Richard Childress needs to crack the whip....but just what is the key problem?

  
Clint Bowyer: Solutions? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   LOUDON, N.H.
   Not a lot of happy faces over in the Richard Childress camp at the moment.
   The race to the chase isn't going as well as they'd all like. In fact if the chase started here, Childress' four teams would be on the sidelines.
   Can the Childress bunch snap out of it?
   Clint Bowyer says the pressure is clear.  
    "I felt we've got chasing down the wrong path," Bowyer says, considering his plight and that of teammates Jeff Burton, Casey Mears and Kevin Harvick.  
   "Kevin at the end of the year was really running good, and they were on some drastically different things that we were running at the time," Bowyer said. "So we all put a lot of our eggs in that one basket -- hopefully that being the answer for the year starting off strong. 
   "It just wasn't.  
    "So we have had to drop back and punt.
    "We have had to cut our cars up and change front clips, change body designs, aero designs around. It takes time to get those all acclimated and back in place as a group.
    "First, you've got to realize you've got a problem, and then you've got to be willing to work your butt off to fix that problem.  
     "Everybody has really worked hard at fixing that problem, and getting to the bottom of the problem as quickly as they did.
    "Unfortunately we had a rough two months.  I mean, rough two months.
     "But it takes that long to find the problem, fix the problem, and get those changes that you've made into the system. 
    "When you've got an organization as big as ours, it's not where you can just make one change and fix the whole problem.  Everybody's cars have to be changed. 
     "When you get behind, it just takes a while to dig yourself out of that hole. 
      "I think we have stopped the bleeding a little. We got going the wrong way…and stopped the bleeding, got things pointed back in the right direction. And I think we have four top-12s here in a row.
    "Definitely got the consistency back…hopefully we'll start our march back into inside the chase here in the next few weeks. 
    "I'm fairly confident we can get at least two of us in.
    "Burton has been on a little bit of a down slide, but I feel our team has really capitalized on learning some things and had a solid four weeks. 
   "We have stopped the bleeding on the bigger tracks, the 1-1/2-miles.
    "If you look back at it -- I crashed a car in Talladega, and again got caught up with AJ Allmendinger at Darlington. That's 250 or 300 points that we got wiped out from right under of us within a month. And it takes a while to get those points back.
    "When I say 'stopped the bleeding' I meant we found the problem, we fixed the problem. 
    "And now it's a bit of a problem to get those changes acclimated into our system. 
    "But we are already starting to see results and things turnaround.  
     "Looking at our two months, we were not running well, but we also had horrible luck. I mean, we had the worst.
     "I wrecked more in a month's time than I did in three years.
     "Kevin wrecked. 
      "All of a sudden that all came to the end. 
     "That's kind of where we are at: We are starting to see things back to where we were going down the right path. We are starting to see some results, especially on my side.
    "We are definitely marching in the right direction. And we have some good tracks coming up for me --  New Hampshire, Daytona.
     "I'm looking at these two weekends as an opportunity."
    
    

    
Richard Childress (R) listens to Clint Bowyer (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)