Robbie Loomis

Robbie Loomis spent 11 years working for Petty Enterprises, nine as crew chief, and helped put Bobby Hamilton and John Andretti in Victory Lane. During the 2001 season, in just his second year at Hendrick Motorsports, Loomis had Jeff Gordon back at the top of Winston Cup. In this interview with Stock Car Racing, Loomis talks about the effort needed to stay at the top of your game.

SCR: Tell us a little about your background, where you grew up, that sort of thing.

Loomis: I grew up in Forest City, Florida. Actually, when I was 12 or 13, I would always go to my uncle’s shop and work on his cars. Back then we didn’t even have a trailer, so we would pull them to the racetrack by chain. Then I started driving a little when I was 15 or 16, realized I couldn’t afford that and started working on them and have been working on them ever since.

SCR: So racing has basically been a lifelong pursuit for you?

Loomis: Oh yes, definitely. My father took me when I was so little, they tell me, that I can’t even remember. They said I just liked the noise.

SCR: Your dad raced also?

Loomis: He did it as a hobby years ago. Then I think he took the same route I did when I was 15 or 16 and decided he couldn’t afford it and just started working on them and doing it more for enjoyment.

SCR: Where did you go after stepping away from your family’s involvement in the sport?

Loomis: A week after I graduated high school, I went to work for Mickey Gibbs and moved to Gadsden, Alabama. We ran the All Pro circuit and worked under a man named Ray Stonkus. That’s really where I learned a lot about chassis setup, by working with Ray. Just one thing led to another after that.

SCR: When did you go to Petty Enterprises, and how exactly did that come about?

Loomis: Actually, in ’87 we were doing some racing and bought engines from Prototype Engineering. Ron Neal was starting a Busch team with Kyle Petty, and called and wanted to know if I would be interested in taking care of it. He had Peak antifreeze and ran, I think, about 12 races that year. At the same time, Alan Kulwicki was going to run like seven races with Zerex antifreeze. It was kind of a unique thing that was out of the same shop up there in Hanesville, Illinois. So I talked to Ray Stonkus, who was my mentor at the time, about doing the thing and living up there. He said it would be a great opportunity because it would expose me to Kyle and the Pettys. I took it, and at the end of that season is when Kyle introduced me to his dad. One thing led to another from there.

SCR: If you had not achieved the success you have in this sport, would you still be involved in it? Would the motivation still be there?

Loomis: The way I look at racing, I say all the time, is that racing has always been in my blood. It’s been fun. I enjoy it as a hobby. I used to go Friday and Saturday nights all the time and wouldn’t even get paid. I just like hearing the roar of the engines. I feel very fortunate that now I get paid for something I enjoy so much.

SCR: What are your hobbies outside of racing?

Loomis: I love the sun and the beach, and I love to play golf. I only play about five or six games a year, but I love to play. That’s probably about it.

SCR: If you weren’t working in motorsports, what would you be doing right now?

Loomis: I would probably be in the swimming pool business. My dad has a swimming pool business. I tell him all the time when we’re having bad weeks, I’ll check and say, “How’s the swimming pool business doing?”

SCR: Do you try to emulate any one person in motorsports, especially someone in the mechanical/technological end of it?

Loomis: There are always people who influence your life. I think going to the Pettys at such a young age and being under the influence of Richard and Dale Inman, they mold or shape your life in a certain way, shape your personality in a certain way. There are things to be learned from everyone. I have a saying that a broken clock is right twice a day. I try to realize that there’s good in all things and all people. You have to look at the heart of everyone in every different situation.

SCR: How does it feel to be on top of the sport right now?

Loomis: I just feel very fortunate. Brooke and Jeff and I were talking recently about how there are a lot of people who work all their life, work every bit as hard as we do or our guys do, and they’re never blessed with the results that we’ve been able to get. We’re just very thankful and very fortunate to be in that situation.

SCR: How tough was last year when you replaced Ray Evernham and the team took somewhat of a downturn?

Loomis: It was tough just because the expectations were as high as they were for this team last year. Coming into it, it was a hard adjustment for Jeff and a hard adjustment for me. I had been at a place 11 years and Jeff had been used to one guy telling him this and that for so long. Coming into a new environment, I think the one thing it showed me was how there are so many good people all around this earth and you never cross their path. When I took this opportunity to come down here at Hendrick Motorsports and saw all the people on the team, it really made an impact on my life. You say, “Hey, there’s a lot of great people out here who can work on cars.”

SCR: What does it mean to you when Jeff Gordon says he handpicked you to be his crew chief?

Loomis: It gives me a great feeling inside. I’ve said all along that the best thing about Jeff Gordon is not only his driving ability, but he is really a special person as far as his personality and how he cares about people. That really meant more to me, knowing what type of person he is, that he saw something he liked.

SCR: Which situation have you found to be more demanding, working at Petty Enterprises or at Hendrick Motorsports?

Loomis: They’re probably equally demanding. It’s just different areas are demanding. At Petty Enterprises, we were just starting to be a multi-car team so there were a lot of different facets and things I was worried about. Here at Hendrick Motorsports, getting to work with Brian Whitesell and having a lot of things in place already, it takes a lot of pressure off of you in certain areas, but then there are added pressures from other areas because of the team’s expectations and the job that’s been done in the past. It’s kind of funny because there are pressures I felt at Petty’s I don’t feel here, but then there are a lot of pressures here I feel that I didn’t feel at Petty’s. So there’s kind of a balance in the pressure department.

SCR: The Pettys openly admit that they’ve fallen behind the times. Compared to Hendrick Motorsports, just how far behind would you say they’ve been?

Loomis: I’ve said all along that this sport is a lot like a big clock. The hands are always moving. There are teams that are at the top, and you’ll watch them and they’ll cycle to the bottom. Then, if you watch them long enough, they’ll cycle back to the top. As far as a single car team, when we were at Petty Enterprises, we were really growing and gaining momentum. Then we came into the idea that to take it further we needed to step back a little bit, to take a little setback, to make it a multi-car team. As we did that, with a two-car team, it was going along pretty good. Probably the biggest setback that’s come along, and there’s nothing anyone could do about it, was the loss of Adam. Adam was really going to be the one to carry the momentum, and the torch, from the driver’s standpoint, too. It takes a lot to find that right driver, to find that right mix. I know that Adam was a guy who had gobs and gobs of talent like these other guys, all these young guys, coming in—in addition to his experience of just being around the Thanksgiving table all those years of racing.

SCR: Take all of the Hendrick Motorsports drivers out of the mix and list the top three drivers out there today, strictly in terms of what they can get out of a race car.

Loomis: Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick and probably Bobby Labonte. When you talk about talent in race car drivers, these guys keep getting these young guys coming in. I think Jeff is really the one who showed people, years ago when Mr. Hendrick got Jeff, that you can get these young guys. There are a lot of good racers out there running short tracks who keep raising the bar of competition because they understand the car and the equipment.

SCR: What one thing would you change about Winston Cup racing if you had the power to do so?

Loomis: It’s tough. I say all the time that I’ll let NASCAR worry about that. It sees all the sides of it. We get caught up in just the competition part of it a lot of times. If I were in that position, though, I would try to work with the schedule so at least these Saturday-night events are spread out, where every third or fourth week you can at least give the road guys a break by having that Sunday off, and then try to schedule it where we don’t have 20 races straight.

SCR: Where do you see the sport going in the next decade?

Loomis: We had a lot of growth in the ’90s. The last couple of years the sport has leveled off a little bit, maybe. I think with this new TV package and a lot of things they’re doing that are computerized on TV, probably within the next year, the next five years, it will be taken to the level where the fans are a lot more involved as they watch it on TV. I see it taking another rise up in the next five to seven years.

SCR: How much interaction do you have with the other Hendrick crew chiefs, Tony Furr and Gary DeHart?

Loomis: We interact all the time. Tony Furr and Gary DeHart both, they’ve been a tremendous help to us all year. It comes back to that saying that I try to listen to everybody. It’s good to listen to Terry (Labonte) and Jerry (Nadeau), too, because they feel things different in a race car than Jeff will. A lot of times they’ll be trying different things in practice than we are. A lot of times, on several occasions this year, we’ll start the race with something we’ve got from Terry’s or Jerry’s situation in their car, and it will help us.

SCR: Is that a key to the success at Hendrick Motorsports, the communication you have in-house?

Loomis: Hendrick Motorsports surrounds you with so many tools. With Jeff Gordon, the nice part about it is, when we go to every racetrack we know we have the best driver in the world in our car. I have the mentality that with Jeff we should be capable of being in contention to win every race. Mr. Hendrick supplies us with the tools and surrounds us with the people around us so Brian and I can go out there and get the job done with Jeff.

SCR: Where do you see yourself five years, 10 years, down the road?

Loomis:You know, I consider myself a pretty loyal and stable person. I said before I came over here that if I made the move I wanted to make sure it was going to be for a while and not just a little while. Somewhere involved heavily with racing. I’m sure 10 years from now I won’t want to be down there under the microscope and the pressure cooker calling all the shots on the crew chief part of it, but who knows from there?