Unraveling the mysteries of team chemistry

Photo gallery: Unraveling the mysteries of team chemistry

Auto racing, unlike many other popular sports, is an amalgam of man and machine. In the car, connecting part A to part B nets the desired result.

On the human side, however, nothing is so straightforward.

What if team member A doesn’t want anything to do with team member B? Broaden the equation and consider operating in the high-pressure world of NASCAR when, on top of the baggage carried by A and B, C doesn’t pull his weight, D is burned out and E uses too much Drakkar Noir.

Team chemistry — how people function and interact — is a crucial, elusive element to the overall success of every Sprint Cup organization, but it can be tricky to manage.

The dynamics among a group of competitive racers-at-heart can’t be discovered via a computer simulation or fine-tuned with a turn of the wrench.

Yet without it, “You will fall apart, you will break down,” says three-time Sprint Cup champ Jimmie Johnson. “You can win some races, but I don’t think you can win a championship.

“I know on Sunday it looks like it’s just the driver and the crew chief, but it’s a team sport and it takes the whole team to make it work.”

No driver, engines and chassis are strong enough to overcome the drag of a team that isn’t working together.

“Without it, you’re dead,” says Cal Wells, executive VP and chief operating officer of Michael Waltrip Racing. “You can take a group of all-stars and still not have a team. With it, you can take a high-quality team and beat a group of all-stars any day.”

Poor team chemistry, according to Red Bull Racing driver Brian Vickers, takes on many forms and can ruin a team’s chances on the track.   ››

“It can be anything from a disagreement, an argument, a lack of communication, passive aggressiveness or a fistfight,” Vickers says. “You could go down the list, but either way, if you have a lack of chemistry, it will show up on the race track and it will show up quickly.”

But does excellent team chemistry improve performance or do winning runs foster successful teamwork? According to Travis Geisler, Penske Racing crew chief for Sam Hornish Jr., it can go either way.

“If you get running well, the chemistry comes along better, and if you have really good chemistry, you end up running better,” Geisler says. “Chemistry amongst the core group on the No. 77 has really come together and that’s what has produced some really good results.

“Overall, everybody at Penske Racing has improved the chemistry. The chemistry of the whole Penske Racing group coming together is what’s led the 77 to running better.”

Not all that long ago, Penske Racing was struggling both on and off the track. Former Penske drivers Ryan Newman and Rusty Wallace weren’t on speaking terms and the chill pervaded the entire facility.

Geisler gives much of the credit for Penske’s turnaround to Michael Nelson, VP of racing operations.

“There were always stories about the Rusty and Ryan conflicts that went on — separate teams working underneath one roof but doing different things,” Geisler says.

“Michael has endured that and he’s seen that all three teams really need to be working together.”

Nelson, who served as Newman’s crew chief before being promoted, made it a priority to get people in the right place.

“If you have a car that performs well but you don’t have the right chemistry, that can prevent you from getting that last few percent that takes you from being good to being great,” Nelson says. “I enjoy putting the right people together. I consider it a challenge and it’s something that I find very satisfying.”

The challenge of managing team chemistry doesn’t begin when the cars take to the track. It starts before anyone sets foot in the race shop, according to Wells.

“People have to believe that you’re going to be in business for a while, that you can provide a platform for them to contribute to the overall organizational success and it’s got to be a place they want to go,” Wells says. “It’s got to be fun and it’s got to be fun even when it’s screwed up.

“In our organization, we haven’t tasted that ultimate goal of winning championships, but we know we can get there. It’s that desire to do it as a group and that commitment to each other to get there as a group that creates an aura of positive excitement.”

That commitment means working together in good times and bad, which, Wells says, has a lot to do with the strength of the individuals.

“We have a high level of quality, exciting, fulfilling team chemistry,” he says. “A lot of that has come from sticking together and remaining focused through some real tough times — tough times before there was any light at the end of the tunnel to now, where we are enjoying some on-track success and craving a lot more.

“That’s hard to construct; it takes time to build up. It really takes time to build trust and confidence and it’s up to senior management to make the strategic moves necessary to keep team chemistry positive and to keep everyone pulling the same direction.”

Part of managing team chemistry is culling the weakest performers.

“If the team feels you aren’t paying attention to the weak link, then the whole thing crumbles,” Roush Fenway Racing General Manager Robbie Reiser says. “So it’s important from a coaching standpoint that you pay attention to everything and try to put the best person in each position so that you can go out and compete.

“You have to make decisions that will make this big monster run. That doesn’t make everybody happy all the time. But if you can make decisions that make everything go in the right direction, everybody will believe, follow along and try to help you with it.”

Other times, according to Richard Childress Racing crew chief Todd Berrier, the weak link is easy to spot.

“When it’s all said and done, if you got the group of people assembled in the way you want it, when it’s time to go out and eat, they all want to go out together,”
Berrier says. “When it’s time to do this or that, they all want to do it together.

“The ones that don’t fit kind of work their way out on an island by themselves. It can be your strongest guy and if they aren’t working in the same manner as the rest of the guys, you’ve got to do something about it.”

When a bigger change is required, teams often look to the crew swap — where two drivers stay put but the entire crew swaps teams.

Berrier experienced that this season when team owner Richard Childress swapped the crews of Kevin Harvick and Casey Mears.

“It was shell-shock at first,” says Berrier, who went from Harvick to Mears. “When they tell you, it’s like, ‘Holy crap, what’s happening?’”

After getting over the initial shock, Berrier mustered his crew and began shaping the team around Mears.

“We actually took pictures of the crew and made Casey a little book that same day with descriptions of who we are, what we do and what we are made of for him to take home and study,” Berrier says.

Making the switch — either with an entire team or just one crew member — is no guarantee that team chemistry will improve, however. Sometimes, what looked like a logical change turns out to be a bad choice, and a change made on a whim looks like a stroke of genius.

“Some people make the most out of getting an opportunity and it becomes really good,” Reiser says. “Then you say, ‘Why didn’t I do that sooner?’ Other times you say, ‘Man, why did I even do that?’”

At RCR, neither Harvick nor Mears has gone from running poorly to contending for the Chase. Wells, meanwhile, says an offseason change at MWR has exceeded all expectations.

Driver David Reutimann had been working with crew chief Ryan Pemberton, but Pemberton moved to Red Bull at the end of the 2008 season.

“I was devastated,” Wells says of Pemberton’s decision to move. “I really looked at it as a personal failure. We were really starting to make some hay and I know at the time David just felt, ‘We’re screwed.’”

After interviewing six crew chief candidates, MWR went with Rodney Childers.

“We were blessed by God because the chemistry between [Childers and Reutimann] is spectacular,” Wells says. “They are just different enough to really complement each other as it relates to how they communicate, what they are listening to, what they hear, and they continue to get better as they learn how to extract the absolute maximum out of each other. That’s really true team chemistry.”

The relationship between driver and crew chief is doubly important because in NASCAR, unlike most other racing series, rules forbid the use of data acquisition and onboard computers. The driver is the onboard computer. Therefore, how well the driver and crew chief communicate plays a direct role in the performance of the car.

“When you refer to chemistry, you’re really referring to everything that makes the car go fast,” Vickers says. “In NASCAR, the crew chief doesn’t have a computer on top of the pit box telling him that the car is tight or loose or it’s doing this or it’s doing that. It really comes down to communication. That communication is crucial to the performance of the team.”

What it really boils down to, according to Reiser, is trust. The driver must believe that the crew chief can adjust the car, and the crew chief must believe that the driver can get the most out of the car.

“If not,” Reiser says, “you don’t have mutual respect and you can’t build on anything.”

That belief also helps crew chiefs and drivers survive the rocky moments — when things don’t go according to plan. Reiser experienced it when he served as crew chief to former Sprint Cup champion Matt Kenseth and experiences it now in his role overseeing RFR’s five teams.

“There were times when Kenseth shook his head at me and I shook my head at him,” Reiser says. “You aren’t always going to agree, and you aren’t always going to be happy with each other. It’s no different than being in a marriage. You’ve got to deal with it and you’ve got to make compromises to make it work.

“There are a lot of days around here when we don’t see eye to eye as a group. But you’ve got to be able to work those things out and go to the race track and be stronger thanks to the discussions you had back at the shop.”

“The ultimate challenge with this whole damn thing is getting people that can get along and still produce,” Wells says.

That’s vital because the team that works best together can — if everything else is equal — emerge with a precious advantage, according to team owner Jack Roush.

“It’s that thing that puts you over the edge,” he says. “The most effective teams today have got chemistry such that when you put them together, the total is greater than the sum of the parts. They do things that are incredible that you would never expect.”

The team that most exemplifies stellar team chemistry is the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports squad led by crew chief Chad Knaus. Winning three consecutive Sprint Cup titles required great equipment and an elite driver in Johnson, but it also required tremendous teamwork.

It’s only fitting to give Knaus the final word in any discussion about team chemistry.

“If you look at the cohesiveness of our team, it’s at an all-time high,” he says. “The one thing that we’re real fortunate about is that our team relies on one another.

We work together to support one another as a group.

“You need every guy to have just a little bit of ego, a little bit of that flair thinking that he’s the best in his position. But he’s got to have enough to where he doesn’t feel like he’s the star player of the team.

“For me, the mechanical skills came very, very easy. The people skills, that’s something I’ve had to learn and establish over the years.”

This story originally appeared in the October 2009 issue of NASCAR Illustrated.