’m just Richard Childress. I wouldn’t be here but for all the people that I’ve been able to surround myself with.
How did you know how to hire the right people in a business you knew nothing about?
I knew a little about it from knowing friends and meeting the people in California. I read several books about wine and educated myself a little bit before I just dove in. The first thing we needed was to get a winemaker that was world-class. Mark Friszolowski is our winemaker and has been there since day one. You have to have a good product to keep growing.
We started out with a couple of thousand cases and today we’re over 80,000 cases. Hopefully in another year we’ll hit 100,000 per year. We have the winery itself and probably do 30% there. Then we have a wholesale group and I think we’re in seven states. We sell most of the wine in grocery stores, chains and restaurants.
So, Richard, you have about 450 employees, and 50 are engineers. What do the others do?
We’re self-sufficient. We do everything at our race shops. We have a machine shop that builds all of our stuff. We have an engine shop where we build all of our engines. We have a big customer base too, building engines for like seven or eight other teams in the Cup Series.
Now we’ve branched out into the military. We just built a concept vehicle for the Special Forces. We do a lot of work for General Dynamics and a lot of companies like that.
You have done a lot in the charitable world, including children’s medical functions at Wake Forest University. What is that?
It’s a children’s institute for pediatric trauma, which is the No. 1 killer of our children in America. Pediatric trauma is everything that you can think of. It’s a small child that falls out of a four-wheeler, or [injured] soccer girls. We do a lot of work with Wake Forest and the University of Virginia, with helmets and prevention. We work with a lot of hospitals all over the country to bring in knowledge.
We’re also working with a group called Rock Solid Foundation. We build play sets for children that have cancer. I think we’ve built maybe 14 or 15 play sets, right where they live. It’s a great team-building opportunity.
Richard, you’re not retired, and you’re very active. Do you direct your companies’ strategic planning?
I try to get in bed at nine and get up at five usually and go over a lot of stuff that I want to do that day. I walk for two-and-a-half miles in the morning around the vineyards at my house. I run the board, I’m still the CEO. I have three presidents that run different areas of businesses. I don’t like to micromanage. I like to see people go out and do their thing, and I’m there to help them.
If you had to live your life over again, what would you do differently?
I would have served in the military during the Vietnam War. My daughter Tina was born then, and I didn’t get to go in at that time. Today, I do everything we can for our military, because we owe it to them. They’re the reason we’re all here today.
The second thing is I would have spent more time with my daughter. When I was coming up, because I was racing, I was traveling all over the U.S. and didn’t really have the opportunity. Today I spend more time with Austin and the great-grandchildren because they are at the racetracks.
What’s next for you?
I want to write that book [about his life.] I want to win another championship in the Cup. Life is about winning, and I want to be good at it. I want to see success for all of
our businesses.
What is it that you want people to remember you for?
That he was honest. He always spoke what he felt. To me, ethics in life are big. I want people to remember me as this guy was a very ethical person and not so much about racing and winning championships. ■
