The pace laps wound down, the green flag loomed, and still the blue and red Chevy sat motionless on pit road. If Jeff Gordon was panicking, no one could hear it -- the radio inside his helmet was dead. As the start of the race at Phoenix International Raceway approached, the concern on the Hendrick Motorsports team heightened -- until the 27-year-old crew chief spoke up.

"Calm down," Steve Letarte told his driver. "Everything is fine. We've got time. We're going to change the helmet if you want to change the helmet."

So they changed the helmet, dispatching a crewman to fetch a new one. They also made sure that all the belts and hooks on Gordon's Head and Neck Support device were properly refastened. They went over hand signals in case the backup radio went bad, too. And they got their driver back on the racetrack without losing any time, thanks in large part to a quick-thinking crew chief with a penchant for making big calls and keeping Gordon focused on the positive.

It happened again later in that same Phoenix race, when a risky decision to keep Gordon on pit road as the caution flag flew gave him the track position to win. And it happened Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway, when a late stop for fuel only gave Gordon enough juice to stay up front through a green-white-checkered finish, and helped him collect his second consecutive Nextel Cup victory.

"He's in a position to be a little bit calmer than I am. Not to mention that I just think his personality, when the heat is on, he knows how to be calm and cool when it calls for that," Gordon said of Letarte. "There are times I've got to calm him down, and times he's got to calm me down. I think [the Phoenix race] was a perfect example of how well he handles pressure and those pressure situations."

He's part crew chief, part advisor and part cheerleader. Letarte, who moved to the top of the pit box after Robbie Loomis stepped down with 10 races remaining in the 2005 season, plays the role of a crew chief not only responsible for making decisions on pit stops and car changes, but for keeping his driver motivated during, and sometimes even after, the race. It's not uncommon to hear Gordon lament the condition of his car or his position on the track, only to have Letarte respond with a picture not nearly as bleak as what his driver perceives it to be.

Just before a late restart at Martinsville, as Gordon was trying to close the gap on teammate and eventual winner Jimmie Johnson, Letarte told his driver to "go chase down that 48 [car]." After Gordon fell from second to third on the final restart at Bristol and lamented his unsuccessful bid for the lead, Letarte told him, "If we had given you half the car you deserve, you would have won the race." When Gordon comes over the radio to voice a concern about the car, Letarte often tells him to let the crew worry about fixing it, and just to keep driving hard. (Continued)