Teams fight to adjust when forced to backup

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Remember breaking a favorite toy as a child?

Some adult probably substituted another plaything with the well-meaning bribe of, "This one's just like so-and-so," and, of course, you, the child, knew better.

That's gross oversimplification, but it does reflect Tony Stewart's predicament.

	Greg Zipadelli (left with Tony Stewart) says Stewart's backup car is brand new. Credit: Autostock

He came to Texas Motor Speedway expecting to run one car in Sunday's Samsung/Radio Shack 500. Instead, he'll run his backup after NASCAR officials impounded his primary car during Friday's initial inspection procedure.

Stewart says he's not worried, that he trusts the backup and his crew's preparation, but it's disconcerting to lose your top gun before you fire it.

"A crowd like that, it won't bother them," said Steve Hmiel, director of competition for Dale Earnhardt Inc. "They'll be just fine."

Stewart's car was flagged because it violated a major right-rear measurement by a half inch. The violation's location -- along the rear deck lid -- meant the crew would have had to rebuild the entire rear end, too complicated a repair to make at the track.

So NASCAR impounded the car for testing at its Concord, N.C., research facility, an action the sanctioning body had warned teams of early in the season, owner Richard Childress said Saturday

Meanwhile, Stewart starts 22nd Sunday in his backup.

"Everybody's situation is different," said Matt Kenseth, the Winston Cup points leader. "We usually try to make sure our backup car is a good car and it's prepared and ready to go race. But yet on the other hand, your primary car has your good engine in it and all your best stuff on it -- your best carburetor and your best intake [manifold].

"That's the one that's all fitted up and ready to go."

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Running backup cars might be riskier now because of the new rules. Certain body locations have been standardized among all four manufacturers, and some teams still might be tweaking and doing on-track learning. Add new Chevrolet and Pontiac bodies, new Ford tails and Dodge noses, and nearly everyone's fleet is new or rebuilt. That translates into lots of untested backups.

"This car's brand-new," crew chief Greg Zipadelli said of Stewart's backup. "It's never been run. We kind of were saving it for Charlotte [the Coca-Cola 600] and The Winston. It's been a really good racecar, by numbers. When we were building it, we were happy with it."

The newness factor might even be an advantage. Ricky Rudd says Stewart is right to trust his crew.

"I'm sure over there they've got new Chevrolets that he doesn't even know," Rudd said. "He's probably never driven a lot of them, so he doesn't really have a favorite yet."

Running backups also resembles paying taxes: You'd avoid it if you could.

"It puts you behind the whole weekend," said Matt Borland, Ryan Newman's crew chief. "It's actually better the earlier it happens. It gives you enough time at least to get ready for the race."

Practice wrecks are the usual reason for shifting to a backup. Enduring the inspection gauntlet a second time is the worst by product, Hmiel said, adding that when a team has practice time remaining, NASCAR officials conduct only necessary safety checks before allowing a backup on the track. Then, inspection gets completed after practice.

Still, it's all the extra labor, the frustration of losing a car, having to start at the rear of the field and the abrupt abandonment of a preferred game plan that gripes a team.

As illustration, Stewart's team had to pull a complete switch Friday. Primary cars usually arrive at a track in qualifying setup, while backups arrive in race setups. Not only did Stewart's crew change the backup engine, replacing it with the second-best engine reserved for the primary car, they had to change from race to qualifying setup, then back again for Saturday's two Cup practices.

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"I would think it would change the crew and the crew chief's thoughts a little more than it would the driver," said Bill Wilburn, Rusty Wallace's crew chief. "Because if I was the driver, I'd walk in and say, 'Well, hell, I know they got me good cars all the way through.'"

But backup heartburn isn't confined to crews and crew chiefs.

"Not really," Kenseth said, grinning. "I gotta drive it."

Kenseth admits he's been lucky. He can remember having to use backups only in Busch series action.

"You always bring your best car to the track," Kenseth explained. "You probably don't think [the backup is] quite as good, but I'm sure if we had to run it, it'd probably be all right."

There's also the opposite view: that this year's new body rules might, more than ever, ease the mental and physical transition to a backup car.

"With the common templates now, all our cars are much more similar than what they used to be," Kenseth said. "We used to have cars that were kind of all over the map body wise and aerodynamic wise. Now they're all very, very similar. Some of them have differences, but basically we can run the same car at Atlanta that we can run at Bristol."

Having a legitimate backup is a taken-for-granted luxury, according to Rudd.

"You go back quite a few years ago and you had a backup car that, heck, it might even be a road-course car," Rudd said. "You never know. It was just something that just kind of rode along if you needed it. There were many years I ran and never had a backup car. You didn't have that option. You just fixed what you had."

Robbie Loomis, Jeff Gordon's crew chief, says preparation is the key to solving backup hassle. He cited The Winston of 2001, when Gordon wrecked during preliminary heats of NASCAR's all-star race and was allowed to use his backup for the main event.

"Basically, that car was ready in 20 minutes to go on the race track," Loomis said.

If crews do their homework, a major problem can be reduced to a minor hassle.

"You got all the wind tunnel information on all your race cars, and you know where all your motors are at," Loomis said. "These drivers get out of one and get right in the other one, and they're just as good."

"It's more of a mental thing, I think, for the driver and for the team," Borland said. "You're just hoping you got everything right without being able to run any laps on the car."

Sometimes, misfortune carries a silver lining. Rudd says he's never yielded to temptation, but occasionally, he's yearned for his backup.

"I know there's been days that I've wanted to wreck my primary car so I could roll out the backup, knowing that the backup ended up being a better car," Rudd said.