Crew chief Greg Zipadelli serves as Tony Stewart's eye in the sky on race days. Credit: Autostock

Chase Conversation: Greg Zipadelli

Joe Gibbs Racing and its lead crew chief, Greg Zipadelli, is in the process of attempting to set a modern era standard for consistency and excellence in driver Tony Stewart's run through the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

Inside the Chase Point standings after Kansas Pos. Driver Pts. Behind 1. T. Stewart 5,684 -- 2. R. Newman 5,609 -75 3. G. Biffle 5,596 -88 4. R. Wallace 5,594 -90 5. J. Johnson 5,592 -92 6. C. Edwards 5,589 -95 7. M. Martin 5,571 -113 8. M. Kenseth 5,568 -116 9. J. Mayfield 5,527 -157 10. Ku. Busch 5,460 -224 Holding onStewart on his Kansas finish and Nextel Cup standings lead Sign up for TrackPass now BUY YOUR NEXTEL DRIVER PHONE

Zipadelli and Stewart, who won the championship in a contentious 2002 season in which Stewart's off-track antics almost eclipsed his on-track accomplishments, are on the verge of outdoing that feat -- solely on the racetrack.

Gibbs' No. 20 Chevrolet, thanks to the adroit tuning of Zipadelli and his crew, and Stewart's equally adept ability behind the wheel, has piled up 15 top-10 finishes in the last 16 races -- and only four of those 16 outside the top five.

While there are still six races remaining in the Chase, and Jimmie Johnson last year erased a margin three times the size of Stewart's current 75-point advantage on Ryan Newman while falling just short of defending champion Kurt Busch, Zipadelli and Stewart's achievement this year is noteworthy.

Zipadelli took a break from preparing for the Banquet 400 in Kansas to discuss Stewart's growth as a person and a driver, emotional stress of racing for championships and how many miles he has on his championship Corvette.

Q: Greg, as we really get into the heat of the Chase, how is the "new" Tony Stewart playing at Joe Gibbs Racing?

Zipadelli: I don't know -- new? I mean, he's no different than he's been all year -- you know what I mean?

Every year you've seen little changes in him and this year he's dealing with things that he can't control, much better than he did before. I think it's just maturing.

He's doing a better job of being a part of the team and things like that, but it is what it is.

Q: As the father confessor, the head shrink and the mechanical mastermind of this bunch, you've got to be darned glad that "Tony the driver" hasn't changed a bit, has he?

Zipadelli: No, I don't think so, and I think that's what he's realized. I think he's realized that he can still have the passion to be what he wants to be, as far as the race-car driver -- and not have to have it be the way that it was, whether it was with the media or other people or the frustrations on the bad days.

I think that he's realized that he can enjoy what he does a little more than he maybe thought that he could but I mean, it's still a ton of pressure to be out here and to perform at this level and to do the things that we do -- (with the pressure of) the media and the fans and things like that.

But he's doing a better job at it and I think he's doing a better job of not putting himself in situations that pressure him -- or cause him headaches and grief -- and that's all just part of learning.

Q: Is that something that everybody else needs to learn how to deal with, where if Tony says, 'I'm going to do my thing' that everyone needs to deal with the rest of it? Is that a neat lesson he's learned, maybe?

Zipadelli: I don't know -- I suppose so. Everybody's different and everybody reacts to different situations (in different ways). Some things get people upset and some things don't.

But the things that got the guy next to you upset might not bother him. It's just that everybody's got different hot buttons.

	Greg Zipadelli and Tony Stewart won the title in 2002; they're even better this year. Credit: Autostock
	Inside the Numbers Tony Stewart 2002 & 2005 comparison Category 2002 2005 Starts 36 30 Wins 3 5 Top-5 15 15 Top-10 21 21 DNF 6 1 Poles 2 2 Avg. Start 13.2 12.4 Avg. Finish 12.6 9.9 Laps Led 746 1,485

Q: Can you compare Tony as a driver in the championship year, 2002, to what you're seeing now in 2005? Is there even a difference?

Zipadelli: I don't know. This is my seventh year (working with Stewart) and I don't know that there's any difference, other than the fact that he's now learned to control his emotions a little bit more, that used to take us out of having a halfway decent day and making them bad days.

Now, we've actually had bad days and turned them into pretty decent days and that's what probably hurt us the most, in our past.

So I don't know. It's not like he's some transformed human being -- he's the same but it's just little stuff that he's adjusted.

I think we've all matured. I think we've got a little better race team and a little better race cars than we had last year and the year before that -- at times.

And I think that he realizes that and to him, that obviously, if you're sitting in his seat, I won't say that it makes his job any easier, but it makes him feel like he's got a chance of being a little more competitive than maybe we were at some other times.

But everybody kind of goes through that, you know?

Q: When you put it that way, does that kind of qualify, or quantify what you guys have been able to achieve, I mean, more than three months and only one finish out of the top 10 is incredible, and does that mean Tony has been able to take some not-perfect cars and get more out of them?

Zipadelli: Yeah, but we've been able to adjust on them and make them better at the end. I mean, we started Indy and we didn't have a very good car. We were OK but we weren't what we needed to be.

We aggressively adjusted on it and he stayed with us -- and he was able to continue doing what he did.

And at Michigan, we were as tight as all get-up, but by the end of the day we had it freed up enough, we did what we needed to do and at the end he was up there racing in the top five.

So he's learning that if he just continues doing what he's doing and doesn't put it on himself to make up for it -- and then get frustrated and lose it all -- if he just continues doing the same thing, then hopefully on the pit stops we can make it better.

At the end of the day, it is what it is and you've got to do the best you can with it (laughing).

Q: How nerve-wracking is this Chase format, in that you can put together a three-and-a-half month stretch like you did, yet come into Kansas with only a four-point lead?

Zipadelli: I don't know that it's nerve-wracking, but it's frustrating. I mean, the only thing that you hope is that we can continue for the next (six) weeks and do the same thing that we did (previously).

That's all you can do. The worst thing is, is that at some point in time the odds are against you, you know what I mean? It's just that simple.

But I think last week (Talladega) was key. We had a good run at Loudon, but we left there very frustrated and I think that led to a poor performance at Dover.

	Greg Zipadelli has overseen five Tony Stewart wins this season. Credit: Autostock
	ALSO •   Tony Stewart Driver Page •   G. Zipadelli Crew Chief Page •   Joe Gibbs Racing Team Page •   Coke Track Access

Rather than being excited about leading the most laps, sitting on the pole, finishing second and leaving with the point lead -- which in the big scheme of things, leaving with the point lead every week is (big).

Leaving with the point lead after Homestead is obviously the most important part.

But I think that that just shows how much we want to win, and the pressure that you put on yourself to win means that second just isn't good enough, even if you're in the Chase.

Q: Compare the difference a year makes, where last year you had a mishap in the opening race of the Chase and were never able to recover, while this year you're on a roll. Emotionally, what's the difference?

Zipadelli: I think last year, the only difference is that when we went into the Chase we were fifth or sixth or something. We got in that wreck (at New Hampshire) and battled back to sixth.

Our confidence, as a team was nowhere near what it is right now. Our race cars weren't as competitive to the guys we're racing against as our stuff is right now.

So I just think this whole race team is better, all the way around than we were last year. I think we could have done better than we did, if circumstances were maybe different from the first race.

But you're right, everybody was tired and we were thrashing to get in that Chase and we were struggling. When we got there and had that (wreck), it was like, 'OK, you're out of it -- it's over.'

You know, a lot of it's all subconsciously. It's not like you actually said, 'OK, we're done, we're out of it, let's just go race for whatever.' You still want and raced, but like I said, you either have that confidence or in the back of your mind you're doubting yourself a little bit -- or the ability to get back up there.

Whereas, now -- we made up 500 points, I don't know, something ridiculous in that 12- or 13-week stretch (in the summer) -- from being down 250 or 300 points to being ahead 200 points (before the points were reset for the Chase).

	Tony Stewart and Greg Zipadelli will try to improve upon the No. 20's 24th-place finish in the first race at Lowe's this year. Credit: Autostock
	Inside the Numbers Tony Stewart at Lowe's Category No. Starts 13 Wins 1 Top-5 6 Top-10 9 DNF 0 Poles 1 Avg. Start 9.9 Avg. Finish 10.7 Laps Led 414

So us and that confidence -- if we just go do what we know we can do, with the cars that we have, we can overcome a lot of things. Now, granted, other people have to have bad days, but we just try and go out racing every week and that's all you can do.

Q: Testing at Lowe's Motor Speedway a couple weeks ago you had a bad test and crashed a couple cars. How did that affect your rolling stock, what's the status of those cars and do you plan to plug them back into the rotation?

Zipadelli: We took two brand new cars over there that we had no experience with (laughing), so we felt like this (car at Kansas) was the car that we've run a lot.

The car that we're going to run at Charlotte is a car that we've run a little bit through this most recent spell, and it's a really good car.

We took cars over there to test that we didn't have a lot of experience with. They were brand new, because we had just built four or so new intermediate race cars; so that we would have what we felt like was extra stuff that would be sitting there in case anything happened.

We took those cars over there and ran them and we wrecked one. It wasn't a big deal -- we took it home and fixed it. We don't have any emotional ties to it -- we ran it three laps, and if it runs again, it runs again, you know what I mean?

We went back with another car, which was an R&D piece that we had no intentions of racing, and it was really fast. We cut a tire down on the sway bar and hit it.

But that car is fixed and it's going to Atlanta to test with one of the other (Gibbs Racing) teams. We have since rebuilt the car that wrecked and built another brand new one like that R&D car that we're actually going to take to Atlanta to test and if it runs better, we're going to race it.

	Despite overall success at the remaining tracks left on the Chase schedule, Tony Stewart's best finish this year is 17th at Atlanta. Credit: Autostock
	Inside the Numbers Tony Stewart down the stretch Race No. W T-5 T-10 Lowe's 13 1 6 9 Martinsville 13 1 3 6 Atlanta 13 1 4 7 Texas 7 0 1 4 Phoenix 7 1 2 4 Homestead 6 2 3 4

So I think that all it did was, it woke us up. It showed us that not everything is perfect and not everything goes your way. It didn't get us down. We went back the next day with a car that we unloaded at Chicago with and ran second most of the day to (Matt) Kenseth (and) by the end of the day we got his confidence back that it was really fast and it drove really good and we're happy with that race car.

So if this race car runs really, really well (at Kansas) we'll probably just take this one back (to Lowe's) because we're a little superstitious, but that other car has run really well and has a lot of top-five finishes.

I don't know that it (wrecking twice) didn't affect the guys at the shop more than it affected us. I think, like I said, was the circumstances were that we had to go back there the second day and work a little harder at building our confidence back and getting him comfortable.

And we did. We went back last week with a brand-new Busch car that we built and tested really good there. I thought we went really fast and got a little bit more of his confidence back with the racetrack, and that setup and the tire.

So I think at first it looked like it was a little grimmer, but by the time we were all said and done, if anything I think it built a little more confidence in us that we were able to pick the pieces back up and get in there and really not have it affect much.

Q: Talk a little bit about the benefit of having team cars in the Chase with you.

Zipadelli: Well, we all have team cars, but if you have team cars that are running the same things that you are and you're competitive, it's better.

If they're up there racing with you, obviously they can be up there taking spots away from the guys that we're racing. If it pushes everyone else back one spot, that's a help to us.

You can go and look at what they're doing, and that can help you. If they're going one way and you go the other way that helps you a little bit. You get to look at their test data.

So there are a lot of little things. We still have teammates, and not everybody's running what we're running, or doing what we're doing as far as in our group, so we don't think it helps us as much as it's maybe helping some of the others.

Q: A tough question maybe, but as busy and stressful as this Nextel Cup deal is all the time, do you still have the Corvette Tony gave you after you guys won the 2002 Winston Cup championship?

Zipadelli: Yeah -- it's got 226 miles on it.

Q: I was afraid it was gonna be 550 or something silly like that.

Zipadelli: Nope, nope. It's got the battery charger plugged into it all the time. It's like everything else I got -- boats, motorcycles. They all sit there and someday, either everything will be all dry-rotted out and nothing will be worth a thing or I'll have time to use them.

Q: Finally, as a former championship crew chief, can you compare the satisfaction you get in racing for a championship, versus what it feels like when you finally achieve it? And how does 2002 compare to this season?

Zipadelli: I don't know if there's any way to compare. Our year in 2002 was such an emotional high and low, and such a mentally draining experience that words can't explain it.

I can only tell you that when that checkered flag dropped at Homestead, it took me days before I was excited about winning (the championship). I was so relieved it was over.

Tony Stewart has had a lot to smile about this year. Credit: Autostock

There is such a difference (this year), that until you're there and you go through something in your life that is just that long of a stretch and the stuff that we went through that year, and the hours and the time we put in to get there -- it's hard to explain.

I'd say, at that time I was going through part of my time of learning and growing a little bit, too -- no different than Tony.

You didn't not appreciate it, and you worked for it, but you honestly couldn't say that you enjoyed it. I think, this year all of us as a group have enjoyed our accomplishments more than we have in the first six years of racing.

And this team has a lot to be proud of.

I just think that everybody's attitudes are better and everybody is focusing a little more as a team on a common goal and for us to be able to do it this year, I think would be a lot more rewarding to everybody, personally, than maybe the first year.

The first year was great, and you did it, and it's still in the record books and you've still got your trophy.

But it's what you took out of it as a person when it was all said and done -- and like I said, that year was just -- I don't even know how to explain it but it was really, truly, emotionally draining -- mentally draining for me and I know for some of the guys it was, also.

So like I say, we're having a lot more fun, this year to this point and if we could (win the championship), I think we would all think, it would be one of those things that I hate to say you would cherish it a little bit more, but I think we'll enjoy it more right then and there, at that moment, and on than maybe the first one -- because of the circumstances.