Dodge This Teleconference: Elliott and Ford

Bill Elliott finished 20th Saturday night at Richmond and moved up two spots to 19th in the NASCAR Winston Cup Standings. Elliott has climbed 14 spots in the standings in the past four races.

Bill Elliott

BILL ELLIOTT (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Intrepid)

"It's going to be tougher to move up the next 14 spots, but we've kinda got our act together and got to finishing here lately. We've had decent runs. We just need to keep chipping away at it.

"I think I've still got a lot of energy left. You learn as you get older how to delegate your energy. You try not to get too up or too down. This business is so predicated on what you did last week. It's so hard to keep the team upbeat to go to the next week. I think that's the things you look at as far as what drives this business today. You ask the guys as far as the race team guys, to do so much week in and week out. There's so much travel and so many things going on and so many pressures within that group that I think that's the hardest thing to drive than it is for myself or any of the other drivers. Since I don't own a race team any more it's easy to go to the race track and do what we need to do. You have your ups and downs. You have days that I feel tracks are better to me than others, but yet you don't discount any of them.

"You always try to bring out the best. I always look at ways to improve myself, not only with trying different things in the race car, trying to do things differently than I did in the past, rethinking the way I do that sort of thing and not get caught in a path where you're doing one thing one way and get left behind. I think that's what a lot of race teams do today. You get to doing things one way and you don't open your eyes up to doing things a different way and that sometimes leads you down the wrong road.

"At the first of '92 I walked in there (Junior Johnson's team) and Tim Brewer and all the guys were one team. All I did was step in and start driving the race car. We almost won Daytona and we won Rockingham the second race out, we almost won the championship. At the end of the year, Junior fired Tim and the whole team dismantled and we just kind of started all over again the next year. We had so much instability I felt like that's what led to our downfall in '93. I didn't cause that problem. All I did, I was a victim of circumstances. It was a difficult time, but I've been through difficult times before. I think we ran good several races but never could put a win together. Mike Beam came over and we never could click as far as getting the cogs to mesh again like I did when I first walked in there.

"I think things have changed (at Richmond). Goodyear has made a super good tire there. The tire's got a lot of grip. It's got a lot of longevity. They keep sealing that race track. The problem is once you seal it and once you get some rubber worked into the sealer, the speeds really escalate. Once you ever have to get out of that groove, there's no grip above it. You've got to look at it in several different folds. We've got tons of downforce, we've got really good tires, we've got sealer that normally escalates the speeds. I think it's just a combination of a lot of things there. It's not just one thing.

"It's just like what happened to Jerry (Nadeau). I've always said the most vulnerable place on our cars is hitting left side. That's where we sit. I feel like there needs to be more measures turned into making our cockpit a little bit bigger. We've downsized these cars over the years of evolution and we keep moving everything in. That gives less room for a crush factor there. It's a dangerous. I don't think you're ever going to find the right fix to everything, but if you look at the evolution to where we've gone to that's kind of a prime example of where we've ended up with the end result. The cars are a little bit smaller cage wise, you've got less room to fit everything in, the left side crashes you're so right there. He hit just right, and that's the unfortunate side.

"When I broke my hip in '96 at Talladega, I'd been trying actively to pursue a better seat, a better way to do things and so on an so forth. Throughout the evolution of the deal, I've been trying to do things better. Since Dale's death has NASCAR gotten more involved and doing more things to study what happens during these crashes, and that's been a fantastic thing from the way I see it.

"I want to continue to observe the data and try to look at doing things different. Right now I run a LaJoie seat. I feel like it's the best for me. I don't know much about the composite seat. I didn't feel comfortable in that seat when I tried to sit in it, but it wasn't made for me at the point of time I sat in it. When I first started wearing it, I wore the real early evolution of the HANS device. They were very restrictive, a whole lot worse than what this deal is today. I think it's just what you get used to. I like the HANS. I've gotten very used to it. To me, that's what I like. Some of them guys like different things. They feel like they need different things to drive, and I think that's just sorting out what works for you. It might take one or two times to get it to fit you like you want it. Some of this stuff, if it's better you need to work through it and make it work somehow. I guess that's my answer.

"I think we've come a long way. Dodge has done an extremely good job of putting this program together. With not only starting with Ray and my deal and attracting Rusty and Ryan and Penske, that was a good hit for Dodge getting them away from Ford. Ganassi has brought a lot to the table. Everything is going to have its struggle of ups and downs. Right now, I think we're still trying to figure out this aero balancing package and figuring out where our shuffle is in all of that. I felt like we were good at Texas. I felt like we were good at California. We've been decent other places. We're just like everybody else. You look across the board and everybody is riding that emotional roller-coaster right now. Jarrett won a race earlier in the year and he's had some terrible races lately. Jeff wasn't that great Saturday night. It's just a roller-coaster. If you miss it just a little bit, there's 25 cars that's hit it. It's just hard to overcome.

"I think we're finishing races. That's our biggest point. We were the first car out at Texas. We were some of the first cars out at Atlanta (39th). At Daytona, we had that little deal on pit road and we never got a chance to go back and finish the race. The way the weather was looking, we were banking on going farther in the race. We made a stop real late and ended up way back because a lot of cars were left on the lead lap. We were trying to repair our stuff. Kinda like Saturday night, we finally got some track position and due to the pit stops we lost a little bit. Due to a few circumstances right there at the end, I kinda lost everything and you never got a chance to make anything back up. You can have some good luck, but keeping it through the race is a tough deal and not finding yourself in a wreck or in somebody else's mistake, but yet still run well and finishing the race and making everything right. Having 100 percent of a good day, it kinda goes back to California. We had a little bit of a mishap on pit road with a tire and we ended up at the back of a line with 100 laps to go. We were 17th or 18th or somewhere back there, and it took us a hundred laps to ever get back toward the front. When you line up and you're 34 cars back, 17th or 18th on the outside and you've got lap down cars on the inside, it's tooth and nail getting back to the front. I feel like if we can just keep our momentum going. I feel like there's a lot of good races coming up for our race team, what we excelled at last year. I feel like we can expand on those and continue on from that.

"It's like at the start of the race, it's easy to pass X number of cars, but the closer you get to the top, the harder it is to do. I don't mean it can't happen. It is so up and down right now. People are all over the board. If you have the least bit of bad luck late in the race, there's no way. Used to 10 years ago, you could have a bad pit stop and overcome it real quick You could have a superior car or whatever. As tight as the competition is and as hard as it is to race these guys this day and time, you just can't overcome it. Just like Rusty the other weekend when he ran out of gas at California. It took him a long time to get back to the front, but he did it early enough that he had more of an opportunity being a 500-mile race. That helped him get there. It's just hard to overcome any mistakes you make during the day.

"I think they're probably easier to take because you understand the sport a little bit better. Certain things are harder to take than others and certain days are easier to take than others. It's all like every day life. Yet, you understand you've got to forget what happened Saturday night and focus on what's going to happen in the next race. You've got to put it behind you and learn from your mistakes and go to the next event. I don't know that it best resembles life in itself. In racing, there's so many ups and downs and they're right there in front of you. You have people that experience lots of different things. I guess it's similar in ways, but it's hard to say it's alike 100 percent. You can be on top one minute, on top of the world and then on the other side you feel like the world's on top of you.

"The tracks have come a long way, but I still feel like where this sport is today, and I said this several years ago, I feel like we would benefit if we had a group that traveled every week. They've come a step as far as having some nurses and doctors that do travel, but that's not like having a safety crew that's trained and can go right to it and do what they need to do. When you have race tracks that seem to be on top of it better than others. The Richmond crew seemed to be up on it to do what it took to take care of Jerry. Would you be better with those split seconds? Would it be better if we did have a crew that traveled full time? I feel like that would be something that would be a positive for us if we could find that group.

"If you're running good (in The Winston) you can kinda let everything hang out. I've won segments of the race. When they get down to inverted and right there at the end, we've never been able to capitalize on that side of the deal. When I came with Mike Ford, I've sat on the poles for that race several times. We've won lots of segments, but we haven't been able to win the one that counts. Usually the guy who comes out of the Winston Open has a little bit of an advantage. He's already run the deal and he knows what he needs to do to get to the end. Usually when they invert that deal, if you find yourself in the right spot, you end up up front when you need to be.

"I think they suit this whole race team. They suit where we ended up our evolution and a lot of the stuff we've worked hard on setup wise and stuff, and I've had a knack at getting around those places (Pocono, Indy, Michigan) pretty well. You never know. This is a different year, different aero package, but we'll see what happens."

MIKE FORD (Crew chief No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Intrepid)

"We're finishing races. Earlier in the year at Daytona we had issues on pit road and tore our car up a little bit. We were trying to fix it and the race ended. We just got off on the wrong foot. We went to Atlanta and had some engine problems. We were running good that day. Texas, same story. We got behind points wise and got to a point where we said we need to finish races. We started finishes races and we've had a lot of good things come together performance wise and we're understanding our aero balance a lot better now, getting more cars built where we can do more testing now and address some of the issues we've had in years past. We're starting to do that right now, and we're on the verge of answering a lot of those questions and it's starting to show in races finishes and performance on the track. We've led some laps the last few weeks, and we feel good about that. We're getting some bonus points and that helps you move up the ladder.

"I think we've grown together well the last few years. I came on when he still had his own team. It probably helped me more then than it does now, but coming in he knows what he wants in a race car and he knows what he wants to feel at certain race tracks. It makes the job of trying to give him what he wants in that race car a lot easier when you can communicate and understand each other. I think we hit that off pretty well from day one. As a rookie crew chief I was extremely comfortable with that. It made your job a lot easier. You didn't have to read between the lines and try and figure out exactly what he wanted. He could tell you what he wanted. He understands the sport. He knows how to carry himself on a weekend. You don't have to wonder if he's going to be there for practice on time, if he's going to be at the drivers' meeting. He's a veteran. He knows all that. You don't have to track all that. The more time you can spend thinking about the race car and race strategy the better off you are and with a veteran driver you get to spend more time thinking about the things that make you go fast and that definitely helps on my side.

"Saturday night, I knew where we were at setup wise when the race started, and I thought we would be good for a short run. We set it up starting in the back because we had an engine change. We had to be a little more aggressive air pressure wise and things like that. I kinda had an idea of where we needed to go as the race went on and you're short tracking and can't save the car in the corners. You can read the car before he comments on it, but with a veteran driver like Bill, he's so smart he moves his line around to change the way the car drives. Sometimes he'll change his line and you won't always understand what he's doing so you do have to communicate. We've worked really hard on that the last few weeks. At Richmond he ended up moving his line around a little bit and the balance of the car changed. To read it was a little more difficult at times.

"The driver, communication. The radio you wear on your side is definitely the key tool to doing your job down to all the guys. Just like anything in life, communication is the key, and that radio by far is the most important tool we have.

"I get a kick out of working on cars and making things go fast. That's pretty much at your fingertips 24-7. Sometimes it's a little more than you want, but you get filled up on things that excite you in life, and that's what I enjoy about this.

"The cockpit right now is pretty full. As NASCAR has been doing research and development on the cockpit, in years past the thought was to make everything energy absorbent to the driver. As we've learned the last couple of years, confining the driver to where the driver cannot move seems to be the better route to go. As far as energy absorption, I think that needs to be built into the car. I don't know that's a cockpit issue. If a driver can move around, the chance of him doing more damage is there as far as doing bodily injury as far as hitting a rollbar or something like that. Energy absorption into the cockpit as far as what we've learned is not a good way to go.

"Obviously right now the cockpit has been the issue the last couple of years, and we have come leaps and bounds from where we were. That's not to say there's not more work to be done there. Several issues have come about. Seat belts have improved. The seats have improved. Leg support has improved. Nothing's really been done to the chassis. I know NASCAR is working on different crash simulations. The cockpit is still the key No. 1 thing we're trying to improve, but small areas such as an energy absorption device on the cars built into the chassis, things like that. One thing we haven't addressed is fire issues, which is a concern at times. There hasn't been a strong improvement in that area other than NASCAR provided to us what the best materials are, what the best suits are and so on and so forth. That seems to be tapped out, but the cockpit I think is the No. 1 place for improvement.

"Some of the guys don't tend to wear all their protective gear as far as gloves and things like that. I know NASCAR is trying to monitor that. It isn't a rule to wear a certain fire suit, but some materials are better than others. I'd like to see that mandated in time if we could prove that one material is a much better quality than what some of the guys are running. I think it's been left in the hands of the teams and drivers to make those decisions. NASCAR has provided us the best information they can to make those decisions.

"It does help on some of the general mechanics on the car, structure wise as far as pieces if you're going to do some engine work and things like that. As far as on the chassis side, springs, bars and shocks, weight distribution and those things, that's really driver specific. There's several ways to set these cars up depending on what you're trying to accomplish. You have to dedicate yourself to one avenue and dedicate yourself to that in one direction. It doesn't always suit all drivers. We work to give Bill what he likes to feel in a race car. We kinda cater than to speed, how can we get him comfortable and still run fast. What's comfortable for Bill might not be comfortable for Casey or Jeremy. To say we're taking a car to go test Casey with or run at Pocono, mechanical wise you may get some feedback. You may have an engine package or a gearing package that you'd learn from that, but I'd say it's about a 25-75 split. Twenty-five percent of the car you could learn about, 75 percent you couldn't.

"The sport has changed a lot since then (Daytona 2001 when Dodge re-entered Winston Cup). This year going to the common templates, just speaking about EMS Dodges, I think we paid a penalty because some of the things that NASCAR was trying to reel back in and make common, we were on the good side of body wise and we had to give up some this year and it helped some of the other manufacturers. I think that put us behind a little bit. We weren't to where we were last year and some of the other guys had improved. They got their packages outside of the body. They'd worked on and played major contributors in being able to run fast. We're just having to search out different avenues to look for that speed, and we're on a few of them right now."