It was a steamy summer day last July in Indianapolis, but that wasn't all that had Tad Geschickter sweating.

The No. 47 car he owned and was trying to run in the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard was not having much success getting on the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway track for much-needed practice sessions. Every time the rest of the cars rushed onto the race track, the No. 47 seemed to have to stay behind -- trying again and again to satisfy the prying eyes of NASCAR officials who kept telling Geschickter's crew members that this, that and the other was wrong.

Having experienced the excruciating growing pains of being a new owner in the Sprint Cup Series, Michael Waltrip couldn't bear to simply stand to the side and watch. Waltrip turned to Ty Norris, his general manager at Michael Waltrip Racing.

"Do me a favor and go find Tad Geschickter and tell him I can save him two years of trying to figure out how to race in Cup," Waltrip told Norris.

Waltrip was serious. Norris took off to find the man both knew well.

"I was a year and a half in at that point and I knew that when he started in '09 [as a Cup owner], we'd be two years ahead of where he was going to be if he tried to do it himself," Waltrip said. "My car was locked in the show and I had lived the hell of 2007 in missing race after race and just struggling to get our legs up under us as a team.

"I heard that JTG/Daugherty [the team of which Geschickter was majority owner] was going to race in 2009 in Cup. One of their first races was Indy. They showed up -- and throughout most of the practices, Tad's car was on one jack stand trying to get through inspection, trying to get his car on the race track."

Once Norris tracked down Geschickter, the owner was eager to hear what Waltrip had to say.

"When you're a Nationwide Series owner for as long as I had been, the hope is that you can build your organization so that at some point you can go race in Cup," Geschickter said. "For us, we'd been working on it 14 years, grooming people to be ready to do that. We thought we were ready.

"Having said that, we were on Generation One on our [new car] chassis in the cars we qualified in last year, getting ready for this year. Some of the teams we were competing against were on Generation Six or Seven of that development. So speeding up that learning curve certainly was of interest to me."

And that, Waltrip later added, was how the conversation started.

“

It's just a bunch of guys hanging out, banging their heads together and tryin' to figure out how to go fast. Then when we go to the track, we're trying to kick those guys' butts just like we're trying to kick everyone else's.

”

BRAD DAUGHERTY

As a race organization, JTG/Daugherty Racing actually hadn't even been in existence for long. Sure, Geschickter and his wife, Jodi, had been around on the Nationwide side since 1995. But they had only recently hooked up with Brad Daugherty, the NASCAR television analyst for ESPN and former NBA star who had previously dabbled in ownership and wanted the chance to partner up with someone and get back into it on a higher level than ever before.

In fact, it was one year ago this week that Daugherty first approached Geschickter and said he was interested in getting involved in ownership.

"By the middle of May, we had our agreement put together. It didn't take long," Geschickter said.

Daugherty was thrilled. He had known Geschickter for years, since their mutual friend, Robert Pressley, drove for Tad.

"I just love racing. No, you don't do this for the money. I've always been a race nut. I've got a real passion for the sport; I love the sport; I understand the sport. At the end of the day, I just love to see the guys line the hot rods up and race 'em," Daugherty said.

Geschickter added of Daugherty: "He's been a great addition. We've been friends for years through Robert Pressley, but he's been a real value add. I've enjoyed working with him."

"He's just got such a desire and a love for racing. He's been involved on the diversity council with NASCAR, he drives in the late model series, he had partnered on some Truck teams in the past. But he wasn't doing that in the last year and a half. He was doing his ESPN thing and a little bit of driving, and I think he just missed being intimately involved with a team.

"Since we had known each other since back in the day when Robert drove for me -- and we had stayed in touch -- there was already a comfort level and a trust level there. We put it together pretty quickly."

Indeed, Daugherty missed the challenge and camaraderie that comes with being closely involved with a race team. And he is greatly enjoying his new role as owner with a minority stake in the JTG/Daugherty operation.

"I've dabbled in owning before and had a lot of fun. It's been fun trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together," Daugherty said. "I've been tickled. I've got a great partner in Tad. We've got this great alliance with Michael, who has been a lot of fun to hang out with. It's just a bunch of guys hanging out, banging their heads together and tryin' to figure out how to go fast."

"Then when we go to the track, we're trying to kick those guys' butts just like we're trying to kick everyone else's. I just love the competition. '

Therein lies the most fascinating aspect of the "technical alliance" with MWR. These guys work out of the same shop about 20 miles north of Charlotte during the week, sharing information and even tools, but then when they go to the race track for weekends they more or less maintain their own identities.

So far, it is bearing fruit. The No. 47 Toyota fielded by JTG/Daugherty was 21st in points heading into last Sunday's race at Texas, and might have been several spots higher if not for some horrible luck late in some of the early races this season. It fell seven spots after Texas when a blown engine ended the day early. The two Toyotas still being fielded by MWR -- the No. 00 driven by David Reutimann and the No. 55 driven by Waltrip himself -- have performed at a higher level than at the beginning of their previous two seasons of existence as well.

How it works

Turner Sports

The 55 and 47 teams share information at the shop.

Waltrip remembers exactly how it came about that the two organizations decided to forge their unique alliance.

"We didn't have sponsorship for our third car for '09, and definitely wanted to continue at a three-car level. We began talking right there, that day at Indy, about how we might partner, provide him cars, provide his equipment and he'd essentially be a part of MWR -- and that's exactly what we did," Waltrip said. "I think the benefits are endless for both groups. But I think for Tad, it gave him a chance to get up and running immediately. ... He has manufacturing support not only from MWR, but also Toyota support as well.

“

Just the more I studied it, the more it seemed like putting our people there in the shop made sense. Whenever there is a meeting, they're right there. Whenever there is a new chassis development, it's coming off the same chassis plate. It made more sense to me than the way people had been doing technical alliances in the past.

”

TAD GESCHICKTER

"Tad has done a great job over the years of doing something I deeply respect and that is caring for your sponsors -- taking care of the people that pay the bills. I think with him signing up with MWR, it's just a better example of Tad looking out for his sponsors and doing all he can to ensure they get the most bang for their buck possible."

Still, when Geschickter first informed Daugherty of Waltrip's interest in partnering up, Daugherty was skeptical. They already had held some frank discussions about the direction they wanted their new combined program to go in.

"We want to be competitive. We don't want to be just like every other team," Daugherty told Geschickter.

"But how do we go about doing that and be competitive without having to go out and try to find sponsorship for four different race cars so we can have all the resources we need?" Geschickter asked.

It was a question they already had asked of themselves.

Geschickter had talked with Ford executives about running their brand and somehow teaming up with one of their teams, but was basically told "they really didn't have any place for us to play in their group of cars at the Cup level."

When they talked with Toyota, Lee White, the president and general manager of Toyota Racing Development U.S.A., had a different response. He immediately went to work trying to help facilitate a way to get JTG/Daugherty Racing into the Toyota fold.

It was about that time when Waltrip started his courtship.

"We sat down and we started talking with Michael a little bit," Daugherty said. "We actually were trying to talk to Michael about how he got his team in position to get up and going. He obviously had had just a rough time. He had the rules violations at Daytona that really put him behind the 8-ball, and things like that. But the fact is that he put together an organization in about six months, from stem to stern.

"So we were really just kind of trying to pick those guys' brains to learn from them, and at the same time were reaching out to Lee White and some of those guys about an opportunity, if there was an opportunity. Because I like the way that Toyota has their own in-house power plant structure where if you were one of their racing teams, you can choose. You choose to use one of their independent builders, or you can go and you can utilize them, TRD and their racing complex.

"That just made a lot of sense to me. You know, I don't have to call another owner and I don't have to work out a deal where he gives me the ol' wink-wink deal and takes all my money, and then my motor is down about 50 horsepower after the race for some reason. That p----- a lot of people off. It's just crazy and I have never understood why so many teams try to do that."

“

I think to be a first-year team and come into the Cup Series and run like we have shows that we made a lot of good choices in the offseason.

”

MARCOS AMBROSE

It helped all parties that JTG/Daugherty already had a driver in mind to run the full 36-race Cup schedule in '09, and that it was one with which both Toyota and MWR were familiar.

The driver was Marcos Ambrose, an Australian with a racing background that included four Tasmanian Junior karting titles before the age of 16. He also won back-to-back V8 Supercar titles in 2003 and 2004 before Ford first sponsored a tour of the United States for him, hoping to hook up Ambrose with one of its operations.

Geschickter met him, appropriately enough, in Indianapolis four years ago.

"Ford had sponsored him to come over here and meet some owners. I guess he had done it several times," Geschickter said. "We actually met at ORP in the Ford hospitality suite. We were watching the [USAC] Silver Crown race there. He introduced himself and we had a really nice chat for about an hour."

There was one problem. Even after their long and animated talk -- for the affable Ambrose knows no other way to converse with another human being -- Geschickter had no idea who in the heck Ambrose was.

"I was not a big follower of the V-8 Supercars series, so I had to go back that night and get on the Internet and kind of research who he was," Geschickter said. "That was when I realized he was a world-class driver who had won championships in everything he had done. We got back together later in the weekend and we agreed to fly him back over here, and then we took him on a lot of oval tests, just on our own dime, just seeing how quickly he could adapt to an oval since he hadn't done it before."

They subsequently had Ambrose testing at Caraway, Rockingham and Kentucky, and came away suitably impressed.

"He adapted quickly. He was fast; he was smooth," Geschickter said.

There was something else, too. Something very important in today's NASCAR. Ambrose had charisma and knew how to get people to feel like they'd known him all their lives after only a few minutes of conversation -- even if they didn't always know exactly who he was or what he might have accomplished previously on a race track.

"Right away we knew he was a real marketable guy," Geschickter said. "We thought he would be somebody who could keep corporate funding behind him as he developed his career.

Daugherty added: "The thing about Marcos is that how you see him on TV, when he's always smiling and laughing and joking with people, is exactly like he is away from the cameras in real life. He's just a great guy, and he happens to be very talented up on the wheel, too."

Geschickter wanted to bring Ambrose along slowly. So long before Daugherty became part-owner in his operation or they formed the technical alliance with MWR, Geschickter drew up a five-year plan for Ambrose that included getting him started in what is now the Camping World Truck Series and then moving up to Nationwide before he -- and Geschickter's operation along with him -- even attempted moving on to the Cup level.

"I think a lot of people who come over from other racing disciplines, they're in a real hurry to get to Cup," Geschickter said. "We made the choice that we were not going to do that. He ran in the Truck Series and was competitive and ran up front there. He led laps and won poles within the first year. Then we wanted to go to the Nationwide Series and make sure he got plenty of laps and testing there. And literally, now that he's starting his first full year in Cup, we've had him compete on pretty much every track he's going to run on three or four times. So it's been a work in progress."

Marcos Ambrose

2009 Statistics

Race	Start	Finish	Status	Rank
Daytona	23	17	running	17
Fontana	14	22	running	21
Las Vegas	5	20	running	20
Atlanta	34	38	engine	28
Bristol	13	10	running	24
Martinsville	24	14	running	21
Texas	11	41	engine	28

Ambrose readily acknowledges that he is a work in progress, but he managed some impressive results in 11 starts last year for three different owners: four for MWR, two for Geschickter and five for Wood Brothers Racing -- including one third-place finish at Watkins Glen. His best finish this season was 10th in the Food City 500 at Bristol, and he placed 22nd or better in six of the first seven Cup races.

"It's just been an awesome experience so far. I think to be a first-year team and come into the Cup Series and run like we have shows that we made a lot of good choices in the offseason," Ambrose said. "I think partnering up with Michael Waltrip Racing, who is clearly on the upswing, has been a great move. They have helped us get quality cars, quality people -- a quality team feel.

"We share information and knowledge, and all the benefits that brings. For them, it's given them stability and allowed them to stay a three-car operation. And for us, it's really helped move us forward. So it's been a good marriage. We feel like we want to do more. But it's been a good start so far."

Ambrose added that he wants to make Geschickter and others who have believed in him all along proud that they put him in the Sprint Cup car this year. Last year while driving for the owner in the Nationwide Series, he won at Watkins Glen. The victory at the road course remains one of only two Geschickter and his wife have earned in 636 starts over 14-plus years of operating in that series. In 2007, Ambrose also captured the first Nationwide pole in the team's history at Memphis.

But Ambrose wants to give back so much more on the Cup level.

"I want to go out there and prove I belong in the game, and I want to pay back everybody who was willing to give me a chance," Ambrose said. "I want this year to be a year of saying thank you to everybody and give them a reason to say, 'Yeah, we supported him when he was a bit of an unknown.' I want to make them feel good about making the decision to put me in the car."

Along with Ambrose, JTG/Daugherty also is developing a limited farm system of sorts. Michael McDowell is driving for the organization full time in the Nationwide Series this year. Kelly Bires is still under contract and driving when he can (his schedule currently is limited by lack of sponsorship). And Coleman Pressley, the 20-year-old son of Robert, is driving late models with an eye for moving into one of the top-tier series in the near future. Those teams all operate out of the old JTG shop in Harrisburg, N.C.

Way of the future?

Autostock

Marcos Ambrose spent time in both the Truck and Nationwide series before driving a Cup car.

Geschickter praises Toyota's "fully integrated" role in the surprising early success the No. 47 team has enjoyed, saying its support of Ambrose "has been unparalleled" when it comes to what he's seen from others in their efforts with rookie Cup drivers. Lee White said success, as always, is a two-way street even in the one-way world of racing.

"You have to understand this is an arrangement between JTG and Michael Waltrip Racing," White said. "We at TRD and Toyota have great respect for Tad Geschickter and Brad Daugherty. We had several meetings with them and like them. We had a lot of interest in whatever program they had to offer because they are very professional -- and, of course, Brad is a wonderful personality to have around the sport.

"But Michael and Ty Norris and Cal Wells are really the guys who stitched this whole thing together and brought this opportunity to us. Really, from our point of view, it's just a function of the level of communication and trust that we've enjoyed with Michael and his organization from Day One. When they put this forward, it basically complied with the terms of our agreement with Michael, so it was an easy program to do."

Daugherty thought so, too. Eventually.

"With Michael, one thing led to another. He was like, 'I like you guys. ... Why don't you just look at an opportunity with us? You can learn from our growing pains and we'll give you a leg up and just help you?'" Daugherty said.

"I was like, 'Why in the world would this guy want to help us?' But then we talked more with Toyota ... and they liked the idea of us getting into a technical alliance with them while we still owned our own race team, where we can learn from one of the bigger teams in the sport, how they're doing things. We can share pieces and parts, so it gives Toyota the opportunity to send all their stuff to one facility, and we can kind of watch and learn through MWR's engineering. And then we have our own engineering staff, so we can learn our stuff and try to take the best of all the information and apply it to how our race car driver drives. I just thought it was a great thing. It was easy to do. It was just a matter of us agreeing to do it, and getting everyone on the same page.

"We just decided to give it a shot, and I think it's been great for both parties -- because they've watched us and can see the mistakes we make and give us some advice. And we've got some things that we do pretty well for a small race team, and they can take those from us and make themselves more efficient in some small areas. It's been a good situation."

Along the way, Daugherty said his sometimes public perception of Waltrip changed dramatically.

"Michael has done a really good job over there. He's hired some really smart people," Daugherty said. "One thing about Michael, we all see him as the affable television character, kind of off the wall. But he really is a passionate, passionate racer. He loves racing. I think that gets overshadowed sometimes because we're always looking at some of the off-the-wall things he may say or do -- but he's a passionate racer.

"He thinks about things. I've really been impressed with Michael. When you sit down and have a conversation with him, he's got a lot of great ideas and has put a lot of thought into the business structure of his organization. I mean, they tried to eat an elephant here in a couple of bites and it was hard. But they learned a lot from it. That organization is going to survive and be a strong, strong operation going forward because of their resiliency. Michael's got a real passion for this sport. He's not just there, hanging out. He wants to run well and be successful. He wants to win and build a great organization. We're lucky to be a part of it."

Yet they also consider themselves fortunate to retain a level of independence that seems to elude most other teams that attempt to prop themselves up through alliances with other organizations. Daugherty and Geschickter said they think they know why.

"We're probably more independent than people would think," Daugherty said. "What it comes down to is if we're trying to figure out information, we may go to their engineering crew and say, 'This is how we see this thing. How are you looking at it?'

"I was a little leery at first. I thought we would get pushed into a corner and maybe not have a chance to take advantage of all the resources. But it's been great. It's been an open-arms opportunity. It's like we're there doing our own thing. And if we need an extra bolt or an extra idea, we can go over and ask for it and say, 'Hey, what do you think?' It's that type of deal."

Geschickter added that he had seen enough failures from others over the years to have a pretty good idea of what not to try, and that was helpful as well.

"For me, first of all, I've watched technical alliances for a few years. To get to be a multi-car team, you've got to start out as a single-car team. But that seems to be death to all comers. I've watched Haas try to do it. I've watched Hall of Fame [Racing] try to do it ... it never seems to work," Geschickter said.

"Just the more I studied it, the more it seemed like putting our people there in the shop made sense. Whenever there is a meeting, they're right there. Whenever there is a new chassis development, it's coming off the same chassis plate. It made more sense to me than the way people had been doing technical alliances in the past.

"It's early in the season, but that seems to be maybe the piece that has been missing in these technical alliances -- and that is how closely do the people get to work together on a day-to-day basis? That was our theory, and so far I think it's safe to say that this technical alliance is paying more dividends than some of the other ones you've seen."

In the beginning and the end, Daugherty added, it all comes down to money and the dividends being paid out, or failing to materialize.

"What happens in a lot of these deals is the resources aren't there, and you have to go in and become a part of the other deal to survive financially," Daugherty said. "We wanted to be competitive. That's what we were trying to do. You look at some of these other deals, and plain and simple they're underfunded. And when you're underfunded, I don't care what you do, you're going to perform that way.

"This sport is about the dollars and the resources you need to participate. We had the dollars to run a single-car team -- but you can't run a single-car team. You're not going to be competitive. I don't care if you've got $50 million to spend. You're just going to get out-resourced.

"So we were looking at this as a technical alliance. That's truly what this is. We were looking to gain quality people, quality opportunities to use engineering to make our race car go faster. It wasn't a financial thing. We could have gone racing on our own. But if we're going to race, we want to be in the mix.

"For years, you've seen teams come out and jump in the middle of this thing -- and even though they're well-funded, not be competitive. Because it's hard to compete against the multi-car teams that are five-, six-, seven- or eight-car teams in reality. There is just so much information those teams can share and utilize that we as a single-car team would never be able to even gather, let alone go and apply it to the race track."

Now the question is: Can they continue to make it work over the long haul of a 36-race season, or even beyond?

"You know, I don't know. It's working right now. We're testing it to see how things wash out," Daugherty said. "But I don't see why we couldn't keep doing it. Tad and I want to move to two cars in the Cup Series in the future. We want to remain small. We think that would be a good size for us. Maybe that works in some way, shape or form.

"Right now, we consider ourselves a good, little, independent race team that has a great opportunity to work with a big race team under the Toyota brand. It gives us all the resources that we can utilize -- information that would take us probably all year to stumble upon, we can figure it out now in a couple of months. We're so much further ahead as far as being competitive."