Braun crew chief Owens adjusting to slate of drivers
By Lee Montgomery - Associate Editor
Thursday, May 08, 2008
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When Trent Owens keys his microphone over Braun Racing’s two-way radios, he often has to make sure to whom he’s talking.
One week, the crew chief is talking to Kyle Busch. The next, Denny Hamlin. Another week, Brian Vickers. Or Michel Jourdain Jr. Or James Buescher.
Whew. And the Nationwide Series is only 11 races old. How many racers will Owens have in the No. 32 Toyota?
“Six,” Owens said, making a mental checklist. “As of right now.”
That’s right, six drivers will be behind the wheel of Braun’s No. 32 entry this year, making Owens’ job six times as complicated. Six drivers’ names to remember, six seats to use, six different setups.
So far, though, Owens has been able to keep track of who is in the car each week. So far, at least, he hasn’t keyed the microphone and said, “Hey, Kyle,” when Hamlin is behind the wheel.
“Not yet, but I’m waiting on that moment when I do that,” Owens said recently at Braun Racing’s shop in Mooresville, N.C. “I think I’m looking at the monitor so much, on lap times and stuff, I see their name, so I’m getting reminders. But the moment when I don’t have that reminder, that’s when it’s probably going to happen.”
Shuffling drivers in and out of one car is nothing new in the series, as teams have been employing the practice for a few years to cope with the increasing price of sponsorships. One sponsor may not be able to cover the entire season, but it can afford a few races. Piece a few of those sponsors together, and the year is covered.
And with each sponsor often comes a separate driver. Welcome to Trent Owens’ world.
“It throws challenges each and every week,” Owens said. “You don’t do a lot of running the same car. You kind of keep the same driver in a certain car, just to make it easier on the shop guys.”
But you won’t hear Owens griping about the extra work.
“When you get those kind of talented drivers, you’re not going to complain about it,” Owens said.
When Owens gets a car back from a race weekend, the work begins immediately to get it ready for the next race. If a different driver will be in the car at the next race, most of the interior has to be stripped out.
The seat comes out, as do the set of brackets that the seat bolts to. Each driver has a different water bottle system that needs to be changed, and the steering wheel position is adjusted.
“We’re talking about cleaning the interior of the race car safety-wise and putting all the stuff [the next driver] likes,” Owens said. “Everything is customized to each driver these days. You don’t go to the store and buy a small, medium and large seat and hopes everybody fits in it.”
Swapping out seats is a solid day’s work, and Braun has one employee devoted to the interior of all its cars. That’s one full day of work gone, simply to get a car ready for the next driver. A team with one full-time driver doesn’t have that problem.
“Our weeks are three-day weeks,” Owens said. “The race hauler has to leave for the next event on Thursday at the latest. You’re talking about a Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday work week on a car you’re going to run at that weekend’s race.”
And each seat is different. Hamlin and Busch use a seat built by Butler, while Vickers uses a Hendrick Motorsports-made carbon-fiber seat.
“It takes a totally different system,” Owens said. “Sometimes those guys run the same car.”
Things often go wrong, but Owens said each driver hasn’t been particularly picky. They’ll suggest changes after a race, like the position of the pedals or the rearview mirror.
Another problem has been getting enough seats. Since teams take two cars to the track, the seats in the backup cars are usually exactly the same as the primary car. But early in the year, that wasn’t the case for Braun’s No. 32 team.
The primary car will have the seat unique to each driver, but the backup will have something else – or nothing at all. In Vickers’ case, his Braun backups had no seat, because carbon-fiber seats are much more expensive – but easier to swap out. It would take about an hour to change Vickers’ seats because of the way they are made.
Carbon-fiber seats are all-inclusive, with seat belts bolted into the seat itself. Aluminum seats don’t have that feature, as seat belts are bolted to the roll cage.
At California earlier this year, Busch came by to look at the car.
“He comes by to sit in, and he’s like: ‘Hey, what’s this? That’s not my seat,’” Owens said.
Whoops. Fortunately, Busch had a personal seat at his own shop and had the Braun team install it, two days before leaving for the race.
But having so many drivers in the car is good for the team, Hamlin said. While there isn’t a direct affiliation with Joe Gibbs Racing – Busch’s and Hamlin’s Sprint Cup team – there is crossover. Busch and Hamlin also drive for JGR’s powerhouse Nationwide team, so the drivers will suggest things to Owens and his Braun co-workers.
“It’s definitely tough on those guys to have different guys in their car, but it’s good to have a little mix,” Hamlin said. “I think sometimes things get stale when you have one driver for a full year.”
Plus, Hamlin, Busch and Vickers don’t have to worry about racing for points, and while the No. 32 hasn’t won yet in 2008, Owens believes there’s no reason it can’t.
That, in turn, should push full-time Braun driver Jason Leffler, Hamlin said.
Of course, dealing with seats and other parts is often the easy part. The hardest part, in fact, may be dealing with the different personalities.
Chemistry between crew chief and driver is crucial to success in NASCAR, but Owens joked that the chemistry between him and his drivers has been, “Hey, nice meeting you. My name’s Trent.”
Owens doesn’t get to learn about one driver week after week.
“I don’t have that luxury at all,” Owens said. “[Chemistry] is very important. We’ve seen some setbacks because of that, just in terminology: How loose is loose to you? How to adjust? Over the course of about five or six events, you get a feel if things are going to go good or bad.
“It’s been, ‘Hey, come in and drive, and we’ll see what we’ve got.’”
Hamlin, Busch and Vickers all have “very different personalities,” Owens said, but all three are serious about getting the car to handle well. None is happy to simply show up and drive a car that is good enough.
The results have been solid so far. Vickers won a pole in Las Vegas in the car, while Busch was second at California and third at Richmond. Hamlin has a seventh and eighth to his credit, while Vickers has a top finish of sixth.
The team is 10th in the Nationwide owners standings, the second-highest non-Cup team behind Kevin Harvick Inc.
“With just a little luck, I’m sure we can find victory lane,” Owens said. “I don’t doubt that at all.”
And you can believe Owens will be one happy guy.
Now, who’s driving this week?
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Brian Vickers
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