Richard Childress Racing (RCR) continues to make personnel moves to improve its championship-winning engine department. Engine shop manager Spenny Clendenen, an RCR employee since 1985 and head engine builder from 1995 to 1997, has been named to the position of general manager in charge of the departments business and administrative responsibilities. He will also be the focal point for RCRs customer engine program, which furnishes engines for Kevin Harvick, Inc. (Busch and Truck), PPI Motorsports (NEXTEL Cup) and Morgan-Dollar Motorsports (Truck). Rick Mann has been named chief engine builder and will oversee all competition-related responsibilities. He brings 17 years of NASCAR engine building experience and nearly 30 years of overall engine building experience to his new position. Assistant engine shop manager Danny Lawrence, an RCR employee since 1985 and head engine builder from 1998 to 2001, has been named assistant chief engine builder. He will responsible for all at-track activities involving RCRs NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series team engine tuners and will assist Mann at the shop. “I think the reorganization weve made is a positive new start to our entire engine department, said Richard Childress, president and CEO of RCR. Weve had tremendous growth at RCR over the past couple of years and the workload weve asked our management group to be responsible for was keeping us from achieving the success I know were capable of. These moves, in addition to bringing on Nick Hayes to head up our engine research and development department, have put RCR in a much better position to reach the goals weve set for ourselves. A new engine shop manager will be named at a later date.(RCR Site)(7-8-2005)
AND Nick Hayes has been named by Richard Childress Racing (RCR) as its engine research and development director and will lead all RCR engine research and development activities from a newly-created R&D facility at the RCR complex. Hayes comes to RCR after a well-documented yet unique career at Cosworth, which is based in England, including spells in Formula One engine design, development and track support before rising through the ranks to lead its F1 program through the late 1990s. Recent years saw him leading all technical activities at Cosworth as Technical Director. The move to RCR marks the start of a new chapter in Hayes’ illustrious and successful race engine career that has covered a wide variety of series but, until now, has not touched NASCAR significantly.(RCR PR)(7-10-2005)
