NASCAR WCUP: Improvement in qualifying would make a big difference for Sadler
Posted By Terry CallahanMotorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
August 2, 2001
The Motorcraft Racing Ford Taurus Team takes a look at the 2001 season, where it was, where it is now and what it needs to do the rest of the year.
ELLIOTT SADLER - #21 Motorcraft Racing Ford Taurus: "Our season has been like a roller coaster to me, up and down. It was pretty up at the beginning of the year. It really peaked of course at Bristol when we got our win. That was pretty cool to be able to do that for Motorcraft and get the Wood Brothers back in Victory Lane. Things looked really good at Texas the way we were running until we cut down the tire. But since then it's been down. Once you get a taste of victory, even if you don't win you want to get top-tens at least and we've fallen back pretty bad in the points. That is something we do not want to do. We try to keep track of how far we are out of the top-ten and how far we are out of the top-fifteen. A top-fifteen was a goal of ours at the beginning of the season this year. To go from 31st to 15th in points we thought would be a good jump in the right direction. We're pretty good in points, but we're not qualifying the way we should. I think if we qualify we can race better. We are passing a lot of cars every week, but when you start 30th or 35th every week you can pass 10, 15 cars and you are still only up to 20th. If we qualified 20th every week and did the same thing, we'd be much further ahead of the game. So that is something we're looking at."
IS THERE ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR THAT YOU CAN POINT A FINGER AT - THE RULE CHANGES? "No, that hasn't hurt us at all. I think that communication between Pat (Tryson) and I in our first year working together and we look at setting up the race car a lot different and we are just trying to gel together and get going. It's going to take a while and it's hard to do it. You look up front and the teams that are running good have been around each other a pretty good while I think. The teams have been together for a long time with the driver and that makes a big difference. Pat and I just need time to figure things out and what we like and hopefully good things will come of that."
PAT TRYSON, crew chief- #21-Motorcraft Racing Ford Taurus-HAS THE FIRST PART OF THE SEASON GO THE WAY YOU EXPECTED? "Yeah, it's gone pretty well, really. Obviously, we'd like to get our qualifying straightened out a little bit, we're not qualifying as well as we'd like to, but we seem to race pretty good. There's been some places we've struggled at and places that we've run really good at. We need to work on the shorter, flatter track places where we seem to run not as well as we do at some of the bigger tracks, but for the most part it's been pretty good and we have to keep working on it and making it better."
HAS THIS TEAM BEEN MOVING CLOSER TO WHERE IT NEEDS TO BE AND HOW CLOSE TO THAT ARE YOU? "Yeah, we're working on it all the time, trying to build better stuff and get better bodies and better cars. We're pretty close, but we're not there yet. When you're there you run in the top 10 every week and we're not quite doing that-we're probably top 15 every week, but we're not top 10-so we got a little ways to go. We're getting better and we're learning as a group. Nobody's giving up, so we still got a ways to go but we're pretty happy right now with where we're at, all things considered."
IF SOMEONE WOULD'VE TOLD YOU BEFORE THE SEASON THAT YOU'D HAVE A WIN, A THIRD-PLACE FINISH AND WOULD BE CLOSE TO THE TOP 15 IN POINTS, WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE SAID? "I'd say we were probably ahead of schedule. Winning races is not easy anymore, and to get a win is pretty big. I'd like to have a few more top-10s, but we'd trade the top-10s for a win and a third, that's pretty good. I'll tell you, we're pretty happy, really. We're a little bit further on, really, than I thought we'd be, probably."
DOES THAT MEAN THAT EXPECTATIONS HAVE NOW INCREASED? "Yeah, I think that's the problem when we won earlier was that it raised everybody's expectations, including our own, which is a good thing, and we just haven't able to get there again yet, but we're working hard at it and hopefully we can get another here before the year is over-maybe two more."
EDDIE WOOD, co-owner-#21-Motorcraft Racing Ford Taurus-HOW WOULD YOU GRADE THE FIRST HALF OF THE SEASON? "I would grade the first half of the season-based on last year at this time; last year at this time I think we were 31st, maybe 32nd in points, right now we're 17th-so you got to go from a maybe a D to a B-plus, I see it that way. We won the race, and after we won the race we couldn't seem to put a lot together there, we started having trouble qualifying and getting to the end of the race without having something going wrong, whether it be by our doing or simple bad luck, fate, whatever you want to call it. We had a good car at Texas, capable of a top-three, we had a good car at Charlotte for the 600, no worse than a top-three, and also at Michigan. Those three race tracks, oddly enough, two of the three races were with the same car. That car, it's No. 35, is historically our best car. Once we get it in race trim and get ready to go, it usually responds and it'll do it's job. We have one more car that we're going to try to run at those kind of speedways the rest of the year. Things are working well with the new crew chief. I think he's made a huge difference in where we are now. Everybody gets along really, really well and works well together. We've not gotten the finishes that we've been capable of since the win at Bristol. But then again, at Daytona we popped in and got us a third with a car that we knew when we took it down there that we were going to have a problem with it qualifying, we knew it would race well. So, that was one of those 'I love it when a plan comes together' and it did. Sometimes things don't work out that way but it did for us. Hopefully, that gets us off to a good start to the next part of the season, because it refreshed everybody-'Oh yeah, we still can do this, we're not that far off.' We've been off a couple of places. We were really off at California, that's the bump-rubber deal that's just been eliminated. The bump-rubber thing, if you hit it, you're fast and if you miss it, you're worse than bad, and we missed it there. And one other place we didn't run really that well. All in all, we're much better every week. We're getting better every week. We've got some new things coming that we didn't have the first year. Roush has found some more power, we've got more power racing and qualifying. We can hook everything up and you can see the benefit of it, if you can't everything hooked it doesn't matter how much motor you've got. Things are headed back in the right direction. We qualified 20th [at Chicago]. It's not great but it's better than we've qualified lately, so things are heading back in the right direction. We seem to be headed forward in the points, hopefully, and maybe a top-10 in the points is still not out of the question. We've been closing in on it a little bit in the last couple of weeks. Stay focused and try not to do stupid things and just do the right thing-gamble when gambling is necessary, there's a time to do that and a time not to, and hopefully we can distinguish the difference."
IF SOMEONE WOULD'VE WALKED UP TO YOU AT SPEEDWEEKS IN FEBRUARY AND TOLD YOU THAT BY THE TIME YOU LEFT DAYTONA THE SECOND TIME IN 2001 THAT YOU'D HAVE A WIN, A THIRD-PLACE FINISH AND YOU'LL BE 16TH IN THE POINTS RACE, WHAT WOULD YOUR REACTION HAVE BEEN? "I would've said, 'Where'd you come from?' It would've been hard to believe, but then again, not so because I knew the team was capable of winning a race, we just didn't seem to be fortunate enough for the right things to happen to put us in a position to do it. And then the Bristol thing happened and it all worked out. Like I said, if you work hard enough long enough, usually it'll turn around and things will work for you, and I've seen that happen to lots of other race teams plus our own. We've been at the very, very top of this sport and we've been at the bottom of it and we've been at the middle of it, and now, hopefully, we're at the upper middle, upper third, headed upward, and we'll continue to do what's necessary to stay competitive, and get better finishes and hopefully win another race or two before the year is out."
SO DOES THAT SUCCESS RAISE EXPECTATIONS? Yes it does. 'Oh, yeah, we can do this' so then 'We got to win another race.' So then you're expectations are higher, which is not a bad thing. That's what it's all about. Once you realize that, hey, we're just as capable of doing this as anyone else. You know we took a lot of heat in the last couple of years from here and there, 'What are going to do to get back on track?' A lot of people basically wrote us off. When Ford Motor Company said, 'We're interested in sponsoring your race car,' that was a boost right there just mentally, just that. Forget the benefits that come with it, just the fact that they would put the name on your race car, that was an initial boost right there. All of a sudden you were better than you were five minutes ago before they said that."
WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING ELSE? "Without doing anything else, just because they believed in you, that you could do the job. That made our team better right off the bat. And then they, of course, brought more funding than what we were getting and then they have benefits, which is more tunnel time and just a lot of perks that go along with being associated with Motorcraft and also Ford Motor Company. That's probably the key to us being better. When they said, 'We believe you guys can do this job and we're going to be on your car,' then you have to make it work for them. They believed in you, so you have to, in essence, show them that you can, that they knew what they were talking about, and hopefully that's what's working out for them. We're really happy with the way we've been treated within Ford Motor Company, and we've also got the Air Force involved, and that was another perk that Ford Motor Company brought to the table. That's their deal. We've had a lot of positive response from a lot of people in the Air Force, all the recruiters, the people who have been in the Air Force, retired from the Air Force, going to the Air Force-we see all of them and they're really, really involved in it. We've kind of got the best of both worlds, of any world. We've got what I consider the leading automobile manufacturer in the world, period. They still have a man named Ford in Edsel Ford. That's pretty impressive when Edsel Ford shakes your hand and says, 'I'm glad to be with you guys.' Down the line that's Henry's. It's not just somebody named Ford, it's the Ford. In fact, in Charlotte, we were with Edsel Ford, in presence, and General Ryan of the United States Air Force, who is a four-star general (Chief of Staff for the Air Force) he's the top man right there at the Air Force, right there together. How much better can that get? Look up and down all the line here of the sponsors, there's nothing cooler in this garage than Ford Motor Company and the United States Air Force. Just walk up and down through there. Which would you rather have? Just stop at every car. Huh, it'd be Ford and Air Force. You can go right down the line, there's nothing cooler."
Text provided by Marti Rompf
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