Richard Childress fires back at AJ Allmendinger's ECR outburst: “It’s how you want to run your mouth”

Richard Childress was left unimpressed by AJ Allmendinger's outburst during the NASCAR Cup Series race, the AdventHealth 400 at the Kansas Speedway. Allmendinger suffered an engine blowup during the race, and an outburst on the team radio with expletives followed.

In Stage 1 of the Kansas race, Allmendinger's car came to a sudden halt as he suffered an engine blowup, a scene that is not very uncommon this year, especially with the ECR (Earnhardt-Childress Racing) engines. As he was on track for just six laps, Allmendinger took to the radio and said:

"Hey ECR, you guys f***ing suck."

Childress didn't take it lightly as Allmendinger's outburst was aimed at ECR, a company he serves as Chairman and CEO. Highlighting other engine blow-ups, such as Ryan Blaney's and Alex Bowman's, the RCR boss slammed the #16 driver.

Childress said in response to the Kaulig Racing driver's rant on the radio:

“The 12 (Ryan Blaney) blew up two times. The 48 (Alex Bowman) blew up (one time). They never said anything. It’s how you want to run your mouth.”

“I want to know what happened to the engine. When (Allmendinger) jumps out (of the car at Kansas), he doesn’t even know if the belt comes off the oil pump or what," he added.

ECR provides engines to four Cup Series teams: Richard Childress' team, Richard Childress Racing, Kaulig Racing, Trackhouse Racing, and Beard Motorsports.

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Richard Childress' ECR official hinted towards a technical issue that jeopardized the engine

AJ Allmendinger, driver of the #16 Action Industries Chevrolet, drives during practice for the NASCAR Cup Series AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway on May 10, 2025 – Source: Getty

Vice President of Alliance Operations for ECR Engines, Danny Lawrence, claimed that the engine failure might have been triggered by a bearing, in a report by NBC Sports. He added that the ECR engineers are digging to find out the exact reason why the blowup happened and will work to avoid such scenarios moving forward.

“It was a bearing issue,” Lawrence said. “We at RCR and ECR have a quality control department. They’re struggling to figure out exactly what happened. They’ve sent the bearings off to be analyzed, but the initial (cause) looks like a lack of lubrication."

“That engine had run at Darlington. We’re not so sure that we didn’t have some kind of foreign material, something, an oil line or something happened for (the) lack of lubrication," he added.

ECR Engine is a high-performance engine research, development, and production company that is located at Welcome, North Carolina, a campus owned by Richard Childress Racing of the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series. Besides the Cup and Xfinity Series, ECR also provides engines to the endurance racing teams.