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Car and driver Right combination key in age of technological advancementPosted: Saturday February 15, 2003 3:28 PM
By Denise N. Maloof, SI.com DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- You hear it every year at SpeedWeeks -- "Man, I can't wait to get to Rockingham." Not that drivers don't enjoy Daytona International Speedway's tradition, hospitality and weather. They just hate its modern-day pack mentality and restricted engines. Dale Earnhardt Inc. drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Michael Waltrip are the exceptions. Waltrip and Earnhardt have dominated restrictor-plate superspeedways for the past three seasons, and with Earnhardt Jr. starting second and Waltrip starting third in Sunday's 45th annual Daytona 500, who's to say the trend will end? But what about the rest of the schedule? In this thousandth-of-a-second era of specialty engineers, computer simulation and aerodynamic sensitivity, are drivers still the largest share of a race team's equation? The consensus is that it's more of a concert than a solo. "It depends," Ricky Rudd said. "I think as time goes on, it's more machine and less driver." "People don't realize how important equipment is," Terry Labonte said. "But it's pretty important." Two of last season's story lines centered on the instant success of super rookies Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman. How could two inexperienced kids excel at such a high level even with superior teams and former Winston Cup champions as teammates? They grew tired of addressing it. So did their competitors. Veterans who took verbal digs about having to earn their way into a top ride were gradually drowned out by Newman and Johnson's performances, and by year's end, most in the garage conceded the No. 48 and the No. 12 teams' unusual mix of ability and equipment.
"When you started having two-car teams years ago, that gave the second team an advantage because there is not a growing process to go through," Bobby Labonte said. "Now there are three-car teams and four-car teams out there, so it just helps those guys out quicker and quicker." Equally important were year-long complaints about "aero push." Sparing a technical sermon, aero push means drivers have a hard time passing and maneuvering in current traffic because the cars are so sleek. They punch a smaller hole in the air, which increases the air weight around them, or "downforce." So what's the big deal? Not so long ago, drivers could still outwit technical and mechanical circumstances with on-track ability. Or, at least often enough that today's gizmos and engineering played secondary roles. Not now. "Everything's gotta go right," Todd Bodine said. "Everything's got to work." "I think if you don't have the car capable of driving, it doesn't matter who's driving it," Joe Nemechek said. "They're not going to be able to go. If you have a car that's close, then the driver can make some differences. But both have to be right on top of each other." Terry Labonte says the current mix is 60 percent car, 40 percent driver. At Daytona and Talladega, almost everyone agrees it's 90 percent car and 10 percent driver. Drivers make more of a difference at short tracks and road courses, and the majority of "middling" tracks (mile, mile-and-a-half) depend on a mix of all team components. "Michael Schumacher wouldn't win in a Minardi no matter what," John Andretti said of the Formula One great who for drives for Ferrari. "What does that say?" That technology is paramount in a traditionally blue-collar, seat-of-the-pants arena. Much has been made of Newman's engineering degree, and the fact his crew chief, Matt Borland, is an engineer, too. So is Dave Blaney's crew chief, Bootie Barker. Another engineer, Kenny Francis, runs Jeremy Mayfield's team, and increasingly, more engineers are joining crew chiefs atop pit boxes. "The difference I see today is the technology that's come into the sport is becoming so vast now is it takes some of that driver input out, at least for testing," Rudd said. "It's easier for a crew to get a car dialed in now because of all the feedback they're getting, not only from the driver." But Newman cautions against ignoring driver "feel." "You gotta go with both because your butt's what gives you the feedback," Newman said. "And your butt's going to get you in trouble sometimes, as well as your head. You can put yourself in the right position, but then when the car doesn't stick, your butt lied to you." If you're an owner, you'd also like for your multi-million-dollar talent to make a difference. Given the appropriate equipment and setup, stars like Jeff Gordon, defending Cup champion Tony Stewart and others do so nearly every week. The latest example is Rick Crawford's last-second, winning dive-pass in Friday's Craftsman Truck series opener. Yet, as the sport broadens its dependence on research and development, there is a fear that drivers will lose their ability to atone for crew mistakes or deficiencies. A slight miscalculation, and an engine blows. In today's aero-dominated world, being off just a little sometimes dooms a driver to the back of the pack all day. Consider the tachometer. "Whoever thought that we'd be taching 93-9600 RPMs?" Ward Burton said. "It wasn't just two or three years ago that we'd never even gotten near 89. There's just so many examples that you can give, that if a team lets down anywhere, the driver will pay the price for it, and that car's not going to run up front." "You've gotta have all the right pieces," Andretti said. "And when you get all those right pieces, winning becomes easier. But if you're lacking just a little bit anywhere in this sport, a tenth of a second makes all the difference in the world." Rudd knows when the strap-in-and-steer era ended -- the mid 1980s. It coincided with Cale Yarborough's retirement and the rise of the late Alan Kulwicki, who is credited -- and probably sometimes cursed -- with introducing engineering to Winston Cup. One of the most revered drivers among his peers and succeeding generations, Yarborough sometimes won on sheer willpower. No more, says Rudd, noting Yarborough's sudden fade at the end of his career. "You could make a huge difference by the way you drove a car [in the 1980s and early 1990s]," Rudd said. "Not that you can't today, but not to the degree it used to be. If the car's not right, and not handling -- if Cale Yarborough couldn't go out and dominate races because of the way he manhandled the car -- then it can't be done."
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