Absentee crew chiefs stay plugged in via technology (cont'd)

"You've got to have confidence in the person that you put up there on that box, and we have confidence in Jeff Meendering," Gordon said Sunday after posting a second-place finish. "I feel like [Meendering] was well-prepped. And I think that we had enough guys up there helping him ... all an additional person on the phone or texting would do is complicate things a bit more."

No matter the level of communication, NASCAR spokesperson Kerry Tharp said the suspensions still serve their purpose.

"In this modern day of technology, there are certain ways in which the crew chiefs can remain in communication with their teams, and it is virtually next to impossible to monitor all of that. But, not being able to physically be there in the heat of battle certainly can't be the same," he said. "Losing your crew chief is a lot like losing your quarterback in football or your point guard in basketball. The glue to your team is not able to be there with you on race weekend."

Eury Jr. agrees.

"I can listen to their radio chatter -- but I can't reply or use the radio to communicate with them," he said.

On more than one occasion, Wood Brothers/JTG Racing crew chief Michael "Fatback" McSwain has been forced to bridge the communication gap away from the track, although never for a suspension.

Last month, the birth of his son Wyatt pulled the crew chief away from his highly coveted post.

Nevertheless, the dedicated family man toted his laptop right into the delivery room.

"I pretty much had everything rolling," McSwain said. "Nextel text messaging, e-mail ... I was sitting in the room waiting for everything with a computer and a phone at the same time."

Two years ago, McSwain underwent back surgery and wasn't allowed, per doctors' orders, to fly on an airplane once again forcing him away from the pit box.

No problem.

"The TV was on and I had a live phone conversation with my crew during the whole race and was able to talk through the whole thing," he said.

Technology can only take you so far, McSwain said.

"It's hard. It's possible to be effective, but it's fairly hard," he said. "Crew chiefs [have] to make their people as smart as they can while their gone. It ain't easy and it's harder when you're not there."

Just before NASCAR's season-opening Daytona 500 in February, a string of crew chiefs were suspended in an unprecedented manner leaving them to their own devices to stay connected with their respective crews.

On a four-race suspension for rule bending Robbie Reiser, crew chief for Matt Kenseth, took a low-tech approach and stayed home and away from the computer while Kenny Francis, team director for Kasey Kahne, traveled to each race city, stayed in the team hotel and used instant messaging to get his points across.

Today, crew chiefs have the luxury of real time text-based communications and speak in text chat lingo, a language tailored to the needed immediacy.

Crew chiefs of yesteryear however wouldn't LOL if a driver said IDK what's wrong with the car but OMG it's NBD.

Communicating between crew and driver was much more archaic back then.

In fact, during the 1950s and 1960s crews used blackboards not Blackberrys.

If the driver needed to pit, he would tap the hood of the car, or if the car was tight, the driver would tap the door. Actual hand signals were used, not hand-held devices.

"You didn't see electronic communication until the late 1970s," said Buz McKim, NASCAR Hall of Fame historian. "More and more radios came into play when it became more reliable."

And if a crew chief was suspended, which was unusual, there was only one phone in the pits and crews relied on intercom systems.

Legendary crew chief Buddy Parrott, who came up admiring the likes of Junior Johnson and Bud Moore, said technology and communication wasn't necessary 10 years ago, because crew chiefs were rarely suspended.

If NASCAR caught you cheating, you were told to fix the car or never bring it back to the track. If you did, Parrott said, it was an insult to the inspector and an embarrassment to yourself. (Continued)