Credit: Autostock

Conversation: Jimmy Makar

LOUDON, N.H. -- Joe Gibbs Racing team manager Jimmy Makar has already gotten over the fact that one of the teams under his guidance failed to make the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

Makar, who won his first Cup championship in 1989 as a member of the Blue Max Racing team that fielded Pontiacs for Rusty Wallace, has been involved in two more title runs with Gibbs, with Bobby Labonte as crew chief in 2000 and with Tony Stewart, in his current role in 2002.

In his immediate future Makar is preparing for a third full-time Nextel Cup team that JGR will field in 2005.

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At New Hampshire International Speedway, Makar sat down with NASCAR.COM senior writer Dave Rodman to discuss whether not he thinks the Chase for the Nextel Cup is appropriate, how teammate Labonte's Interstate Batteries Chevrolet team can help Stewart's Home Depot unit and just what Gibbs' absence while coaching the Washington Redskins means to him.

As you headed into the Sylvania 300, the first race in the Chase for the Nextel Cup, in what way has your perspective on the season, or the way that you approach things, changed -- if it has at all?

Makar: Really, I don't think there's been any change at all. You don't change things when you get down to the championship hunt -- you have to do what brought you here.

This is not the time to experiment and try new things. You need to stay focused on what' worked in the past and do the same job you've been doing all year long.

Has the Chase changed your workweek? And in a typical week, how many hours are you putting in, anyways?

Audio TrackPass Audio Conversation: Jimmy Makar

Makar: Aaahh, I don't count 'em, but I guess it's 80 (hours), or something like that. It really hasn't changed, though. We have put a little more focus now on the 20 car (Stewart's) since it's in the hunt for the championship.

That's the first and foremost thing at Joe Gibbs Racing's operation right now, is to make sure they have everything that it takes to run for the championship.

Second in line, but certainly no less important to us is to make sure the 18 car (Labonte's) gets their team headed in the right direction and try to learn the things they need to do to be competitive week-in and week-out.

Those are two of the major focuses we have right now.

In the middle of the summer there was a big personnel change on Bobby's team, when Michael McSwain was released as crew chief and replaced with Brandon Thomas. Is there a simple way to quantify what happened from July until the cutoff to the Chase, and is it accurate that that team appears to have turned the corner over the past couple weeks?

Makar: It's like everything: What's inside isn't always what it seems to be on the outside, and this certainly was one of those cases. When we made our decision in July to make a change with the crew chiefs a lot of people wondered why, because from the outside it looked like, we were in the top-10 in the points and everything was just fine.

But we saw that the reason that we were in the top-10 wasn't because we were running that good and were competitive and rightly deserved to be there. We were there because other people were making mistakes and our mistakes weren't being highlighted quite as bad -- basically everybody was screwing up, from seventh on back in the points (while we were sixth).

So we saw the handwriting on the wall and we knew we needed to something to turn the team around. So we made the change and, as timing goes, again from the outside perspective, it looks like that was probably the wrong thing to do.

But certainly since that time, the team has been working hard; the team morale has been good and the guys have been rallying behind Brandon. Bobby and Brandon have gotten along well and still talk a lot more than we had going on in the past -- and that's important.

Like you said, it seems like we were able to go to Richmond and run kind of like old times again. It seemed like the guys hit on a few things that Bobby liked and it certainly looks like it will help our short track program, for sure.

Whether we can take that and parlay it into some speedway stuff remains to be seen, but I'm hopeful that's what will happen.

Now that the 20 team is in the Chase for the Cup, what's the best way that the 18 car can help them?

Makar: (long pause) Hmmm. You know, I don't really know. That's a good question. I think it would be to get back on track with the way that they race and to be competitive enough to where they can relate good information back and forth, between the two teams.

That will mean that the 20 car can have a partner in that and maybe learn some things from the 18 that they don't have to go out and do on the racetrack for themselves.

What's your feeling on team orders, which is kind of an oblique question because it doesn't appear to be occurring in Nextel Cup racing. But what's your feeling on something like that, given the nature of this Chase, like a teammate giving positions to a teammate or affecting the outcome of races in any way?

Makar: Boy, I'll tell you, that's a tough one, you know?

Is it something you hope you don't see happen?

Makar: You hope you don't see it happen, but you know it's going to. It's the nature of the business (because) as a team, if your teams are working together you're going to try to do everything you can to help your teammate win a championship under the laws of racing and what's right and what's wrong.

We've not been in this position before, quite like this. I mean we've certainly been in positions where teammates were running for championships and others were not.

I think back on times where friends -- other team friends were running for championships and needed a break on the racetrack so we gave it to 'em. So I think you'll see people giving breaks to the guy that's running for the championship within a team and I think that's just part of what a multi-car team does.

What is your test program looking like, heading down the stretch? How many tests does the 20 team have left, how many does the 18 have left and that information, I'm sure, will be swapped back and forth?

Makar: Yeah, I think Greg's (Zipadelli, Stewart's crew chief) got three tests left and Brandon has got three or four tests left, also. We're working right now on what's the best way to run those tests.

We're deciding whether we do all different racetracks with the two teams and just swap the information, or go to some of the similar tracks and run through a lot more scenarios with the two cars.

Right now, it looks like we're going to be half and half with the way it's laid out, with the 18 and 20 doing some of the racetracks together and the others being separate.

What's the biggest concern you have in this chase?

Makar: Probably the biggest concern is something happening out of your control (as happened Sunday at New Hampshire, when Robby Gordon and Greg Biffle were involved in a wreck that tied up Stewart and Jeremy Mayfield).

Like always, I feel like the 20 car is competitive enough to run for this thing and be in the hunt when it gets down to the final couple races. But you're always at the mercy of what happens on the racetrack and getting caught up in somebody else's troubles is the thing that really worries you the most.

Tony and his team have been known as really good closers, in the season, so does this format really play to their strength, do you feel?

Makar: I think so, for sure. Looking back over history, both the 18 and the 20 have had good last quarters of the seasons and that plays in wonderfully for the 20 coming up on a lot of tracks that Tony does well at.

He enjoys being around them and the guys feel good about it. Anytime you can go into a segment of races like this, where you've got confidence, it's certainly a boost.

How important is the emotional or psychological makeup of a team in this Chase, where you might have something happen in a race, but you can't look at it like it's the end of the world -- or certainly the end of your championship hopes?

Makar: I think it's terribly important, in a situation like this. We've always looked at it as though adversity (helps to) portrays the true character of a person.

If you fold under situations of adversity, you truly will not be able to become a champion, so these guys have proven over and over that they come back from being down and they never count themselves out, and that's extremely important if you're going to be here (contending in the Chase).

What's life been like for you with Coach Gibbs being so involved with the football team, really for this entire season?

Makar: Well, we're just minus a person around the shop, right now, you know? You don't see him. I haven't seen Joe, really since he got back to (football training) camp.

He's been at the shop a couple times, when he came by and spoke to us. I saw him a few times, so for me personally it's a little bit of a void there, with not having him to talk to and run things back and forth, across the table on (different subjects).

I miss it (because) I like running things by him and then getting his perspective on what's going on and then trying to utilize that. It's something certainly that I miss but as far as everyday racing goes, things really aren't that different than they were before.

The guys down at the shop are still doing the same things they had been. Nothing's really changed, there. And J.D. (Gibbs, team president and Joe Gibbs' son) has done a good job up in the office taking care of business matters that Joe would've taken care of, in the past.

Since Tony's gotten into the Chase, if you haven't had a chance to talk much with the coach, with his Super Bowl winning experience, playoff experience -- even championship experience in Cup racing -- that's got to be tough?

Makar: Yeah, definitely. It's certainly something new and different for all of us. I don't know exactly how different it is -- nobody does. Going into this thing you can only surmise on what we're going to get into, here.

We've been involved in multiple car chases down toward the end of a normal season with three or four cars before, but never 10. So it's certainly going to be interesting to see what happens.

This is even different than a football or basketball or whatever kind of playoff season. Because in those you're still only pitting one team against another (while now) you're still pitting 43 cars against 43 while inside that you have 10 cars racing for the championship.

So it's still much different than any other sport that we know of.

At Richmond there was an awful lot of excitement, drama -- everything they have talked about in connection with this Chase. You won a championship in this series, and now you're involved in this Chase. Is this format right for Nextel Cup racing?

Makar: This 10-race playoff? I can just give you my opinion, and my opinion is that we race 38 times a year (36 point races and two special events) and the champion should be crowned over a 38-race schedule, period.

You're saying you get rid of the first 28 races and go to this 10-race thing, so it remains to be seen if the same winner is going to show up that would have showed up if all the races counted.

So I still feel like when we crown a champion at the end of the year it should be the guy that started at Daytona and ended it at Homestead, being the best of the best.

I understand why we're in the situation we're in and why we've gone to this type of a system, but it leaves a little emptiness in my heart to do it this way. Maybe I'm old fashioned, I don't know, but I like the thought of a guy having to run every single race from Daytona on down and have them all count for the championship.