Andy Street and Jeff Stankiewicz will lead the NASCAR Xfinity Series program at Richard Childress Racing in 2022. Street and Stankiewicz will each be paired with drivers competing for the 2022 NASCAR Rookie of the Year Award honors. Street will be paired with Austin Hill and Stankiewicz with Sheldon Creed. For the first time in RCR‘s history, the company will have two first-year drivers competing simultaneously in the same series. Both Street and Stankiewicz are more than capable of meeting the challenge.
“Andy and Jeff are working together so well, with the support of their team engineers and mechanics, that it makes me really excited to get to Daytona next week,” said Danny Lawrence, Director of RCR‘s NASCAR Xfinity Series program. “We are also extremely confident that Austin and Sheldon are going to show up ready to compete, under the leadership of Street and Stankiewicz. It‘s been a long time since we‘ve had such young, talented drivers like Austin and Sheldon.”
Street returns for his third season as crew chief for Richard Childress Racing. In 2021, he led driver Myatt Snider to his first NXS victory at Homestead-Miami Speedway and qualified for the NASCAR Playoffs, finishing with 11 top-10 finishes. Street and his team will return to the familiar No. 21 for Hill‘s first full-time NXS season. In 2020, Street made his debut as a crew chief at RCR. He and Snider won the pole at Daytona International Speedway in February marking RCR‘s sixth consecutive award at the track.
“Our Xfinity program has been solid over the years,” Street said. “The support we currently have from each and every team member here in our shop to keep our cars competitive week in and week out, has been phenomenal. Our team goals are to keep our communication lines as strong as possible, both in the shop and at the track. I‘m really looking forward to working with Austin and can‘t wait to see what he can do on the track.”
Jeff Stankiewicz marks his return to RCR and has been working with Creed since 2017. The pair has found success working their way through the ranks. Stankiewicz began his racing career in 2000 as a high school senior in volunteering at his hometown ARCA team, Kimmel Racing, and soon joined the team fulltime. In 2005, he moved south to Richard Childress Racing where he spent the next five years serving as car chief for the No. 21 and No. 29 NXS entries. In 2010, Stankiewicz joined Braun Racing as a car chief but was promoted to crew chief midway through the season. He then moved over to Brad Keselowski Racing for the next two seasons (2011 and 2012) and spent time at GMS Racing and Team Penske before joining forces with Creed in late 2017 in the ARCA Series season.
After a short learning curve, Stankiewicz and Creed hit their stride in 2018. The pair won four races in 20 starts to win the ARCA Series championship. In 2019 they joined GMS Racing and stepped up to the Truck Series. After making their transition to the new series, the duo once again found success in their second season. Stankiewicz led Creed to five wins in the 2020 season and won the Truck Series championship, then backed up that performance with three more wins in 2021 before they made the move to RCR and the Xfinity Series.
“Sheldon is wide-open all the time and he only knows one speed,” Stankiewicz said. “In both ARCA and the Truck Series he had to learn how to race the racetrack, race the people, and understand how to make it to the end of the race. Once he figured that out and won his first race, it clicked for him. I have a feeling it could be the same way here because he‘s going to jump into a car that has way less downforce than a truck and once again, he‘s moving up to another series with more competitive teams, more competitive drivers, and longer races. I think once it clicks with him he‘s going to be hard to beat.”
— Richard Childress Racing —
