Elliott Sadler stop number 2 of the 2009 ‘No Excuses Tour’—Same song, different verse

California Dreamin turned out to be another California nightmare for Elliott Sadler and his 19 team. The buzz words were already flowing in pre-race and qualifying quotes, almost in an eerie foreshadowing of the Sunday to come.

“We have a lot of effort put into our front clips, front geometry, trying to get the front tires to work as efficient as we can. Some owners may be thinking its body, motors, rear clips, center cage….there are many things that you can work on. Right now we’re really working on our front clips area, bump stop and front geometry stuff. As a team, we think that’s where we need to be better. Right now, that’s where the emphasis has been with winter testing so far.”

Listening via the greatness of PitCommand, it was pretty clear from the start that Sadler was not happy but it goes further than that.

Lap 5 caution (rain)
Sadler after five (really 4) short laps tells CC Kevin Buskirk that there is a problem with the front end by announcing that the 19 car is ‘a little snug in the middle and a little snug back in the gas….and that the splitter seemed to be dragging a bit’, in the corners. After a small exchange that the 19 team finally figured out that the radios used need the ‘big antenna’ in order for Sadler to hear them (maybe the Best Buy Geek Squad should assist) another ‘track position’ pit strategy move instead of making an honest attempt to ‘fix’ an ill handling car, 2 tires and a half pound out of the right rear was the pit call. The 19 entered the pits running 25th, and took the green flag running 21st.

Side note: This caution lasted over 15 laps and it was during this caution that Sadler was asking for the dreaded TRACKBAR change in order to give him some more ‘forward bite’. Since the last pit stop, no green flag laps had been run, and Sadler is already ‘complaining’ about the car. Not that there is anything wrong with this, except for the ‘strategy’ 2 tire stop laps before. Why not simply make the changes, take four tires, lose a few positions , in the name of making the car better in the long run? But I have been a broken record about this for almost a decade.

Lap 35 scanner chat:
Sadler tells Buskirk that the 19 is ‘still dragging the splitter on entry’, and is a ‘little free off’. The 19 car is running 26th at this time.

Lap 41 caution (rain):
Sadler reinforces that the ‘splitter is still dragging too much on entry’ He goes a bit more in depth for his CC with ‘Front end is trying to work, its better than yesterday.’ And lastly again states he wants ‘a little more forward bite on exit’. Buskirk quickly and commandly tells the 19 team to go up on all 4 tire pressures and to add a ‘packer’. (not sure which tire the bump stop was added to though). Sadler added that he didn’t think it would need much, maybe a ‘1/16th’, not much more. The 19 enter the pits running 27th, and took the field running 39th. It was then decided after a nice suggestion by Brett Griffin that it might be a good idea to ‘top off’ because there were only two cars running behind the 19. After topping off, the 19 takes the green flag running 40th.

Just before taking the green scanner chatter:
Buskirk wants to clarify; ‘As I understand, you were tight from dragging the splitter, not chassis tight right’? Sadler responds with a not very confident, ‘I think so’.

Lap 48 scanner chatter (running 35th)
Sadler; ‘I don’t know if the bump did anything, but I think it took a lot of the rear grip away’. No response on Pit Command

Laps 66 scanner chatter (running 34th)
Sadler states that the 19 ‘is not driving as good as it did the last run. Don’t know if is the tires or that bump stop.’ Buskirk answers; ‘I hear ya, we are gunna make a change.’

Lap 85 green flag stop: (running 31st)
Buskirk calls for 4 tires and one round down on the TRACKBAR (something Sadler was calling for since the first caution) The 19 cycles through pits stops running 33rd.

Lap 88, the 19 goes one lap down running 32nd.

Lap 91 scanner chatter (running 31st)
Sadler; ‘Still just way on the splitter on low pressures’.
Buskirk; ‘Just give us what you got, I know its bad’. (someone give Kevin a pom pom next time!)

Lap 95 scanner chatter (running 31st)
Sadler; ‘Not sure what changes we made, but I cannot use the brakes, the more I use the brakes the more the car slids.’
Buskirk; ’10-4’ (followed by some more cheer leading)

Lap 105 scanner chatter (running 31st)
Sadler; ‘the car doesn’t like the changes…..grip, slide, grip, slide’.

Lap 109 scanner chatter (running 31st)
Sadler; ‘We done something to this thing, the front end is really gone’.
Buskirk; ‘All we was a little air pressure adjustment and down one on the TRACKBAR.’

Lap 121 green flag stop (running 31st)
Sadler wanted to pit a few laps earlier and stated he was worried about the right front tire wear.
The pit called for 4 tires, one round up on the TRACKBAR (the ‘180’ from the pit stop at lap 85, so take a drink in the Elliott Sadler Drinking Game). After pit cycles through, the 19 is still running 31st. Buskirk notes to Sadler that the ‘tires were perfect, just perfect’.

Lap 130 scanner chatter (running 31st)
Buskirk waves his pom poms once again by stating, ‘hang in there bud, we can make something out of this day. ‘

Lap 141 caution (rain, running 31st)
Sadler; ‘Front end not working like I need it to, when I am on the brakes. Its just not doing what I need it to do….I think we need to be thinking about strategy, do the opposite of what everyone else does……..it’s just bound up on the front end on entry, a little free up off……I would rather have the free off.’
Buskirk; ‘Well I don’t know what is going on, if it (the splitter) is hitting the RF or hitting the LF.’ At this point, Buskirk is almost begging Sadler to give proper communication of what the car is doing. Sadler still could not give a good answer. The 19 pits, 4 tires, and takes the packers back out (another ‘180’, take a drink). Buskirk asks the 19 crew to take a bit of extra time, to check the splitter to see where the dragging is.

Back to green lap 151 running 33rd.

Lap 153 scanner chatter (running 33rd)
Sadler; ‘Is the splitter hitting?
Buskirk; ‘It was hitting on the left front.’

Lap 168 scanner chatter (running 31st)
Sadler; ‘Too tight in the middle, still sliding the nose…..what ever we are doing to it, its just bad.’

Lap 170 caution (running 31st)
Buskirk; ‘Got a lot of air in the front end, we can take that out.’
Sadler; ‘okay, do you think that will help me off?’
Now Sadler is not so concerned about the ‘front end’, and the tight entry and middle, but has more of a problem with the car getting looser off the corner.

Long caution (rain) and the 19 finally pits with one to go on lap 175 for 4 tires, down on the front pressures (no other changes mentioned)

Lap 198 scanner chatter (running 29th)
Sadler; ‘‘Do we have anymore room in the front tires, I would like more of that, and maybe something to help the exit’

Lap 206 scanner chatter (running 29th)
Buskirk; “we are gunna pit in 7 laps’
Sadler; ‘need help in the center, and forward bite off’
Buskirk; ‘We have a plan’

Lap 207 caution (running 29th)
Buskirk; ’ save gas…all the time under caution’ followed by some more cheerleading, ‘I can tell you a trying, I appriciate it.’
Sadler; ‘I am trying but there is something about this front end’
Buskirk; ‘Okay so we ARE better than yesterday right?’
Sadler; ‘Oh yeah, we are way better, I don’t know if this tire is different from Rockingham, or what.’

I still will question how data from a 1 mile track that has a reputation that ‘eats’ tires, can translate to a two mile superspeedway with long sweeping turns, and speeds that reach 200+ mph.

restart lap 215 (running 25th)

Lap 227 scanner chatter (running 26th)
Sadler; ‘we just really unhooked the back, there is just not much I can do with it’ (loose car)
Buskirk; ‘just do the best you can’
Sadler; ‘I feel like I am killing the right rear.’
Buskirk; ‘the tires have been great’

Lap 232 scanner chatter (running 26th)
Sadler; ‘I just can’t get it any gas’
Buskirk; ‘its okay, those are good laps’

lap 235 scanner chatter (running 26th)
Sadler; ‘My right rear is gone, sorry, this last adjustment we just changed the balance of the car a bunch’

After the 8 car blows up, the 19 car is now running 25th and finishes the race in that position.

Post race scanner chatter (finished 25th)
Buskirk; ‘What did we do to the car on last stop’
Sadler; ‘I think the air out of the LR made it looser, extremely loose on exit.’
Buskirk; ’10-4, I’ll write that down’.

So the word of the day was ‘front end’, well maybe this is simply ‘excuse number 1’ in the early season. Lets hope not. It's on the Las Vegas!

Elliott Sadler stop number 1 of the 2009 ‘No Excuses Tour’ – Is the glass half full or is it half empty?

Breaking down the roller coaster ride for the ‘Southern Gentleman’ that was also known as the Daytona 500 last Sunday afternoon and a few other notable items:

After the ‘Duals’ and the post race comments by Sadler where the claim was made that they were ‘laying back’ to help a teammate get into the 500, I was perplexed a bit and had a few questions. While I didn’t take the best of notes, I do remember it no time was the 44 car (A.J. Almendinger) found itself actually behind the 19 car. Even after the final caution the 44 car was restarting well ahead of the 19. So the term ‘laying back’ might have been a bit of mis-information, although it was pretty obvious that when the 44 did get hung out, the 19 was very willing to hang with him and be a nice pusher. Props to the 19 for that and that makes the glass half full at this point.

That being said, it was on to the ‘500’ and all the hoopla that goes with it and a few observations:

Lap 25 competition caution:
After the competition caution on lap 25 (actually the 2nd caution of the day) Sadler was complaining that the car was doing much the same as it was in the Duals, which was the car, was pushing in the corners. Not as bad as Thursday, but non the less, the car was not what Sadler wanted. New CC Kevin Buskirk, pulled from his bag of tricks something that 48 CC Chad Knauss does almost every race, which was to tweak the inner liner pressures. (This is something that has been very successful for the 48, but used very rarely by any of the plethora of former Sadler CCs. Even with the 55 car not helping by stopping short in his pit box and the 19 team having to push the car back just a bit in order for Sadler to exit the stall safely, the 19 entered pit road running 16th, and when the green flag fell, remained 16th. That’s a half full glass if I ever saw one.

One interesting note was that after the stop and before taking the green flag, Sadler was already asking for a ‘little wedge’ before even seeing the results of the previous stop.

Lap 51 scanner chatter:
Sadler asked Buskirk if they could ‘go any further on the front inner liner pressures’ (Me thinks Sadler was liking the direction the changes were going) and Buskirk answered with, ‘we have a lot more room’.

Sadler then does something that I have been critical of him for years. He tells Buskirk to ‘give him a little more of that (inner liner pressure change) BUT THEN the ‘greedy’ Elliott comes out. He then asks for a ‘little more grip on entry…..maybe track bar’. A confused Buskirk asks for a clarification by saying, ‘rear grip?’ At that point Sadler brushes the wall and the focus is changed to if there was any significant damage to the 19 car. Brett Griffin quickly responds always the optimist with ‘you are good, letters still on the tires’. Again, we have a half full glass!

Lap 55 caution:
A quick exchange between driver and CC before the stop, the plan is four tires, and again going with more front inner liner pressures and Buskirk agrees to make a track bar change to ‘help the rear’. The 19 entered pit road running 17th and took the green flag running 16th, another great stop considering the 19 team also popped the right front fender out a bit (from brushing the wall) and according to Buskirk, ‘everything is perfect’. Also it was at this stop that driver and CC had good communication concerning the impending weather with Buskirk reminding Sadler that ‘weather was coming, and a lot of it’. Sadler obviously thinking some strategy asked if they would ‘get to lap 114’, and Sadler was assured they would along with some encouragement from Buskirk. That’s another half full glass.

Lap 76 scanner chatter:
The 19 car is having a slight bit of over heating issues and Sadler smartly is getting out of the draft occasionally to help cool the engine.

Lap 80 caution:
Sadler complains that the 19 is a ‘little bit tighter’ (something the team was fighting all week) and Buskirk explains that ‘everything is the same’ but he also questions that the track bar change maybe part of the problem. Sadler agrees, and wants the trackbar changed back to where it was before the last stop (see the Elliott Sadler Drinking Game, and take a drink). The 19 entered pit road running 22nd and took the green flag running 24th. Buskirk tell s Sadler that there was some ‘trash on the grill’, but they also ‘pulled one row of tape, but it shouldn’t matter much’ where the 19 was racing. Sadler didn’t sound like he was buying what Buskirk was saying though. For the first time in 2009 the glass is half empty.

Lap 100 scanner chatter:
Sadler feels that the ‘tape hurt him a lot and made the car pushy’ (although it has been that way all week) Buskirk attempts to encourage Sadler by telling him that he is ‘doing a great job. He also asks for temps, but I never heard an answer.

Lap 107 scanner chatter:
Buskirk asks again for temps, and this time Sadler responds with ‘230/250’. Griffin chimes in with a well timed reminder that ‘rain is coming’, but also adds that there is a ‘long ways to go’. At this point on lap 107, the 19 car is running 11th, the highest the team had been in the running order all day. That glass is filling back up.

Laps 115 – 117 green flag stops begin:
Lap 115 saw the first cars coming in for green flag stops, but these stops were really a bit early. Tire issues being a concern I guess. But on lap 117, Sadler’s voice came over the scanner in an almost panic mode, that he ‘had a vibration’. Less than a straight away later, Sadler announces he is ‘coming in this time by’, Buskirk agrees. At that point the whole race changed for the 19, as Sadler entered pit road, we all hear the voice of Griffin proudly announcing that the ‘caution was out’! We have heard for years that Sadler just has a lot of ‘bad luck’, but this event alone might make up for all of them as now the 19 when the race goes back to green will restart the race in ‘P1’, and frankly giving the team a realistic chance to win the Daytona 500. Now that’s another half full glass!

Lap 124 caution, the ‘big one’:
At this point, I thought there might be a great chance that the ‘ever coming’ rains would actually happen with the 19 at pace speed just behind the pace car and then making a trip to victory lane. But by lap 132, the race did indeed go back to green with the 19 leading the field.

Lap 139 green flag scanner chatter:
Sadler must have been feeling the pressure from the cars behind and vented his frustration about the weather by saying, ‘just my luck Kevin, rain on the radar, no rain on the track’. Buskirk made huge kudos with this race fan when the CC ‘spanked’ Sadler for his comment by saying, ‘don’t be like that….we have had some great luck today’. Buskirk would be most correct with this statement, and I am guessing that when Sadler reflects on the race, there were some extraordinary things that happened to his favor, but just not the end result.

A lap later, coming off turn four, Sadler saw that the 17 and 29 car were going to make a good run and Sadler had a 50/50 choice to make of which line he was going to run exiting the tri-oval. We will never know which decision would have been better, and that is not the point. The point is that for a first leg of a marathon season, the 19 team as a whole performed well and not simply because of the end result. From the pre-race prep, to pit stops, to spotting and help missing a potential race ending wreck, to the driver showing smarts and patience and thinking big picture, this was a great effort over-all, and even would have been had the 19 finished 20th.

Post race
Yes, Sadler looked and sounded like a beaten puppy dog in his post race presser, but that to shall pass. We all have seen Sadler tug at the heartstrings in the passed for the sympathy vote, and is getting just that with some of the fans with not x chromosomes. That’s expected. Just a guess, but when Sadler finally returned to his motor coach Sunday night, had a couple of cold ones, there was some good reflection of the events known as the '500' before boarding his jet Monday morning for the trip back to Statesville. But it is on to California and frankly a track that can be used as a benchmark for teams of where they are at in relation to others. But after week one of the ‘No Excuses Tour’, the glass is clearly half full.

Later this week, some interesting fan's reactions to the 'last lap' pass and some pretty good changes on the revamped ElliottSadler.com pages.

Who is really driving the GEM bus these days anyway?

Well, Friday afternoon while enjoying the Miami sun I get texted that Elliott Sadler is ‘back in the 19’. Even though I was still in a state of depression from the previous night’s National Championship game, this news was some of the most unusual driver/owner dilemmas I have seen in sometime, probably not seen since the days of Robert Yates, and Ricky Rudd (note; irony alert)

So what happen now? (Thanks once again Mr. Weber) Lets look at a few different aspects of this question:

So Sadler now has his ‘#19’ back for the 2009 season. Or does he? The latest reports say that A.J. Allmendinger will now run the #10 car for the Bud Shootout and 8 ‘other’ races during the season. If GEM is smart (yes, we know that might be a stretch) this means that A.J. will have an ‘8 race showdown/shootout’ with Sadler and the best results may very well get the sponsor(s) for the remainder of the season. The loser goes home or simply becomes a figurehead and back-up driver for GEM . If I do the math right, this
would make the spring Texas race an interesting one.

Because of mergers and other team’s downsizing, the #10 team should be in the top 35 in owner points and like the 19, locked into the first handful of race. That being said, both GEM teams should be considered playing on a level playing field. Sadler has had the luxury for 5 or so years of not having to perform week in and week out in order to keep a ride. Now it very well could be that for eight weeks, he may have to.

Can he step up his game? I really don’t know. Will he give his best effort? Of course he will. But just what happens if things go south early on? One can be a ‘sponsor’s” dream all they want, but over time, even that can wear off with mediocre on track results every week. I don’t see Masterfoods knocking on the door lately, and even with their ‘bad boy’ driver. The appearances in victory lane, the Chase and running up front most weeks far out weigh another ‘TeVee face’ glad-handing his sponsors every interview.

The plus side is that Sadler has a history of coming out of the gates strong in most seasons.


Kevin Buskirk to the rescue!

I have always been a silent fan of Kevin and while he might be considered a ‘journeyman’ in the NASCAR ranks, wherever he has gone, the team he was with has seen success. He brings a lot of COT knowledge after heading up DEI’s testing program this past year and even has an insight to ‘Sadlereeze’ after being his crew chief for 9 races at the end of the 2005 season. Considering my ‘8 race theory’ above, this hire might be the most significant GEM decision in this have fiasco and one that might be the different maker.

While I am optimistic about Buskirk, he joins the long list of crew chiefs for Sadler and will most likely be blamed if the 19 car continues to run mid pack. It is really amazing the revisionist history many of the Sadler faithful present to the table when it comes to former crew chiefs. This blog has showed time and time again, that there is a common denominator that for years has gone unchanged. A dozen or so crew chiefs can’t always be wrong can they? Someday, maybe they can all get together for diner one night, and ‘exchange’ Sadler anecdotes, someone bring a camera, but better get a large table reserved first.


Putting on the tin foiled hat for a moment:

In my research of Buskirk, I stumbled across something that I had not connected before. Remember when Sadler finally came clean with Robert Yates and the NASCAR Nation that the ‘real’ reason he wanted out of the two years remaining on his contract had more to do with a ‘difference in team philosophy’ and the direction that the team was going? Well, that may have been the truth, but there is another striking ‘coincidence’ from that season. It seems the Buskirk left RYR in early April of the 2006 season to go to what became a successful stink with RCR. It was two weeks later when the first ‘report’ of Sadler wanting out of his contract from RYR surfaced. So was Burkirk the real missing link? Maybe, maybe not.

We have all heard the stories that Sadler ‘getting his ride back’ was not only ‘dollar/court’ driven, but sponsor driven as well. Even though they are not scientific, I have yet to see an Internet poll that supports Sadler getting his ride back, and most show an overwhelming favor toward A.J. From a sponsor’s standpoint, I wonder if this data is ever considered? I’ll leave that one up to Best Buy.