Donahue continues to forge bond with Crocker

Crew chief shares experiences of working with female driver

This week, 32-year-old Patrick Donahue shares with NASCAR.COM staff writer David Newton what it's been like since he took over as the team director/crew chief for Crocker's No. 98 Truck Series team in late April.

Donahue: I never worked with a woman racecar driver before this, so it's taking time to deal with communicating and building a relationship.

	Erin Crocker and Patrick Donahue have only one DNF this season. Credit: Autostock
	Erin Crocker Year-to-date statistics Race Start Finish Daytona 24 27 California 33 27 Atlanta 30 26 Martinsville 34 25 Gateway 30 22 Charlotte 2 18 Mansfield 25 28 Dover 25 24 Texas 12 33 Michigan 11 24 Milwaukee 33 25 Kansas 12 16 Kentucky 34 27 Memphis 34 30 Average 24.2 25.1

It's different. When you work for a male driver you often hang out with him away from the track. Like Boston Reid, the last driver I worked with, he was one of my best friends.

Having a woman driver, you're not going to be best friends. It just doesn't work like that. I'm married. I've got kids. It's just different.

Women hang out with other women more than they hang out with men. I don't mean that disrespectful in any way. Erin and I will race go-karts and go bowling and stuff like that, but she still hangs out with her girlfriends more than anybody.

No, we don't go to the mall shopping while we're at the track.

But sometimes you don't want to talk about racing with your driver. You want to talk about life. We're learning how to do that, and it gets better every day.

Dealing with a woman on the track also is different. She's aggressive, but women show their aggressiveness differently. She's more calculated. Erin is not going to go out and hold it wide-open the first lap.

She's got to make sure she knows what she's got underneath her and then she's got to go. It took a little bit of time to learn how to trim the truck for practice and the race.

Sometimes we just have to stop and take a 10-minute break and regroup and think about what we've got going on. Then we go out and make gains quicker.

On paper it doesn't look any different, a male driver and a woman driver. But it's different.

Erin's definitely less emotional than the male drivers I've worked with. It takes a lot for her to get wound up.

	Erin Crocker drives the No. 98 Dodge in the Truck Series. Credit: Autostock
	SUPERSTORE •   Get Erin's gear!

After she wrecked at Kentucky, it took a few seconds until she opened up and got vocal about it. And that was one of the first times I'd heard her get vocal. She said a few bad words that I'd never heard from her before.

She was upset. She had a good car and got in a bad position and got taken out. She normally keeps her emotions more in check, yet she does get upset like any other driver would. It just takes a lot more for her to retaliate.

She's not going to say something on TV that will embarrass her or the team. Unless she gets really mad you won't ever see her show emotion like a Tony Stewart or Ryan Newman at New Hampshire.

That can be a good thing. Sometimes it's better not to say anything.

When Ray Evernham and I talked about me stepping into this role I knew what I was getting into. I've known Ray since 1993 when I went to work for him as a 19-year-old on Jeff Gordon's DuPont car a week after I graduated from high school.

I was a smart-butt kid from South Portland, Maine. He was very patient with me. He's helped me out a lot over the years.

When this deal with Erin came together I called him and said, "Hey, what do we have to do to put this together so I can come back to work for you?''

We talked about it and he explained where they were with the truck team and the potential it had. I accepted the responsibility.

Erin Crocker drives the No. 9 Dodge for EMS in the Busch Series. Credit: CIA Stock Photo

GATEWAY GIRL With another off week for the Truck Series, Erin Crocker will use the time to make her seventh career Busch Series start on Saturday night in the Busch Silver Celebration 250 at Gateway International Raceway.  Crocker crashed and finished 37th at Nashville and later posted a personal-high in the series with a 28th-place finish at Milwaukee in her only two Busch starts this season.  •   Entry List, click here

It wasn't like we had to come over and re-do the trucks or the team. We just needed to change some processes and improve the morale. We've done good at times and we've done badly at times, but it's still the same people that put the truck on the front row at Charlotte.

There are a lot of smart people at Evernham Motorsports and we just try to apply what they've done with the Cup programs to the trucks.

We sometimes struggle doing what the Cup teams are doing. Between this being a truck and having a rookie driver, we sometimes go the wrong direction. It's still a balancing act.

You can see a breakthrough point. Like Kansas, it was like, "Man, we're finally getting it.''

Then the next week we struggled.

I've worked for Brian Vickers and Ricky Hendrick and other rookies from other series and you're going to have that. One week you're like, "Man, we're headed in the right direction.'' The very next week you're like, "Man, we don't know what we're doing.''

I was telling Todd Bodine the other day that sometimes nobody can see the gains, but we've put five little pieces together and given the right circumstances we could have been really good.

That's sometimes hard to explain to people. They say you're not making any gains. Well, yeah, we are, but our finishes aren't any better. It's baby steps more than anything else.

There are plusses to working for a woman driver. As a team we get more attention.

Sometimes that brings on more pressure, more expectations. It's twofold. Erin's name helps us keep sponsors on the side of the truck. We're also expected as a team at Evernham Motorsports to run better.

Sometimes we need to keep our goals and patience in check. Ray helps us with that.

My wife has no problems with me working with a woman. She looks at Erin as a driver and it's my job. She's supportive. It's not a big deal.

People respect what she can do. I don't get harassed by friends or anything like that.

One of our goals this year was to sit on the pole, and we came close at Charlotte. I know we have the equipment and capability of doing it.

When we're able to finally win a race, that'll be a great accomplishment. Having come from the DuPont team and been with that group of successful people that won championships, that experience goes with you forever.

When we're able to get Erin running up front and competing for wins, we'll be a part of a group of people that did that for her. People will remember that and that's something you'll take with you for the rest of your life.