Teamwork more important with COT going full time

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Penske Racing driver Kurt Busch found, to his delight, when he attended a recent Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series test at Daytona International Speedway, that he and his teammates, working as one unit, made their Daytona Prototype car faster for all of them.

"What I really liked about [Grand-Am] is you really are full-blown, full-tilt teammates -- where you have to drive the same car, and the three of you have to help each other," Busch said of working with Penske open-wheel drivers Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe. "So that's what's exciting, is listening to both of my teammates and applying what I can."

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So you would think that if the sole chassis in play in the 2008 Sprint Cup Series, the vehicle formerly known as the "Car of Tomorrow," is supposed to be "one size fits all;" that better teamwork would lead to better cars, wouldn't you?

Busch is one who does.

"I think you're onto something, with that [idea]," Busch said during last week's Preseason Thunder test of his No. 2 Dodge. "It's still the same, where you've got four rubber tires and you need to make your racecar go fast, and you need to rely on teammates to help you do it off the track and on the track."

Busch's two teammates, veteran Ryan Newman and open-wheel champion but stock car neophyte Sam Hornish Jr., are in Daytona this week for the next three-day Preseason Thunder session, when they'll shake down their respective Charger COTs using plenty of info supplied by Busch and his crew chief, Pat Tryson.

"With it being the same car, the details need to be even more thorough, and you need to get into it a little bit further," Busch said. "So I hope that with Sam coming aboard and the new group at Penske; that gives us three programs to bounce ideas off each other."

Of course, having what many considered to be the best team with the COT a year ago, via their nine victories in 16 starts, Hendrick Motorsports could be seen as having a leg up on teamwork.

"I think that as time goes on, everybody sorts the cars out, and that gap gets closer and closer together," two-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, who won 10 races in all and a league-leading five in the COT, said. "The closer the teams work together, the sooner you can find the common ground and find the best package."

It's the reason why Johnson is fascinated with the fact that new Hendrick teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. likes the same type set-ups; and why Johnson was thrilled his teammate took a day off last week to come to Daytona, of all places, just to soak up being with his teammates. Johnson said that would help develop their cars in concert.

"If you really get inside each other's heads, as the car is developed, you're looking to split hairs," Johnson said. "If you really know each other then, you know what each other is looking for, you've built that foundation and belief on the teammates, the engineers -- all of that stuff -- you can split those hairs and get it right.

"So I think through all stages of it, being good teammates, understanding each other and working together is really important in all phases of racing. And I think Hendrick Motorsports has done a really, really good job of that." (Continued)