Since Sunday’s race at Richmond, there has been a lot of discussion around the Internet (including right here) about the comments Tony Stewart made to his pit crew following his second place finish at the Chevy Rock & Roll 400. In a nutshell, Stewart openly blamed his pit crew and their last pit stop for him not winning. His crew chief, Greg Zipadelli, defended the crew and reminded Stewart that racing is a team sport.
Comments like these regarding pit crews, equipment, and strategy calls are not uncommon in the sport. Drivers are very competitive people, and if they believe the race could be going better, many won’t hesitate to let you know. Some even complain while leading (see Kyle Busch). Most of the time though, these comments stay within the team. But when the driver decides to voice his opinion on the radio, and the TV network broadcasts the clip several times, it becomes an issue.
The relationship between a driver and his pit crew is probably best described as love/hate. If we do well, the driver loves us. If we screw up, we’ll never hear the end of it. In Stewart’s situation though, his guys didn’t necessarily screw up, they just got beat by the #48 team off pit road. As was the case here, the difference between love and hate often comes down to tenths of a second.
When it comes to crew bashing, Tony Stewart is certainly not the first driver to do it, and he certainly won’t be the last. There is a select group of drivers out there that have built a reputation for slinging insults and using choice words we can’t repeat here to illustrate their displeasure towards their teams. This group includes Mr. Stewart, Kyle Petty, Kevin Harvick, Michael Waltrip, Kyle Busch, and a few others.
From my end, the worst thing about these situations is the double standard that exists. If we screw up, its okay for the driver to key his mic and rip us a new one or make comments to the media. If the driver makes a mistake, we can’t confront him after the race and demand to know why he just backed one in, oil tank deep. Unfortunately, its just the way it goes.
While situations like these certainly don’t help team chemistry, you’ve got to develop a thick skin. Often times drivers are just upset and they end up projecting their frustrations onto others. Besides, if I make a mistake during a pit stop, I promise you I’m going to be much harder on myself then any driver could ever be.
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on Sep 10th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
I often wonder if most drivers even know the names of the people on their crew.
on Sep 11th, 2008 at 1:38 am
TC,
Ever since I got Hot Pass from DirecTV, I have been watching the Dale Junior channel. (Since he is one of the endorsers of Hot Pass, he has a channel almost every week.) I find it interesting to hear him argue with his cousin, Tony Eury, Jr. about pit stop strategy.
One of the things I’ve noticed is whenever something goes wrong in the pits, Junior turns on his charm. No matter what place he’s in, he always tells his crew, “Don’t worry, I’ll get it back!” and he always means it. TC, if you get a chance to talk someone on his pit crew, I’ll bet they tell you they love working for him.
By the way, you might add Denny Hamlin to your list of less than fully supportive drivers.
Left Coast Kenny
Alameda, California
on Sep 11th, 2008 at 5:00 am
If Stewart wants to blame onyone, he needs to blame himself for getting out of the pit so slowly. He just beat himself and the master of Jimmy Johnson beat him, so he needs to quit his whining. I love listening to people like Jummy Johnson or even Dale, Jr. on the radio because they might get a little aggravated with the crew chief, but they always pump the crew up.
on Sep 11th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Emotion, every driver deals with their emotions differently. Some air them during the race, some afer the race. It’s all part of racing. been there done it.
on Sep 11th, 2008 at 7:56 am
I’m kind of surprised that Petty is one of the crew bashers. I know he always speaks his mind, but he should probably take a share of the blame for their screw ups as well as them just being behind with their program. I think Mikey is 1st on that list, as he ALWAYS blames someone else for his misfortunes. I suppose someday he will say that Toyota has given him so much money that they don’t know where to spend it.
on Sep 11th, 2008 at 11:06 am
I’m not going to comment on the Stewart radio transmission, but I will add that unless you’ve driven a racecar,especially a hot & heavy one like a Cup car, you’ve no idea the level of aggression you need to get it up on the competitive edge.
I know you can turn that around and say unless you been on pit road etc etc, but pit crews work on short,intense bursts of precision, not sustained battle.
If you meet a driver who is anything but a self-centered, arrogant, PITA, odds are he runs at the back of the field.
on Sep 11th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Unless the #20 crew messed up on previous stops, I cannot see, for the life of me, where the crew did anything slow or wrong on the last stop. If anything, the car was angled in/out a bit much and the car in the next stall didn’t give Tony a straight shot out. Seriuosly, did the crew have any negative impact? Na! He probably saw that afterwards. After all, we have the luxury of replays and slow-mo. All he had to do was simply pass JJ back w/ plenty of laps left to do it.