Elliott Sadler says he's happy with the communication shared amongst his Evernham Motorsports teammates. Credit: Autostock

Conversation: E. Sadler

LOUDON, N.H. -- It is 1 p.m. on a beautiful Saturday at Loudon. Since the Busch Series is idle, many drivers have already left the garage area.

Happy Hour for the Sylvania 300 wrapped up 65 minutes ago, but Elliott Sadler and Scott Riggs have refused to budge from Riggs' hauler.

	Credit: Autostock
	Inside the Numbers Elliott Sadler since his move to Evernham Motorsports Track Start Finish Michigan 2 10 Bristol 9 39 Fontana 18 13 Richmond 14 16 Loudon 14 6 Average 11.4 16.8

The two have important business to discuss. They are debriefing for the next day's race, and the two will probably talk for an hour more later in the evening.

These weekly meetings are new for Sadler, who is just now getting used to Evernham Motorsports' way of doing things. The ink dried on his divorce from Robert Yates Racing only a month ago, but Sadler appears to have embraced Evernham's engineering-centered outfit.

Q: So Elliott, you are going to the shop all the time. What are you doing? What are you seeing?

Sadler: Well, I try to go once a week for a couple of hours. We go out to lunch, but the main thing is that we kind of sit there and have a powwow, kind of dissect what went right, what went wrong the week before and what we need to do as a race team to make it better.

It is a lot quieter there and there is a lot of things where we can sit down and discuss what we need to do as a race team to be better and more competitive. [The shop] is a great place to do that.

Q: Without going into the building of the cars, how is Evernham different than Yates?

Sadler: I really am surprised how well the teams work together. I was really not used to that. I know exactly what the 9 car has got in that car all the time. I know exactly what the 10 car has got. I know all the feedback that Scott and Kasey are giving their crew chiefs and engineers.

I am really happy about how close all the teams work together because there is going to be a day where we are all struggling and we all can group up together. I'd say the biggest difference is teamwork and Ray leads that ship. He is very vocal about it and he has been involved in every meeting I have ever been in. He has been fun to work with so far.

Q: How stressful was all this?

Sadler: This is the most frustration I have ever had in my life as far as racing is concerned. I have been racing since I was seven years old and I didn't know which way to turn, which way to go this year.

You want to do a good job as a driver and you want to represent your team well and your sponsors well. It was just getting to a point where Robert and I were just not seeing eye-to-eye on which way we thought the sport was going. I thought it was going this way, he thought it was going that way, and we just could not come to an agreement or meet in a middle deal.

It is not that I am saying my way is right or my way is wrong, or his way was right or wrong. We just couldn't see eye-to-eye on some things and it was time to make a change.

Q: What kind changes did you want?

Sadler: I am not going to air my dirty laundry. I wouldn't want him to do it to me and I am not going to do it to him.

He understands where I was coming from and I understands where he was coming from, being the owner of the company, it is just I think it is better we leave it at that. It was my fault and I am going to take the blame for it.

I just could not buy into the system that he wanted me to buy into.

Q: Did your family help you out with all the stress or did you keep it bottled up inside?

Sadler: I probably kept it inside more than I should have. I have got a few select friends that I can ventilate to them.

They won't spread it all over the world. I ventilated to them about it and what was going on and I tried to release my stress a little bit so at least when I got to the racetrack I could be very, very focused.

I know what kind of person I am and I tried to do it the correct way and I tried to do it the most ethical way I could, not only for myself and my family, but also for the sponsors we had.

I'd say 90 percent of the media did a great job covering it. They did what they had to do. I'd say 10 percent of them were just taking sides and trying to get mud thrown, stuff like that.

Everybody made it a great experience and most everybody understood that under certain contracts, you can't talk about a lot of things.

A lot of people were bearing with me on that, I am glad it is all behind me and the day we got it done, I went to sleep to easy that night, slept so good knowing that I had done it the right way knowing that there was nothing that was going to come back to haunt me.

Q: Was it a sleepless summer?

Sadler: It has been a very sleepless summer, because I want to run good, man. Being in the Chase and winning races a couple of years ago, now, not being competitive and running 30th every week, it's tough.

And you start questioning yourself, what you're doing right, what you're doing wrong. Am I giving the team the correct feedback they need to be competitive? It makes it hard because I am a very competitive guy. I don't want to be a field-filler.

I want to be in contention, I want to make noise, and I want to win poles, qualify in the top five, run in the top five and none of that was happening. That makes it hard on me, it was hard on Robert and Doug, those poor guys were living the nightmare right along with me.

They were not trying to put it all on my shoulders. Those guys worked their butts off and they gave 100 percent. It is just that we were not speaking the same language.