Racing to the race: How teams outran the weather to Daytona
When a NASCAR Sprint Cup driver is interviewed on television after a race, he usually thanks his pit crew, the engine department and the guys back at the shop. This week, the winner of Saturday night's Sprint Unlimited at Daytona International Speedway (FOX Sports 1, 8 p.m. ET) ought to thank his team's travel coordinator, as well.
That's because thanks to the arrival of the crippling Winter Storm Pax to the Southeast, the NASCAR team travel coordinators were the sport's real heroes this week.
With the annual NASCAR Media Day set for Thursday at Daytona International Speedway, normally the hundreds of team personnel who descend on the track would travel later in the week. But with dire weather forecast, critical and complicated travel decisions and logistical arrangements had to be made by Tuesday.
And that might explain why Leslie Britton sounded a bit panicked over the phone Wednesday morning.
Britton, the travel manager for Richard Childress Racing, had to consult with team owner Childress, RCR chief operating officer Torrey Galida, crew chiefs, air charter company officials, pilots and other key personnel to revise the team's travel schedule and get everyone to Daytona safely.
She wasn't the only one.
Stewart-Haas Racing was testing at Nashville Monday and Tuesday but had to cut the test short to get one of two SHR airplanes back to North Carolina so the team could leave for Daytona on Tuesday, with roughly 60 people, including pilots.
"That was our first challenge," said Jennifer Stimberis, SHR's travel coordinator. "The second challenge was Zippy (SHR competition director Greg Zipadelli) and I met with the pilots and our takeoff time, obviously, depended on the snow and the temperatures, so we had to find a window that we thought would work on Tuesday, based on all the different weather models that were coming out. So, we decided we had to leave between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m."
Hendrick Motorsports sent some 65 people on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, incurring an additional 58 hotel room nights and 29 rental car days, according to a team source.
RCR had planned to use two ConSeaAir charter flights, one on Tuesday and another on Thursday to get the 60 or so team members to Daytona. Instead, the decision was made Tuesday morning to leave that day. The team took a bus from headquarters in Welcome, N.C., Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. to catch a single 6 p.m. charter out of Charlotte.
Then it was rebook dozens of rental cars and hotel rooms for early arrival.
"It was a lot of work, real fast," said Britton, "because if one piece of that doesn't work, you can't go."
Britton said her contact at the charter company "had to get the flight crew. She had to find a pilot and a co-pilot and flight attendants and an airplane that they could re-route to use two days earlier than it was scheduled ahead of time."
Then it was Britton's turn. "I had to get the cars, rooms and round up the people."
Then, taking a deep breath, she added, "And it all worked. They got to the bus at 4:30, we bus'd 'em, they took off right at 6 and landed at 7:30."
Stimberis said SHR's main hotel didn't have rooms on Tuesday night so the crew had to move. "I had to locate them at a whole new hotel and they have to move today to the hotel they're going to be at for the next 10 days," she said.
She, too, had to rebook rental cars, as well as ship down some late-arriving NASCAR credentials for crew members and make sure the team's four haulers were loaded with the correct uniforms for both weekends of racing. "Our last hauler, the No. 41 hauler, actually pulled out about 2:30 in the morning (Tuesday)."
The Daytona track had to open up the motorcoach lot a day early and put on additional security to accommodate the drivers and crew chiefs coming down a day early. "There have just been myriad issues getting everyone settled," said Stimberis.
For all the teams, it was a Herculean effort to get the NASCAR season started on time.
With her team safely in Daytona, RCR's Britton can finally exhale. "It was fast and furious for a while," she said. "And now it's like, really calm."
As for the RCR haulers, they left Monday night. And when they did, the crew guys who stayed behind brought out four radio-controlled cars and set up a race course in the space vacated by the haulers, using trash cans as pylons.
"They were like, 'We're ready to go,'" said RCR director of corporate communications Tim Packman of the road crewmen heading out. "And the guys who stayed were like, 'We're ready to have you go, too.'"
