Tech Q&A: Matt Borland

Matt Borland already has established himself as one of the top crew chiefs in NASCAR Winston Cup, even though 2002 was his first full season in stock-car racing's top series.

And Borland didn't do it the traditional way, either. He didn't work on cars behind his house growing up, get a job sweeping floors, and then work as a fabricator before moving up.

	The No. 12 team led Ryan Newman to victory at Texas. Credit: Autostock

No, Borland is quite the opposite of a shade-tree mechanic. He graduated from the General Motors Institute in Flint, Mich. with an mechanical engineering degree. He worked with GM on suspension design for its off-road truck program, worked for a company called Pi Research doing racing simulation programs, and then served as an engineer for the Pac West Racing team in CART.

He joined Penske Racing South in 1999 as a "design/simulation engineer" in 1999 before being named Ryan Newman's crew chief.

Borland and Newman have hit it off, as Newman has two victories in his brief career. The engineering graduates have set a standard for others to follow in their approach to NASCAR, and Lee Montgomery sat down with Borland recently to talk about that approach.

You and Ryan have engineering backgrounds. Do you guys have your own language that other drivers and crew chiefs don't use when you talk about the cars and setups?

Yeah, I think we use different words, but I'm sure we're describing the same problems that other drivers and crew chiefs are. You go through engineering school, you learn different words than what you might use if you didn't. We use those words just because those are what we're familiar with. But we're describing the same issues that everybody else is.

Like what, for example?

Someone might say, "The car is loose," where Ryan might say, "The car has a lot of yaw to it." We talk more in terms of numbers to describe what the car's balance is like. We try to take more of a mathematical approach to setting the car up. It's just a different way of doing it.

When someone says you guys are "engineering-based," that's what they're talking about?

Yes. We try to logic things out and use mathematical representations for a lot of things.

ALSO  •  Newman's Driver Page  •  Borland's Crew Chief Page  •  Know Your NASCAR  •  More NASCAR Tech

Do you use a lot of computer simulations for setups?

Yes. We're pretty heavy on computer simulations. We've got a lot of background on our team on that base. We try to use that to help us to catch up to the curve with the guys who have a lot of experience. It gives us a way to catch up to that big notebook. It also helps us when you make changes, like a manufacturer.

You guys seem to be credited for bringing engineering innovations. And yet you're saying you use to try to catch up to experience. Some folks have said you have passed some of the other teams by. Do you see it that way?

It's a constant battle. Some weeks you feel like you're ahead, and other weeks, you have a terrible race and you feel like you're a year behind. That's the great thing about this sport. Every week, you can go from being the best team to the worst team, and it doesn't take very long.

Before you go to a test, do you do the simulations first to see what you want to do, and then put it on the race car, or vice versa? Or both?

You work both directions. You go back through your notes and see what things you fought there before. You run through some simulations, trying to figure out what things you want to look at, what things could improve. Also, if you've made changes other than that during the test, you may go back and re-run simulations based on what changes you made and try and learn what you liked about that or didn't like about it, and why it was faster or slower. You can use it in the reverse way.

Ryan is obviously an exceptional driver. Do you have to rein him in? Maybe he's aggressive and wants to go harder than he should?

He's definitely aggressive. He's got a ton of talent that allows him to be that aggressive and be consistent doing that. He's better at reining himself in than I could be. His father does a lot. For the most part, he can run the cars at that aggressive level and do very well."

In the same vein, as an engineer, he's involved with the car and the setups. Do you ever have to say to him, 'OK, Ryan. We work on the car. Go away.'"

We really haven't had to do that. He understands that that's not his job to do and leaves it up to us. He leaves up to us to make the mistakes, too, and he understands that we've got to make those mistakes to learn from it. There are times when he feels he needs to make suggestions, and there are times when he feels like he shouldn't. He's pretty good about reading the situation and adjusting to it.

Do you spend a lot of your time looking at computer-generated setup sheets and reviewing things, as opposed to working on the race car itself?

I don't spend a lot of time working on the race car, the nuts and bolts of it. I've got a lot of guys on the team who are very good at doing that, and I leave that to them. That's their job in the whole equation. They're a lot better at doing their job than I am at doing their job. I try to stay out of that piece of it and let them do what they're good at. I've got a lot more experience on the computer side of things, and I try and spend more time on that.

	Ryan Newman

We've got Mike Nelson on the team, and he's the race engineer. He spends a ton of time generating reports on the computer to show more information on what we might be doing right or doing wrong. He's a huge help from that aspect.

You're kind of a new-generation crew chief. Not that you're not a mechanic, but you're more of an engineer than a mechanic.

I'm definitely not a mechanic. I'm not very good at it. Not that I don't want to be, but that hasn't been my background. I used to be in CART, and there, engineers weren't allowed to touch the cars. I came from that environment, where those guys do that part of it, and you don't get involved with it. You do the computer side of it, and they don't get involved with that. Hopefully, everyone is doing their job well, and you can perform well.

Does Ryan like a loose race car?

He doesn't like a loose race car, for sure. His idea of what a loose race car is maybe is a little further than some people. He doesn't like it when it gets loose. He'd rather have it be a little bit tight. He definitely doesn't like a loose race car. (laughing)

Obviously a place like Fontana with its high entry speeds, you want the car to turn. How do you balance what he wants with what the car needs?

It's a hard balance to come by. That's what everybody is looking for, and that's why every week it's different who is running good and who's not. Very few drivers like a loose race car. What they want is it to turn really good, but yet the rear's not going anywhere. To do that, the car's got to rotate, but yet nor over-rotate. That's the fine line you're dancing on. That's what they're trying to do every lap when they're driving the car.

Is that trickier at California?

It's probably less tricky there than at a lot of places. At higher speeds, it's actually a little bit easier. It's more a place like Martinsville, Bristol, a lot of your short tracks.

What the driver is doing with the car is so abrupt in the changes from throttle on and braking -- and the banking transitions are so much more abrupt, the car never is in a steady-state scenario. It's constantly in transition. That's a lot harder to adjust to than a California or a Texas where once you're in the corner, you're in a constant turn for several seconds.

You guys destroyed two plate cars. How far back does that set you, and does it affect the non-restrictor-plate cars?

Yes, it does. In most cases, it wouldn't. We built three cars for Ryan and three cars for Rusty because of the Bud Shootout. You've got a spare car that you don't necessarily have to have. Since we killed two cars, we only have one car to go to Daytona with. Now, where it affects all the other cars is we've got to stop building what we were going to build and focus on building speedway cars. That's where it puts you behind.