Sticking Together

The team concept in racing has always been part of the game, the car owner, driver, crew chief and mechanics all working together to win, or at least trying to.

That concept has grown exponentially in NASCAR with “team” meaning two or more driver-crew units all working together, sharing space, information and, if possible, working together on the racetrack.

Today’s 47th Daytona 500, the showcase race of NASCAR’s premier series, the Nextel Cup, will match teams as well as individual drivers when the green flag sends 43 cars away at Daytona International Speedway.

Instead of individual match-ups, such as Darrell Waltrip vs. Cale Yarborough, or Bobby Allison vs. Richard Petty or Dale Earnhardt vs. Bill Elliott, today’s matchups are more like DEI (Dale Earnhardt Inc.) vs. Hendrick Motorsports or Richard Childress Racing vs. Robert Yates Racing.

The DEI team of Michael Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr. has dominated restrictor plate racing here and at Talladega Superspeedway for the last five years, and is likely to do it again today. Waltrip’s No. 15 Chevrolet has won twice in the last four years and on Thursday narrowly beat Earnhardt to the line in a 150-mile Gatorade Duel.

Earnhardt is the defending 500 champion in DEI’s No. 8 Chevy.

The other team to beat, if not today, then for the season, is the Hendrick Motorsports pair of Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, also in Chevys.

“I know what DEI has done here over the past few years, but I think you have to look more at the Hendrick stable in all aspects, but certainly here,” said Dale Jarrett, who will be on the pole in a Ford. “Jeff Gordon is a past champion of this race and Jimmie Johnson has shown that he can win anywhere and everywhere.”

Johnson won the Busch Shootout here Feb. 12 and was leading one of Thursday’s Gatorade Duels when he was taken out by Kevin Harvick in a controversial bump-draft scenario.

“I’m a lot more comfortable in my shoes today than I was at the start of the season last year,” Johnson said. “I know my team, I know the players; I know my ability in the car. I know what my demands are outside the race car, so I’m really more comfortable than I can ever recall in my career.

“I feel very good about our whole team. I mean, I’ve got Jeff and then you’ve got the 10, 01 and 36 there as well. So, everything to do with Hendrick Motorsports is rocking. They’ve worked so hard over the winter and we have everybody pulling in the same direction. We have four teams working harder than ever together, which is an important thing.”

Joe Nemechek (01), Scott Riggs (10) and Boris Said (36) use Hendrick engines and work almost as a satellite team.

Johnson won a series-high eight races last year and has been runner-up in Cup points the last two years, to Kurt Busch last year and Matt Kenseth the year before.

Busch and Kenseth are teammates in the overgrown Ford team put together by Jack Roush. Others in the Roush camp are Greg Biffle, winner of last season’s final race at Homestead, Fla.; Mark Martin, a four-time Cup runner-up who is starting the 23rd and final season of his career; and Carl Edwards.

“In my opinion, Roush has the hottest driver lineup in the garage,” Martin said. “Then, right behind them, those cats in the garage are strapping down some great equipment based on terrific crew chiefs and engineering programs. Great engines and really terrific race cars.

“You put those drivers in less than great equipment and they couldn’t get it done. It takes it all and right now [Roush] has it all.”

Martin, who said earlier in the week that he had the strongest machine he had ever had here, will be at a handicap today, however. His primary car was heavily damaged in the Johnson-Harvick accident and Martin missed Friday’s practice while crew chief Pat Tryson and the Viagra crew worked around the clock trying to get it pieced together in time for today’s race.

Jarrett, whose Yates team dominated before DEI found a secret to plate racing, thinks it’s time the DEI domination began to wind down.

“The guys in the garage, and I’m not speaking of just Robert Yates Racing, but of the rest of the garages too,” Jarrett said, “we all have pretty big egos and when you’re getting beat by one organization for a certain period of time everybody pays attention and it’s not going to be that way for long.”

In theory, teammates can work with each other, pushing and drafting and even bump-drafting them forward in a race to gain a position or two. It doesn’t always work that way, however. With 43 cars on the track, usually closely bunched because that is what the restrictor plates do, it is rare that teammates find themselves in a position to draft one another.

“Having a buddy to draft with you isn’t always the best thing, either,” Riggs said. “Joe [Nemechek] and I once hooked up and thought we had the perfect scenario to help each other. But the cars weren’t compatible and after a few laps we split up because we were hurting instead of helping.”

Bump drafting was a hot subject last week after Harvick got into the back of Johnson in the Gatorade race and started a six-car pileup, but after NASCAR officials brought them together, the two drivers agreed that it was the age-old “just racing” situation.

Most drivers agree that bump drafting is good when they are stuck behind somebody because it can instantly push them by and then the guy that pushes them hopes someone will bump him the same way.

“I don’t think any of us are afraid to bump-draft anybody or get it in the right places, the straightaway, but when you’re knocking

“That’s a recipe for disaster.”

Or, as Jeff Burton, Harvick’s Childress Racing teammate, said, “When you put 43 race car drivers on a racetrack, and you say there is a 500-mile race, and the first one to do it the quickest wins a lot of money and a trophy, you’re going to have wrecks. That’s why we wreck, because we’re competitive and if we didn’t care where we finish, there would never be a wreck.”