Relationships away from track important for crews

The trust fall, name tags, personality tests, awkward confessional circles about who stole the stapler last week ...

Sound familiar?

It does if you're one of the thousands living the 9-5 grind and have been forced to endure a team building exercise or corny field trip all in the name of office bonding.

But try a Cumbaya-style field trip in the "office" of NASCAR and you might be pelted with hot lug nuts and put on sanitation duty in the motorhome lot.

Team building within the NASCAR organizations is a priority, yes -- and more common today than in past years -- but they don't take their cues from "Office Space."

Whitewater rafting, trips to baseball parks and football stadiums, a day of wake boarding and boats is how NASCAR crews regroup and recoup to boost morale and communication, because in a sport where races are sometimes won and lost on pit road, crew and driver need to harmonize. And as the Chase nears, drivers especially depend on their pit crews to be on top of their game and vice versa.

Kyle Busch visits Michigan football practice.

Bonds were restored recently with Kyle Busch, who clinched a spot in the Chase at California's Sharp Aquos 500, and his crew via a Michigan football practice.

Busch and his engineer Chris Heroy watched how University of Michigan coach Lloyd Carr interacts and leads his crew of men on the gridiron.

The driver said he noticed similarities between his race team and the football team, specifically with trusting one another.

"You have to battle for each other to grind out success and you have to pick each other up," Busch said of the experience.

Picking each other up is exactly what the football players did after a brief shoving match where as soon as the whistle blew, they came together and got back in the huddle, which Busch said impressed him most.

"It just showed me that you're going to have your rough moments as a team, but you're teammates first and you know that at the end of the day everybody is working toward the same goal," Busch said. "So you just have to put it behind you and concentrate on the next play or in our case, the next race."

Experts say activities outside the workplace environment, in this case a racetrack, allow for new perspectives to be gained and communication can potentially improve. Disconnecting from work and enjoying each other's company opens new dialogues and appreciations.

Heroy, the No. 5 engineer, agrees and said it's easy to get caught up in your own individual responsibilities and forget the team element.

"During race weekends our team gets pretty locked in concentrating on the job at hand and at the shop we all go about doing our job and taking the extra step to ensure success for the next race weekend," he said. "We all have outside interests so to get a day when we can just do something together really brings us closer as a team."

A teammate of Busch, Casey Mears, is the driver of the No. 25 machine at Hendrick and has a standing lunch date with his crew and crew chief Darian Grubb, because he said it's important for him to show his gratitude. (Continued)