Remember that classic lyric from Bob Dylan’s song that went, “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind”? Boy, does that apply to what is happening in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series right now.
We are seeing changes taking place left and right much earlier this year than probably we have seen in many years past.
Juan Pablo Montoya, Jeff Burton, Martin Truex Jr. and Greg Biffle all have gotten new crew chiefs here in recent weeks. The No. 1 thing that sticks out in all four cases is lack of performance. Now, back in the day, if that were the situation, folks would immediately point to the driver. They’d say the driver wasn’t getting the job done.
It’s not that way much anymore, and it is because of technology. There is more technology available to these teams today than at any other time in NASCAR’s storied history. When a car gets rolled into the hauler to head to the track, it is more set up and ready to race than ever before. Back in the day it was worked on with trial and error. It’s just not that way anymore.
The guys back in the shop are under more pressure than ever before. When that car comes out of the hauler at the racetrack, it has to be pretty darn close to where they want it for race day. Sure, they will make some tweaks and try a few minor things, but overall, it’s pretty much ready to race.
Overseeing all that is the crew chief. He works in conjunction with the engineers and the driver so that the guys in the shop can put the car together the way they want it for that particular track. With all this technology there are hardly any unknowns on the race car anymore. They just have so much information at their fingertips.
Where the magic comes into play is knowing how to interpret and use it. Actually I think that’s why we are seeing some of the changes we are seeing. For the most part, these crew chiefs are sort of old-school. I’m not sure that maybe they in most cases are buying into or possibly understand all the technology that is out there being used these days to prepare and get these cars ready to race. The other thing I am seeing in most cases are older crew chiefs being replaced by young, college-graduated engineers. It’s simply a sign of the times.
I still maintain that it was Kurt Busch and his rant over the radio during the Richmond race that proved to be the catalyst for all this. Kurt was extremely unhappy, and when he felt he wasn’t being heard internally, well, he took his complaints to the media, who were more than willing to listen.
This is harsh to say, I know, but up until the point Penske Racing made a change, those teams sucked. I don’t know any other way to put it. They just struggled week after week and for the most part were also-rans. In this case they didn’t change drivers or crew chiefs. They made a competition director change.
In all the years I have been in this sport, I don’t think I have seen an organization turn its program around overnight like Penske Racing. It has made a huge difference. Now both cars are qualifying upfront. They are racing upfront and winning races. Boy, you sure couldn’t say that three or four months ago.
I think owners took notice of what Roger Penske did. They also see the changes Rick Hendrick made over the wintertime with his four teams have paid dividends as well. Any big-name team with a high-profile driver that should be winning and isn’t has to start looking from within.
Let’s face it, everyone is under so much pressure right now. The pressure to perform is No. 1 on everyone’s list. Sponsorship dollars are tight. The sponsors want results. When they aren’t getting results, well, obviously they want to know why, and what are you, Mr. Car Owner, doing to fix it?
I think the other big player in all this is the addition of the two wild card spots to the Chase for the Sprint Cup qualifying format. Its importance might have been somewhat overlooked when the change was announced and earlier in the season. I can tell you right now it’s the hottest thing ever. At the beginning of the season, I was telling you, “Win and you are in.” That meant if you won a race and were in the Top 20 in points, you probably had a shot at one of the wild card spots. Now I don't even know if one win will do it.
That’s how competitive this year has been. That’s how NASCAR has put the focus on winning.
When you combine that with chemistry and performance, you are expected to get results. If the performance isn’t there, the pressure is on the owner to make changes in a hurry to get there.
Now we are seven races away for the cutoff to establish the 2011 Chase field. The racing up to this point has been phenomenal, and I think the intensity will only continue to ratchet up as we head to Richmond in September, the last race before the Chase starts.
Who hasn’t loved the return of the rivalries in 2011? In late April in Richmond, you had the Juan Pablo Montoya vs. Ryan Newman feud. The very next week was a big blowup between Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch at Darlington. Then you even had a car owner get in the picture when Richard Childress and Busch came to blows.
NASCAR has had to be pretty good firemen this year, and I think they’ve done a pretty good job of it. They’ve certainly had their hands full, that’s for sure. Now the last few weeks have been somewhat calm, but I think that will probably start changing soon. We are heading back to some of those same tracks that create tight, close-quarters racing, and that’s normally where tempers tend to flare.
As I mentioned last week, 2011 has become the year of the fuel mileage race. Again, that goes back to another change we’ve had for 2011 with the new fueling system. This year it’s been the overriding issue of whether your gasman got your car full of fuel or not.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and actually I think Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s fortunes took a turn for the worse this year when he ran out of gas back in May at Charlotte. Up until that point they had everything going their way, but after that it just seemed like that one thing took the wind out of their sails.
Think back to when Tony Stewart ran out of gas at Loudon last year in the Chase. He and his team just never seemed to recover from that. I think that’s the case this year with the No. 88. When something like that happens, it creates doubt in a lot of minds. The crew chief wonders if he should risk it again. The driver has doubt if the crew chief should be rolling the dice. It just opens up a lot of room for doubt and questions. The added downside is when you start questioning each other, well, that’s when performance falls off. So when I look back at the No. 88 running out of gas at Charlotte, I firmly believe that team hasn’t recovered from that yet.
So now we head to the Brickyard this weekend. This will be our 17th race there. Since we started there in 1994, only four drivers have competed in all the Brickyard events: Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Bobby Labonte and Jeff Burton. Gordon won the very first Brickyard 400 and has added three more to that total since.
Jimmie Johnson has three victories there. Dale Jarrett and Tony Stewart each have two. Eight times in the 17 years we have been going to Indianapolis, the winner of that race went on to win the championship.
Jimmie Johnson has to be considered a favorite this weekend. Should he win there, it could spell bad news for the competition. In the last five years, pretty much anything Jimmie Johnson has done has spelled bad news for the competition.
Trevor Bayne fans will love to hear that the winner of the Daytona 500 has gone on to win the Brickyard later that year four times. That would be a phenomenal accomplishment if he could pull that off. It’s not unheard of. Look at Jamie McMurray’s 2010 season. The guy was a long shot to win almost every week, but he brought home three of the biggest wins on the schedule in one season.
I still get goose bumps when I go through the tunnel into the infield at Indy. That’s hallowed grounds to me. That’s where legends were created. Take it from me; for a driver, being able to race at Indy even once in your career is a sacred memory from a sacred place.
