Momentum a concept that just doesn't exist in racing

In a world of subtlety and nuance, where we would not dare state the obvious for fear of offending the sensibilities of those with backbones weaker than our own, it's refreshing when you're presented with the plain and simple truth. Tony Stewart gave us just that following the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 on Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway.

Tony was asked a question about the value of momentum for drivers and teams going into the Chase. Here's how he broke it down. "You guys call it momentum. I call it just how is your performance right now at this point," Stewart said. "You know, the teams that are running the best right now are the teams that have a shot at winning the championship. You can call it whatever you want to call it, but it's still a matter of performance at the end of the day. It's still a sport that's a week-to-week sport and anything can happen."

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There you have it, the awful truth about racing momentum: it doesn't exist.

It took some time for me to wrap my brain around that one, but Tony is absolutely correct. It wasn't momentum that propelled Tony from a victory at Chicagoland one weekend to another victory at Indy the next. If it was, then that same momentum would have carried Tony to victory at Pocono the following week. After all, Pocono is a lot like Indy in that it's 2.5 miles around, has long straights, very little banking and requires a disciplined left foot.

If momentum was real, Tony had every bit of it going into Pocono. So much so that there should have been no reason to even run the race. But they did run the race. And what did all of Stewart's 'momentum' amount to? An unspectacular, if respectable, sixth-place finish.

If it isn't momentum that a driver and team carry with them from one victory to the next, then what is it? It's a lot of things, but overall, it's preparedness. Think of all the things a team must do to win a race: all the planning, the testing, the manpower, the shock setups, the coordination, the cam profiles, the tire pressures, the ingenuity, the pit stops, the fuel calculations, the clear communication between spotter and driver, the beating and banging. There's no substitute for having it all done, and done right.

A victory, in and of itself, has nothing to do with that team completing all the tasks necessary to win its next race. Nor does a victory have anything to do with doing those same things better than the next team. It just means that you did well the previous week and that's about it.

A team is either prepared to back up a win with another win, or they are not.

Conversely, a team is either prepared to turn around a miserable performance from the race before and win or it is not. Again, what we're used to calling momentum -- good or bad -- has nothing to do with being prepared and arriving at the track with your A-game.

Then there's the x-factor. Even when a team does bring its best effort to the track, and theirs is the dominant car that weekend, what power does momentum have in the face of racing luck? Zero. All the momentum and car preparation in the world will never prevent a sheet metal screw from puncturing a tire, nor the failure of a 25-cent o-ring, nor a bump from behind, or the "big one" for that matter.

Bad racing luck trumps all, but it does not prevent you from completing the checklist of things that have to be done before you roll off the hauler the next Friday morning.

Racing is a reality-based, here-and-now effort. Ask any crew chief what he'd rather have going into a race weekend: momentum or meticulous preparation. You already know what the answer is going to be.

If momentum exists at all in racing, it's purely in the mind. I suppose the idea of having momentum can serve to inspire teams to go the extra mile and do the many thousands of little things that need to be done to prepare their car better than anyone else, but only to a certain extent. Inspiration is driven far more by hard work and understanding than it is by any fleeting notion of momentum.

There are twelve teams in the Chase heading to New Hampshire with an eye toward winning it all. Eleven of those teams, however, are keeping a nervous eye on Jimmie Johnson, his six wins this season and his current two-race winning streak. But the fact is, the No. 48 team carries with them no momentum whatsoever. What they do bring, however, is the proven ability to prepare two different types of racecars for two different types of tracks in two consecutive weeks. That's not momentum. That's intimidation. It's also the plain and simple truth.

The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer