Lance McGrew helped Brian Vickers to a seventh-place finish at Daytona and a third-place at Talladega. Credit: Autostock

Shop Talk: L. McGrew

Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Lance McGrew faces a daunting task over the rest of the Nextel Cup Series season -- namely, keeping his No. 25 Chevrolet team and its driver, Brian Vickers, focused on the task at hand in a lame-duck situation.

And after three races, it seems they're doing well.

Brian Vickers is 20th in the points. Credit: Autostock

Inside the Numbers Vickers' 2006 results Race Driver Start Finish 1. Daytona 35 7 running 2. California 28 18 running 3. Las Vegas 10 22 running 4. Atlanta 37 23 running 5. Bristol 17 37 running 6. Martinsville 24 8 running 7. Texas 33 43 engine 8. Phoenix 14 13 running 9. Talladega 33 3 running 10. Richmond 4 37 accident 11. Darlington 8 41 running 12. Charlotte 17 37 running 13. Dover 24 23 running 14. Pocono 4 4 running 15. Michigan 3 17 running 16. Infineon 42 14 running Garage PassBrian Vickers hopes to start fresh with Toyota Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

Prior to the Pocono race weekend, Vickers revealed that he and owner Rick Hendrick had mutually agreed that Vickers would end his four-year relationship with Hendrick -- which included the 2003 Busch Series championship with McGrew.

Sunday night following a 14th-place finish at Infineon Raceway, Vickers announced he would drive a Toyota Camry in 2007 for Team Red Bull, initiating the inevitable separation from his team over the season's final 20 races.

McGrew sat down to discuss the difficulty of racing in a futureless situation, his thoughts on how his relationship with Vickers will change and Vickers' development as a restrictor-plate racer in what McGrew says is the best restrictor-plate program in Nextel Cup.

Q: Despite the fact that Brian announced prior to Pocono he would not be back with you guys, you ran well both there and at Michigan, qualifying in the top five and leading laps both places. How to do you assess the situation?

McGrew: It's tough. I think, to have the relationship that you need to have with your driver, it's way more than just driver-crew chief. You're friends, you know? You're family.

He and I have been through a lot together. We had a very awesome season in '03 and won the Busch Series' championship together.

I got fortunate enough to get the call to come up with him to the Cup side and the majority of last year, I felt like, was just a good building year.

We've just seemed to struggle this year, for some reason. When he decided to move on and do different things -- that's a little jab at you. You feel like you're losing a brother or a son or whatever you want to say.

But it's just kind of part of the business.

Q: As close as this garage area can be, is it a good thing that you'll still see him around?

McGrew: Yeah, I'll definitely still see him around, but the relationship's got to change because obviously it's competition -- we're all here to compete and we want to be the best at what we do.

And obviously when you learn something and you feel like you have a bit of an advantage, those are the kinds of things you hold close.

Those are the kinds of things that we used to share, that we won't be able to share anymore.

Q: Pocono was a great statement, and you continued it at Michigan. Since Brian made his revelation, you've picked up six spots in the standings, so what do you feel like the greatest challenge will be through the rest of this season?

McGrew: I think it's going to be difficult for the team to keep focus. I believe it's going to be difficult for Brian to keep focus, because each one is trying to put forth some kind of simulation of a structure or an order for next season -- and there will be some building blocks along the way.

It's my job to keep the team focused and it's Brian's job for him to keep focused on what he needs to do. And each of us knows it benefits this team to run well.

And I would love nothing less than to get [Brian] his first Cup win before the end of this season, and then go on with Casey [Mears] next season.

Q: Speaking of history, at the Daytona 500 you guys had a good car and Talladega, as we all know could have been Brian's first win back in April. So how much are you guys anticipating going back to Daytona for Saturday night's Pepsi 400?

McGrew: I'm always excited to go to Daytona because we're very much benefited at Hendrick Motorsports by the superspeedway program that we have.

In some ways, that takes me out of it, because I don't have a tremendous amount of input. I don't have to have a huge time investment in it for that program to be successful.

The guys take very good care of it and basically, I'll take a look at the setup sheet a couple days before we go down there -- and away we go. At the track it's all us, but for the preparation of the speedway cars, the shop guys do all of that.

Q: Do you feel like Hendrick Motorsports has taken the lead in the Nextel Cup garage area as far as restrictor-plate racing goes?

McGrew: I don't see how you can't say that we have. If you look at the on-track performance in the last two years, Hendrick has just dominated.

I mean, our Hendrick cars have just dominated superspeedway racing. And the proof is in the pudding.

Q: Which racecar are you going to take down to Daytona for Brian to race in the Pepsi 400?

McGrew: We'll be using the same car that we ran at Daytona the first time -- in the Daytona 500. That was not the same car that I ran at Talladega, but for particular reasons I'm running that car again at Daytona.

I like the downforce on that car versus the Talladega car a little bit better. We got the car driving so good when we were down there for Speedweeks that I don't see having a bunch of handling issues.

And [Daytona] is definitely a handling racetrack -- unlike Talladega.

Q: Brian's picked up his abilities across the board, as a racecar driver, but what is it about him that makes him a good restrictor-plate driver?

McGrew: I think the biggest thing is he loves it -- he absolutely loves it! He would run Daytona or Talladega every week if we ran there. Like, he just absolutely loves it, I think, because it's a chess match.

There is not a tremendous amount of difference in the cars, from team to team and from guy to guy. The horsepower ratings are real close, so you're not getting out-motored or out-handled.

So it's like putting yourself in the right position. If you get shuffled, you have to know how to get back in the same position to get back up there.

And I think that's why he likes it so much. If you can attribute his success to one thing on a superspeedway it would definitely be that he loves it.

	Lance McGrew said not much changes in terms of a pre-race checklist for Daytona Credit: Autostock
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Q: From your seat, is restrictor-plate racing the biggest challenge or the biggest frustration -- because sitting on the pit box, I assume there isn't much you can do, is there?

McGrew: There's nothing you can do. There is some strategy to it, and there are some pit calls you can make that will help the car, but most of the time I just sit there with my fingers crossed and hope that we're ahead of the big wreck.

You cannot count your chickens at that place, ever. I mean, on the white-flag lap you can be coming to the checkered flag and they'll have a huge pileup and you'll finish 28th. So you just really have to be on your toes the whole time.

Q: Looking back over the last few years with Brian, since the Busch championship year what's the biggest change you've seen in him, both as a driver and as a person?

McGrew: I think it's the same as with anybody over that time period -- he just grew up. When I first met him he was a little kid from Thomasville, N.C., that had probably never seen much around the country.

He had traveled some with his parents and been here and there, but socially, he just lived in the racing world and that was it. He didn't do a whole lot else.

So he's gotten older, he's gotten more mature and he's gotten worldlier. He runs around here, there and yonder and he's just grown up. That's it.

Q: Does your pre-race checklist for Daytona differ at all from the checklist you used at Infineon, or Chicagoland next week?

McGrew: It's the same. I use exactly the same checklist everywhere. There are a few other things that we'll do that are specific to the Daytona car, and that's trying to keep the drag off the cars or whatever.

But basically, as far as our safety checklist that we go by week in and week out, I use exactly the same list. That way I know that the guys are doing the same job, week in and week out and I find we make less mistakes that way.

Lance McGrew believes the Hendrick restrictor-plate program is the best in NASCAR. Credit: Autostock

Q: If Daytona is unofficially the halfway point of the season -- even though it's race 17 of 36 -- how will that feel to you? Can you believe you're that far into it and are you anticipating the second half?

McGrew: Well, it's kind of strange, because the longer you do this business, you'd swear that the seasons would drag longer and longer and longer -- because we get more races.

But they seem to get shorter and shorter and shorter. And every year, like, you sit there and look at it. Now I'm 38 years old. When you were a kid, waiting for Christmastime, it seemed like the end of the year never came.

Now you're like, 'God, man -- it's July already, practically!' And it just rolls so fast and you get in such a rhythm when we race so many weeks in a row, that you just don't really even notice.

This is the deal, you've got to go here this weekend and you're there next weekend.

Q: So much in this sport is measured in fractions of inches, so from the beginning of the season, when you ran pretty well, to dropping back to 26th in the standings -- what's your goal coming down the stretch to Richmond, and beyond?

McGrew: You just want to be a contender, you know? I'd like to sit here and say we're going to be in the top 10, but that's a big hurdle from where we're at right now.

We just had some bad luck and crashed some cars. We had three or four really, really bad weeks and we really paid for it in the points.

I just want to go out and I think as a team and as a company we want to prove that the 25 team is competitive and that it can run up front like we did at Pocono, week in and week out and that it doesn't matter where we go, whether it is Martinsville, Pocono, Daytona or Sonoma.

You want to be competitive week in and week out -- that's why we do this, because we're all competitive -- and if we weren't, we wouldn't do it.