It's a decision that Michael "Fatback" McSwain has been working toward for quite some time.

At the end of the season, McSwain will step down as crew chief for Wood Brothers/JTG Racing and current driver Bill Elliott. He doesn't yet know where he'll land or what he'll be doing, but in McSwain's very countenance, there is nevertheless a most definite sense of relief.

No longer will McSwain dread leaving his home in Dallas, N.C., where he lives with wife Deanna, 2-year old daughter Makayla and son Wyatt, who's just three months old. No longer will Makayla wonder when her daddy's going to be home. No longer will McSwain be just an infrequent visitor at his church.

He'll be a full-fledged, active member.

"My focus is different," McSwain said Tuesday morning at the Wood Brothers/JTG shop in Harrisburg, N.C. "My desires are different. When I started, my professional focus and my professional desires drove everything. Now, my personal focus and my personal desires drive everything.

"Before, I did everything to be able to race, to move forward and be successful at what I was doing in the racing business. Now, I race for the benefit of my family. It may be right and it may be wrong, but it is what it is."

Team owners Len and Eddie Wood, as well as Tad Geschickter, have been informed of McSwain's intentions. There is a possibility that McSwain could move over to one of the organization's Craftsman Truck Series teams, or maybe into some sort of research and development role.

Whatever the case, McSwain stressed that his decision is in no part due to any kind of dissatisfaction with the Wood Brothers/JTG operation in and of itself. Instead, he simply wants to concentrate on his family, friends and faith.

"It's just a normality of life that I've been searching for," McSwain said. "I spent the first half of my life trying to get somewhere and now it's like the second half of my life, I'm trying to get back. I don't know where the road leads next, but I'm enjoying taking my little girl to school and putting her to bed at night. ... I'm just tired of being gone."

When McSwain left Joe Gibbs Racing midway through the 2004 season, he and his wife started making plans in earnest for a curtailing of his schedule. Stepping down as a Nextel Cup crew chief and the pay scale that goes with it will mean at least a 50-75 percent drop in pay, but it's a sacrifice that the McSwains are willing to make.

"For the past three or four years, we've put every dime we could into paying off our house and our property," McSwain said. "We're not there [financially], but we're close enough to where something like this won't devastate us. We lead a fairly normal lifestyle."