NASCAR icon Richard Childress recently recalled his rags-to-riches story when speaking to FanSided's Beyond the Flag about his induction into the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc.
Childress is one of 11 winners of this year's Horatio Alger Award, one of the country's most prestigious awards which recognizes perseverance, leadership, and achievement.
He spoke about dealing with the death of his father as a young child, and how he and his siblings struggled to get by in the aftermath of his passing.
Yet it was that very struggle which ignited his passion for motorsport and sparked a legendary career that is still going strong.
It started when Childress sold peanuts and popcorn at the local race track, and to make a long story short, it blossomed into Richard Childress Racing, one of the most successful organizations in the history of motorsport.
You can read about Childress' resilient journey in more detail here.
Childress, now 80 years old, is still running his NASCAR team, both at the Cup Series level and at the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series level, and he's looking forward to getting the 2026 season underway this weekend at Daytona International Speedway.
"We’re excited," Childress said, just before Kyle Busch took pole for the 68th running of the Daytona 500. "We made a lot of changes this winter. We’ve got Austin Dillon back with the same crew chief, Richard Boswell. We got Kyle Busch a new crew chief in Jim Pohlman.
"Jesse Love and Austin Hill will be racing in O’Reilly race on Saturday, and we’ve won it; Jesse won a championship last year, Austin won four races. So we’re looking forward to going and winning the Daytona 500 this year."
Childress' most recent Daytona 500 win came in 2018 with Austin Dillon, and he has won the past four O'Reilly Auto Parts Series season openers at the "World Center of Racing", with Hill winning the race each year from 2022 to 2024 and Love winning it in 2025 to kickstart his championship-winning season.
Richard Childress didn't want his grandsons in NASCAR
Austin Dillon, of course, is Childress' grandson, one of two who races full-time at the Cup level. Austin has spent the entirety of his full-time career with his grandfather's team, going back to his 2010 Truck Series days, and is a two-time crown jewel winner, having won the 2017 Coca-Cola 600 and the 2018 Daytona 500. Ty continues to compete for other organizations and is now with Kaulig Racing.
While Childress has gotten to live out his own dream after falling in love with motor racing seven decades ago, he admitted that he was actually hoping his grandkids would not want to become race car drivers.
Asked what it's like to get to watch his grandchildren live out their dreams on the race track on a weekly basis, as he continues to live out his own, Childress admitted that it's "great". But that "great" came with a clarification.
"You know, I wish both of my grandchildren, Austin Dillon and Ty Dillon, had chosen a different path forward," he said. "But they wanted to race."
It's not necessarily uncommon to hear a successful figure in motorsport admitting that he had hoped his kids and grandkids would have taken alternate career paths, given everything that racing involves, from the significant financial investment to the inevitable risks it carries.
But Childress, of course, has been supportive of their journey, and he certainly hasn't stood in their way as they have pursued their own dreams as the years have gone by.
"Here they are today doing what they’re doing, following their dreams," he continued. "And their dream is to go out, win the Daytona 500, and go out and win a championship."
And after a tumultuous offseason, one in which he found himself at the forefront of a lawsuit he originally had nothing to do with, Childress is optimistic about NASCAR's future.
"I’m really positive," he admitted. "I feel that with the team owners and drivers and all of us now working to move forward, we’ve got the lawsuit behind us, we’re all coming together to make our sport even better than it is today."
Tune in to Fox on Sunday, February 15 at 2:00 p.m. ET for the live broadcast of the 68th annual Daytona 500 from Daytona International Speedway. Begin a free trial of FuboTV now if you have yet to do so!