June 6, 2010
By Kim Roberson
Kim Roberson
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One of the things that always amazes me is the ability of a team to take a mangled car, repair it, and get it back on the track after a crash. Sometimes the car isn’t pretty -- an open engine compartment with no hood or bumper -- and it is only out there to get laps at minimum speed.
However, in some circumstances, a team takes a look at a mangled car and think of it like the Bionic Man” -- "Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. We can make him better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster."
OK, so maybe the car won’t be stronger or faster, but it will be back on the track running at speed and able to keep up with the other cars on the track, even if they are numerous laps down.
This was the case last weekend as the Lowe's Chevy, resplendent in a special Memorial day paint scheme, met the wall and went from having led the race to being behind the wall and seemingly done for the night.
On lap 273, Johnson, who had already been having issues with how free the car was, lost control coming out of the turn and ended up head first into the wall at Charlotte Motor Speedway, mangling the front end of the No. 48. The hood popped up onto the windshield, and as Johnson climbed out of the car, it appeared that he was done for the night.
“I don’t think they can fix that with the damage they have,” commented Darrell Waltrip, as Jimmie climbed out of the car.
Even Jimmie seemed to think he was done for the night as he was interviewed after the crash. “I guess I’ll take the blame for that one and see you next week,” he told Dick Berggren after being released from the infield care center.
Media of all kinds, including myself, rushed back to the garage area in time to see the wreckage that was the No. 48 car be hauled back to the first garage stall and backed in.
Even before the tow truck had dropped the car in the garage, the crew was swarming around it, looking at the damage that had been done. It seemed that before the front of the car hit the ground, Crew Chief Chad Knaus had formulated a plan and handed out assignments.
The moment that tow truck cleared the car, the surgeons went to work repairing the car.
I had never watched the process of putting a car back together again, and I decided to literally take a seat on the ground out of the way of the chaos and just watch the process.
It is enlightening, to say the least. You have to wonder why getting your oil changed takes 30 minutes when these guys can disassemble and reassemble a race car and get it back on track in just over 25 minutes.
As some crew looked at what was going on in the engine compartment, others set to work cutting off the damaged body of the car. Yet two others brought over the new nose that would replace the damaged one, and began preparing it for placement on the car. Another began draining the radiator and testing it to see if it had received any damage.
Once the damaged body was cut off, Knaus dragged it over to the side out of the way, allowing the team to focus on the job at hand.
There were at least 13 Team Lowe's, two Team Hendrick and one Team Dupont crewmen working on the car at one time or other. There were times that I didn’t know how they were all able to fit around the car and work effectively, but they did.
There was a crewman under the car, another with a welder working to re-join damaged metal in a way that would work, yet another literally in the replacement nose section, upper body popping out of the new hood, preparing it to be placed on the repaired frame.
Somehow, each person seemed to know exactly what to do in the barely organized chaos.
I will be honest, I never saw Jimmie arrive and get back into the car, but 23 minutes after the car crashed, the engine fired, shut off, and then a minute and a half later, fired again.
26 minutes and 33 laps after a seemingly unfixable crash, the car was back on the track -- not nearly as pretty as before, but running just fine.
“I can’t believe as hard as that car hit -- that Chad Knaus, Ron Malick, and crew have that thing back on the race track,” was Mike Joy’s comment when the No. 48 pulled back onto the track.
“They basically put a whole front end, from the windshield forward on that thing,” added Larry McReynolds.
Why would a team spend so much time and effort repairing a car that seems to be dead in the water?
Points. It’s all about the points.
Johnson has had an unusually bad season so far. If he had failed to return to the track last weekend, it would have been his fourth DNF of the season. He has dropped from second to fourth in the points, a direction he is not used to going at this point in the season.
I asked Steve Addington, winning crew chief of the No. 2 Penske team, why it was so important to get back out on track instead of just giving up and calling it a night.
“Yes, it’s big to get the car back out there, get it fixed as quick as possible, get it back out three to make up as many points as possible,” Addington explained. “You’ve got to go back there and assess the damage and try to get back out. When I saw the wreck, I thought they were probably pretty much done. But those guys aren’t going to give up. They’re after a championship. They want to be in the Chase. That’s the way they are. That’s the mentality of them. That’s the mentality of every one of us in the garage.”
And what the No. 48 team does, so do those who want to break that Championship streak at four.
“They’re going to be a championship contender,” said Addington. “If you’re going to win this championship, you’re going to have to beat those guys and you’re going to have to beat the Gibbs bunch -- and the Hendrick bunch to win this Championship.”
At the end of the day, the No. 48 team finished the day 37th, the same place they were when they went back out on the track. But they showed just how important it is for not only their team, but every team with dreams of winning the 2010 Championship, to dig deep, not give up, and make the proverbial chicken salad out of chicken -- well, you know.
It will be interesting to see what teams are willing to make the same effort if they are put in the same position, and how much of a difference the few points earned now by putting forth the sweat and hard work make at the end of the “regular season”.
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