Can We Talk?

When a mechanic bolts a new part onto a race car, the part only has to do its job to be successful. When a crew chief hands his race car over to a new driver, it’s quite a bit more complicated.

Success is measured by results and those results depend upon the delicate link of communication between the driver and the crew chief. If the driver is new to the team, communication must be established early and quickly with the crew chief. The same holds true if the crew chief is new to the team. If both the driver and crew chief are new to the team, there’s even more work to take place if things are going to click.

Crew chiefs at literally every level have to be able to talk with their drivers about everything relating to the car. They need to know how the car is acting, what the driver is feeling inside the car and what the driver needs to get the car to run better.

That’s the simple version of the line of communication between driver and crew chief—getting the car to respond to the driver so it will run better and eventually win. But the lines of communication go much deeper for those intent on winning.

Smart crew chiefs will study their driver every chance they get to learn how they talk, feel, and react to all situations. They know the time will eventually come when they will need to read their driver under less than perfect conditions and any and all reading they do must be highly accurate to obtain the best results. So, how far do crew chiefs go to communicate with their drivers?

Racing With Rudd

Mike “Fatback” McSwain is Ricky Rudd’s crew chief on the Robert Yates Texaco Ford. He had the dubious task last year of taking an almost totally rebuilt team and making it competitive. That he did, and the ultimate compliment came from Yates when he said recently, “It was nice to have a team bringing information to share with the 88. It made life easier.”

McSwain claims getting to know his driver early on helped.

“That’s what really, I’d say, played a big part in our success; me and Ricky spending last year together because we got through all the little learning curves about each other. What makes this guy mad, what makes that guy mad, what I’ve got to say to Ricky to get him really fired up during a race. We learned all that last year.”

Their relationship has gone beyond just the #28 car.

“We have developed a really, really good friendship—not just from a work standpoint, but beyond work. After last season, me and my wife, he and his wife went on vacation together to Jamaica. We go out and eat together, they come to our house and eat, and we go over to their house and eat. Our wives shop together. We’re best of friends. It’s to the point that no matter what happens in the racing business part, I’d say we’re always going to be really close friends.”

The bottom line is still communication.

“Time is, of course, always the best communicator,” McSwain says. “The longer two people are around each other, the more time they spend together, the better you learn to read someone’s facial expressions, to read seriousness or confusion or ‘I’m not real sure’ in their face. I’ve learned to do that with Ricky. He’s learned to do that with me. I know the right questions to ask him. Stuff like that comes with time.”

It’s a healthy balance with benefits for all.

“That’s the kind of stuff that just eases the tension and lets you be more yourself at work. Ricky’s kind of like me—we’ve learned to separate—totally separate—work and not work. You’re talking about two guys who will be on the radio on Sunday during a race, chewing each other out. And when the race is over with, I’ll throw my radio in the cabinet, he’ll put his helmet in the locker and we’ll get on his plane and come home. That’s what keeps us working together. That’s what keeps our team working together.”

Say What?

Pat Tryson is Elliott Sadler’s new crew chief on the Wood Brothers’ Ford. It’s the 51st year of Wood Brothers racing and Tryson has to get up to speed with Sadler. He came up from car chief in the Jack Roush juggernaut, so he sports all the right qualifications. The team decided to test in the off-season at Kentucky for both car data and establishing on-track communications between driver and crew chief.

“We went testing this winter to work on communication and feel and figure out what he likes and what he doesn’t like,” Tryson says. “You know, just kinda develop the kind of communication you need. You’ve got to figure out what they like and try to figure out what they’re saying because they all have a different way of saying the same thing. That was the biggest thing, to figure out what he says and what he’s really saying.”

Tryson feels his working level of communication is already there with Sadler. “So far it’s pretty much been at the track. Besides, when we go testing, everybody goes out and eats together. We get along great—really. I’m just really comfortable around him and he seems to be really comfortable around me. It kind of seems like it fits really well so far.”

Having worked with a number of drivers, Tryson knows there is one common denominator.

“The biggest thing is that they all have a different way of saying what the car is doing. One guy’s ‘little tight (going) in’ may be another guy’s ‘a lot tight in.’ You’ve got to figure out how much adjustment you need to make for what feel they have. And they all have a different feel.”

As comfortable as he may be, Tryson underscores the importance of good communications.

“It’s more than to gain knowledge of each other, but also to gain confidence in each other.”

But what do you do if a driver is not as mechanically inclined?

“With most of them, the first thing you do is get them to answer you right away,” says Tryson. “If they come in and they’re thinking about it, they’re thinking about what they want to change instead of what the car is doing. So, the biggest thing is to get them to talk about what it did right away.”

Building Trust

Mike Beam is one crew chief who doesn’t need an introduction. He has a long list of wins that goes way back on his hefty resume. This year, he’s teamed with a veteran driver who’s also new to the Cal Wells, PPI Tide team—Ricky Craven. When two veterans get together, they already know what to do.

Beam recalls an off-season test session at Rockingham when the two talked about the past, the cars Craven has raced and the equipment Beam has worked on. “You just get to know the driver,” Beam says. “You become best friends and I don’t think that’s going to be a problem with Ricky. I’m really looking forward to that. You just start off kind of slow, then you talk on the phone every day a couple of times.

“He’s in our shop so you just get to know the person, find out what he expects and you try to tell him what you expect. Communicate, that’s the main thing. Just communicate. It’s like we always say, you know, we won’t agree on everything, but we’ll agree to disagree.”

“It’s a lot different for me because I was with Bill [Elliott] for so long,” Beam says. “We got to where I could tell what Bill was thinking a lot of times—you just learn to trust your driver. That’s the main thing. You’ve just got to trust each other knowing that you’re there for them and he’s there for you and you’re going to support him and he’s going to support you.”

Reading A Racer

Kevin Cram is crew chief on Chip Ganassi’s Cingular Dodge R/T driven by rookie Jason Leffler. It’s a new position for Cram having been one of Bill Elliott’s three-at-a-time crew chiefs.

Leffler is also new to Winston Cup action. Their deal was put together quickly (see this month’s “Driver’s Seat”). In early January both had less than two weeks on the job and only one test session on the books, but that didn’t stop Cram from learning to read his driver at the shop.

“Jason is able to spend a whole lot of time here at the shop, going out for lunches, just shooting the breeze when we can here, sitting down at the desk in the office,” Cram says. “It’s all part of the deal—[spending] as much time as you can get to know somebody and learn their traits, their vocabulary, their facial expressions, their hand expressions. You know, their whole demeanor, basically. That way, when you get to the racetrack, you can tell by the tone of their voice, the gestures of their hands to the look in their eyes, what we’re really trying to communicate. Obviously, that’s always a building deal. The more time that you spend together, the better.”

Commitment

Tony Liberati is the crew chief for the #92 Herzog Excederin team, driven by Jimmie Johnson in the NASCAR Busch Series. Liberati uses his former Marine training to lead a team as intense as other Cup teams.

“From the first day I met Jimmie I felt like we were on the same page which is big in this business because you can’t buy that,” Liberati says. “A lot of people try a lot of different things to make that work. When he was running in ASA, I went there and basically just listened on the radio to what he liked and what he didn’t like, what he talked about and what he didn’t talk about. Jimmie’s not a big complaining-type driver.”

“The biggest thing with communication is in order for the driver to listen to you and understand, he’s got to know you are committed 110 percent. No matter what you say, no matter what you do, he’s got to know the reason you’re doing it is because you are committed 110 percent and you’re going to make the deal better.

“It happened with Jimmie and I early. He knew I had one goal and that was to make that car go as fast as it could possibly go. No matter how I went about it, he knew and understood that. So it made it really easy for me. Because he was a rookie in this series, he had to listen a little more than talk.”

Liberati points out another way to communicate.

“A trick I use is that I’ll take a piece of paper and just draw a circle. And I’ll say ‘Talk to me right here.’ When he says something I’ll write it down. Then I’ll mark the center [of the turn] and say ‘Tell me what it’s doing there.’ And then basically I’ll say on paper, ‘OK, we’re going to do this right here and that is going to help you here and not hurt you here or here. Then I’m going to do something here that’s going to help you coming off the corner.”

Liberati sums it up for crew chiefs everywhere.

“In the end, when it’s all said and done and you poll all the crew chiefs, they don’t want a steering wheel holder. They want someone that can tell them something.”