GREASED LIGHTNING

The race is only six laps old when the first assessment of hundreds of hours of work comes through the headset that muffles the thunder of 43 cars out for a 500-mile Sunday drive.

“We’re not terrible by any means, but she’s still nervous,” Tony Stewart tells Greg Zipadelli over the radio.

Stewart is a NASCAR Winston Cup rookie. Zipadelli is his rookie crew chief. And lined up in the pit Sunday morning are 15 men who work on Stewart’s No. 20 Pontiac.

None are rookies, but they form a first-year team that has had to come together quickly because time is the enemy.

“We got a group of guys who are real young,” says Zipadelli. “A lot of them have been with teams that didn’t do that well . . . so we’ve got a lot of hungry people. They’re willing to work hard and we’ve had to.”

Work that began in January, when the team was put together, has come down to, “She’s still nervous.”

The car is loose, which means it is difficult to control and seeks the wall at California Speedway.

Because the weekend has been truncated by Friday’s rain, “We built a lot of adjustability into the car,” Zipadelli says, and the adjustments are about to begin, because Stewart, who started seventh, is running 16th.

And then Dave Marcis stalls in the third turn and a caution flag waves.

Strategy during the California 500 had called for four pit stops at 50-lap, or 100-mile, intervals, but that is quickly overridden by events. Marcis’ misfortune is welcomed by Stewart’s crew because it offers time to fix the car.

Not much time, though, and there’s a lot to do.

“It’s not a little loose, it’s a lot loose,” Stewart says.

The orders come quickly, most of them to Jerold Shires, who is in charge of the 36 tires lined up in the pit in rows of four.

Shires releases one pound of pressure--it’s actually nitrogen, because air has moisture, which builds up in the tire--from the right rear tire of the next set to go on the car.

It’s coming down pit road and Zipadelli exhorts the crew, “All right, boys, here he comes” and reminds Stewart “4,300 in second gear.”

The pit road speed limit is 55 mph, which is 4,300 rpm in second gear in the Pontiac.

When Stewart reaches the next-door pit of Chad Little, Scott Diehl leaps over the wall, carrying a 26-pound jack; Bert Bonfili jumps out, carrying a tire, and Jason Shapiro follows him with an air wrench.

They go to work as soon as the car stops, Diehl jamming the jack under it and pumping twice.

Shires runs out with his air wrench and Tim Sparkman with a tire for the right rear.

Jeff Patterson steps over the wall, carrying an 86.9-pound aluminum can of 11 gallons of 110-octane gasoline, and Jim Gilbert jams a “catch can” into the rear of the car.

Gilbert holds the gas can in place while Patterson jams a ratchet into a hole in the back window and gives it two quarter turns, adjusting the chassis. He then goes back to take a second can from Marcis Bonicelli.

After he has removed the right rear tire, Shires reaches in and yanks a crescent-shaped piece of rubber from the spring and then puts the new tire on.

Car down and one can of gas in, the tire guys run around it to work on the left side of the car. After Shires clears him, Patterson jams in the second can of gas and it’s pulled away, as is Gilbert’s catch can, while Diehl twists the handle of the jack to lower the car.

It screeches away, leaving the smell of burned rubber.

Time elapsed: 18.34 seconds.

Fast, but not fast enough.

“We need to be able to do 17-second pit stops every time we come in,” Zipadelli says. “Eighteen-second pit stops used to be good, but 18 seconds today, if you’re in the top 10, will lose you spots.”

The crew is tired from working on the car all week, then changing tires on weekends. Many cars have professional crews that fly in for Sunday races, then spend nights during the week practicing stops. But the No. 20 car’s crew likes it better this way.

Stewart is happier, but not much and says so while Patterson readies another set of gas cans and Shires pens his report to Zipadelli. Shires takes six measurements along the tires’ treads, checking temperature, wear and pressure buildup.

From those rubberized tea leaves, he and Zipadelli learn what the car is doing.

Shires then points at the stack of four used tires.

“That’s $1,500 down the drain,” he says, laughing. He’s rounding up, but not by much. Tires cost $353 each.

Lap 46: “This thing is still loose,” says Stewart. “At the rate I’m going, we’re not going to get to the next pit stop.”

He’s 19th.

And then . . .

“Believe it or not, this thing is starting to come around a little bit.”

“Believe it or not, you were the fastest car on the track the last three laps,” Zipadelli tells him.

“Don’t tell the car that,” says Stewart, who is 16th.

And then 15th. And 12th.

Lap 57: “This is really starting to come around,” Stewart says.

“You’ve got about 25 laps on those tires,” Zipadelli tells him.

“Well, I need to run 25-lap tires all the time.”

More passing, and Stewart is in the top 10.

“I still need to be a little bit snugger,” Stewart says.

“Copy that. We’ll fix it,” Zipadelli answers.

It’s done with tire pressure, in the tiniest of increments. Goodyear recommends 30 pounds in the left-side tires and 45-48 in the right, and NASCAR’s recommendations are similar. But every team has a tire specialist with his own ideas.

Race progress is marked on the scoring pylon overhead, and some of the crew members glance at it. Others go to a computer that tells them the car got 4.93 miles per gallon on its last tank, which gives them an idea how long it will be until another pit stop. Still others watch the last pit stop on a small monitor.

Lap 82, it’s time for another, this time under the green flag.

They go through the regimen again, this time in 17.90 seconds.

After the field has cycled through pit stops, Stewart is ninth.

Another caution, another stop, more tinkering.

The stop is slower--19-plus seconds and track position is lost. Another brief stop for gas only.

And then Stewart drives too low into Turn 2 and almost loses the car.

A collective breath is drawn in the pit.

Stewart wrestles the car back into shape but has lost seven spots.

“You can breathe now, baby,” spotter Mark Robertson says, and everybody does, including Stewart.

There’s one more stop ahead, and Diehl goes up and down the line, pumping up the crew. They respond with a 17.86-second performance.

“It was no different,” Diehl says, relaxing now because their work has been done. “Just this time, we had our . . . together.”

The race still has 13 laps to run as they begin to pack up. Stewart is fourth and there is no way to be third, short of mechanical misfortune.

Teammate Bobby Labonte is third, well behind race-winning Jeff Gordon and second-place Jeff Burton.

It’s Stewart’s best Winston Cup finish.

“We were fourth and we gave up a ton of track position [in the pits] all day long, and we were pretty much as quick as the leader once we got the car right,” Zipadelli says. “That’s pretty encouraging.

” . . . If we can get [the pit stops] fixed, I think we might have been in the top two, based on our lap times. We’re going to improve as a team, win or lose as a team.”