In the Field: Elliott Sadler

Last weekend the Chase for the Nextel Cup opened up at New Hampshire, and it was like that opened the book on some of the same questions we get every year: How hard do you race, and how hard do you race against the guys who are in the Chase and racing for a championship?

That's an easy one to answer and I'm here to tell you -- it's no different.

I've been on that side of the fence before, when you're a Chase guy. If I'm a Chase guy it's my responsibility to know who to race and who not to race.

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I do know that I was more worried about it when I was a Chase guy. You know out here as a driver who to race and who not to race; who's going to race you fair and who's going to try to use you up.

As a Chase driver that's more my responsibility than the other guy's. If I'm racing for a championship, I have a lot more to lose, and I know that guy who's trying to salvage his season by winning a race has nothing to lose.

I know he wants to win the race no matter what, and when it comes right down to it, I have to race him accordingly.

And I'll tell you, when it comes down to racing, racing hard and making the effort to prepare, everyone in this garage area, whether they're racing to stay in the top 20 in the standings, or to stay in the top 35, raced just as hard week to week as the guys who were racing to make the Chase did.

Actually, I think it's harder to race running 25th than it is to be running the top 10 every week. I say that because my guys have to work twice as hard -- and all the guys on these race teams work hard, don't get me wrong -- but we're always cutting up stuff trying to make changes, to make improvements.

We're always cutting up a chassis, cutting off a body and we've got to test twice as much trying to find every little thing that we can trying to bump ourselves up to that next competitive level.

Now, teams that have already found it -- and that are in the Chase -- are saving their equipment and saving their guys' energy and getting ready for this 10-race stretch in the Chase. So it was definitely harder running like we ran this year.

We put forth a lot of effort and it was heartbreaking not to make a better run for the Chase than what we made. I think it's been frustrating for all of us at Gillett Evernham Motorsports. We didn't really know we were going to struggle this much this year.

My guys did a great job preparing the cars this past winter and we felt like we had a really good fleet. We just haven't run as good as we would have liked -- whether it's been with the Car of Tomorrow or the old car.

We're definitely putting in the time and effort and we're definitely making gains. Kasey [Kahne] has run very well the last few weeks and we've been qualifying good the last three weeks -- we just haven't translated it over to Sunday yet.

So, we still have a little bit of work to do, but we've got nine races left to make improvements and make our team better -- keeping one eye on the races we have left this season, trying to win one of them but also trying to learn everything we can to end this season on a good, positive note. That's rule No. 1, because this season isn't over for us, by any means.

And No. 2, we've got to keep one eye on getting ready for the 2008 season. Every time we run one of these Car of Tomorrow races, like we did last weekend at New Hampshire, like we'll do coming into Dover this weekend and three more times this season, we need to concentrate on learning as much as we can that we can apply in 2008.

So we've got a lot of work ahead of us. Even though we can't be crowned Nextel Cup champion, we still have a lot of things we can learn for next year.

It hasn't been hard for me to get out of bed every morning. I'm not like that yet -- nowhere near it. I want to be out here. I don't have to coax myself into showing up every morning.

I've been doing this for 25 years, some form of racing -- 90 percent of my life. I love to do it and you want to be competitive at it. This by far has been the most frustrating season of my life in 25 years.

My personal life is great; my family life is great. I just wish my racing was a little bit more competitive on the racetrack. It's not for lack of effort.

We're not going to run and hide from it. I am not going to put my head in the sand and bury it and forget this year ever happened. We've got to learn from some of the mistakes I have made as a driver and we've made as a team to make ourselves better and do better next year.

I've got to do my job as a driver for the No. 19 car, and as a teammate to the No. 10 [Scott Riggs] and the No. 9 [Kahne] and do the best job I can with that and then move on.

And you want to talk about pressure? Ray [Evernham] reminded us the other week at the Talladega test that he's never been a year without winning a race -- so that kinda put a little pressure on Scott, Kasey and myself to go out there and do what we gotta do; to get it done and get him a win.

We do have one edge. We have nothing to lose. Who cares about points right now, from our perspective? Who cares where we're at? We're not racing for the top 35, and we're not in the Chase. We can take a lot of different chances and do things we wouldn't normally do on a regular race weekend, just to try to get a win, a top-five, a top-10 -- whatever we have to do to try to make things happen.

I'll be doing that as a driver, as far as who I race and how hard I race them; and so will Scott McDougall, my crew chief, with the calls he makes on pit road.

What you can't forget is that these are the best drivers in the world. We understand physically what we have to do, in the racecars, but also mentally what we have to do and what the agenda is for the weekend.

Like Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton and Carl Edwards -- those guys have been locked into the Chase for a long time. So for those last few weeks they were trying to win races and get those 10 bonus points that went with it -- and I'm talking crew chiefs and all, with the decisions they've got to make on the pit box, not just drivers.

If you're running for the championship, you might figure you can't take a chance on fuel -- on running out -- because if you did, the points you'd lose would be devastating, even with nine races left to make it up.

So everybody has to twist their thinking up a little bit to adjust to that, but we're all professionals and we all understand the hand we're dealt and we've just got to make the best decisions with that.

I think sometimes people underestimate the mental part of this sport. The driver and the crew chief are always in constant communication. Not only is the driver trying to race as hard as he can and to go as fast as he can every single lap -- but he's got to give great feedback back to the team on the race adjustments to make to the car; as well as making decisions on who to race, who not to race and doing things like saving your fuel, brakes and tires.

There are a lot of things going through a driver's mind all the time, and he has to stay focused on all of it, all the time. That's especially difficult for these Chase guys.

I remember when I was in it. I was racing nine other guys and not only do you have one eye on what you're doing, you're also keeping one eye on what they're doing -- and so does the crew chief.

Like, if they're running fifth and we're running 15th, we have to take two tires on the next pit stop and get up there with them, so we're not continuing to lose ground. You need to take that chance to try to get on the same cycle they're on.

There are ways to win and I don't think fans always understand this: It's not always the fastest guy who wins the race. A lot of times it's the guys who use their brains the most and make the right decisions who win.

It taxes the heck out of you. That's why Dale Jarrett and I took a break last week, before we went to New Hampshire, and played a round of golf on Thursday at the TPC Boston, where the PGA Tour played a couple weeks ago.

You have got to get away from this sport for at least one or two days a week, just to let what happened last week get out of your system where you can come to the next race ready to make a fresh start and ready to go.

People do it in different ways. Some people run, some ride bikes and some play with their kids. There are a lot of different ways to handle stress and handle situations in your life that are sometimes tough.

My stress relief is to play golf. And even though I'm doing it to relax, I'm serious, too. Some people play golf just to have fun, but I'm a real golfer. I play to win, to make birdies -- I am there to play.

So last week, me and DJ -- both of us had terrible weekends in Richmond -- so we went to the TPC Boston to unwind. We're both golf fans and we had both watched Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods go at each other there, two weeks ago.

So we got to play there, with a lot of the pin placements being in the same spots. So we stood on each tee box going, "This is what they were thinking." Because I would sit at home and say, "Why are they hitting a 3-wood on a par 4 that's 460 yards long? Why are they hitting a 2-iron or a 3-iron or a 5-iron?" But you get up there and all of a sudden it comes to you: It's narrow or a bunker is in play that you had no way of knowing, looking at the TV broadcast.

So it's a different way of thinking and a different way of doing things. And it's the same with racing, a lot of times. People at home are forever saying, "Why are they doing this or that?"

Until you've really walked a mile in their shoes -- or played the same golf course -- you really don't understand. And a lot of this racing game that we have is not just running fast -- it's the mental aspect of it, too.