NASCAR icon Richard Childress has made a name for himself on the tracks. But some of his most impactful work has been in the woods and forests.
For instance, Childress helped reintroduce elk to North Carolina in the 1990s. The NASCAR icon also converted land in Montana into an animal reserve for the deer.
"People that aren't hunters, they go out to enjoy the great outdoors, they don't understand that the hunters, a lot of time, provide that," Childress told AltDriver. "The people that go up to see the elk in North Carolina — which hadn't been there in a couple of hundred years — the hunters raised the money.
"And to put those elk where people can carry their kids and see them, and people that are not even hunters can go up there and listen to an elk bugle, or see elk calves running around, that's the rewarding part."
Childress has balanced being an animal conservationist and hunter for years. He loves hunting but also works with organizations to help preserve the environment.
Richard Childress Talks Balance
"I remember back in the 80s, I had shot something and somehow they put a picture in the old 'Winston Cup Scene,'" Childress explained. "I don't know if you go back that far. It was an old magazine. And this guy writes GM Goodwrench, 'I'll never buy another car. Y'all killing, all this.' So I did my research then, really learned a whole lot about conservation.
"And the more I thought about it and the more I read about it, going back to 1937, the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act, 1950, the Dingell-Johnson Act. As you read these things, you understand if you buy a case of shells or whatever you buy, there's an excise tax that goes to Pittman-Robertson.
"If you buy fuel for your small engines or your fishing equipment, that money goes to Dingell-Johnson, and all that's for conservation. So your hunters are your biggest conservationists. And the more I dug into it and learned about it, I said, 'This is something I want to be involved in.'"
Beyond just protecting the animals, Childress also believes in protecting the land as well.
"The thing about most of these groups, people don't realize all the things that they do beyond protecting the wildlife," Childress said. "They preserve land. I mean, like the National Wild Turkey Federation, I'm on their board. And we're working a lot with the forestry to help the forestry out. So there's a lot more than just protecting an animal or moving an animal from one place to the other."
