James: Do crew chief suspensions affect Sprint Cup driver performance?
LONG POND, Pa. — Three corn dogs lingered on a warmer outside of Kurt Busch’s hauler at Pocono Raceway on Friday, rotating one of crew chief Tony Gibson’s options for lunch after morning practice.
It wasn’t as appetizing a prospect as his choices in June during Sprint Cup’s first of two stops at the 2.5-mile triangle. And the working environment on Sunday won’t be nearly as comfortable or, possibly, productive, even though Busch won that race.
Suspended for that June weekend because of a lug nut violation the previous race, Gibson observed the proceedings at a remote location, absorbing data and channeling feedback via text and computer messaging to interim replacement Johnny Klausmeier on the pit box.
Gibson couldn’t resist including information on his menu.
“I told them I had some shrimp every two hours, a new load of shrimp would come in,” Gibson told Paste BN Sports. “They didn’t like that very much.”
But Gibson very much liked working away from the distracting, stimulus-overloaded environment of a NASCAR pit road. He claims he worked from “home,” with a wink, but the rules dictating punishment for suspensions provide great flexibility. And benefit.
“NASCAR is pretty cool about that,” he said. “You can just not be in the property of the race track. You can be in a hotel room, you can be in your camper outside the track with the fans or whatever. With the information and technology it is now, it’s like you’re standing right there.”
Gibson’s array of information streams created a virtual nerve center. Before him were three laptops, monitors with a live video feed and a television broadcast, “then I had a computer that had all the race strategy stuff on it for our stuff,” Gibson said, “and then I had another one set up where I could see what other teams were talking about on their scanner, what their drivers were fighting, what they were talking about, when they were talking about pitting, what they were going to do and then I had all the track photos.”
“They take pictures around the racetrack during practice and during the race so you can kind of look at your car and kind of see the attitude and how the plane of your car is as you make changes and throughout the race as compared to the other guys,” he continued. “It’s a lot of information to take in and you can’t do that when you’re on that pit box and you’re under pressure during practice either. I was really impressed with how much easier it is to make good decisions when you’re sitting in a nice controlled atmosphere and you could actually think about things.”
NASCAR allows the practice, in part because policing it would be impossible without physically quarantining those being punished. Fellow Stewart-Haas Racing crew chief Rodney Childers could therefore use the same equipment this weekend as he serves a one-race suspension for an identical lug nut violation incurred at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Gibson doesn’t expect Harvick’s team to be impacted greatly.
“It’s not that big a deal nowadays, not like it used to be,” Gibson said. “Technology has come a long way and you can stay in touch pretty solidly. It was pretty cool actually.”
And useful practice. Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota utilize engineers in their respective research and development centers to provide the same sort of real-time information for each Sprint Cup race. Toyota teams share real-time information through a messaging system.
Data is inconclusive on the degree a missing crew chief affects driver performance, but Busch won at Pocono and Kyle Larson finished third at Michigan without his crew chief, Chad Johnston.
“Other than just not seeing them, it honestly to me didn’t feel too different,” Larson said. “You still get to communicate with them quite a bit while they’re gone. And obviously Kurt Busch did fine with it. So once you get to the race part of it, I don’t think you notice a whole lot of change. So, I’m sure Harvick will be just as fast as he always is. So, I don’t know. It’s not a huge deal. It is always nice having your crew chief here, but when they’re gone….all these teams are so prepared already, that somebody can fill in for a week, I think.”
A.J. Allmendinger was 16th at Pocono without Randall Burnett. Kyle Busch crashed into a 30th-place result at Dover without Adam Stevens, Martin Truex Jr. finished 14th at Phoenix with Cole Pearn suspended, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was 16th at Talladega while missing Nick Sandler and Greg Biffle 26th at Pocono without Brian Pattie.
With information flow plentiful, the main missing element remains the type of interpersonal communication that mark successful driver-crew chief pairings.
“I think the biggest obstacles is just communication with the crew chief,” Kyle Busch said, “When we’re either at the car or we go to the hauler and we talk and have our discussions about how the car is handling, he can read it in my face, he can see it in my eyes and he can understand my tone in being able to figure out exactly how loose I am or how tight I am or what I’m talking about within the car.”
Gibson conceded, saying that although he can “FaceTime my kids from 3,000 miles away,” the physical presence of the team leader appears to have a steadying effect, especially in turmoil.
“I think your guys feel better when you’re there supporting them and being that guy that they can always come to and ask questions,” Gibson said. “It’s like when your mom and dad drop you off for summer camp. You’re really, really nervous because they’re not right there with you. Even though you know you’re going to be fine, it’s just that figure is not there.
“If something goes wrong and you have to make a decision really, really quick, something happens they haven’t seen before, that’s where I think they miss the guy who has experience.”
Harvick’s crew can have Childers back in person next week at Watkins Glen. As for this weekend, Gibson said Childers is welcome to his command center.
“I already got all the (expletive) set up,” he quipped.
Childers is on his own for lunch.
Follow James on Twitter @brantjames