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Elliott Sadler finds himself at the crossroads of his racing career
By Jared Turner - Staff Writer
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The feeling that came over Elliott Sadler was all too familiar. The circumstances all too similar. The pain all too gut wrenching.
This was the latest page in the book of heartache and close calls that tell the story of Sadler’s NASCAR Sprint Cup career.
And this time it was happening on the sport’s grandest stage: The Daytona 500.
Moments before rain led NASCAR officials to call the first event of 2009 an official race 48 laps shy of its scheduled distance, Sadler had been leading.
But on the lap before the caution flag waved to stop the field, Sadler plummeted from first to fifth in a quintessential case of getting hung out to dry.
Sitting in his car during the subsequent red-flag period, Sadler hoped the race might resume. But in his heart, he knew it was over.
The rain kept coming. The race never restarted. And Sadler, who had led 24 consecutive laps before falling back, was left to ponder what might have been.
The moment was in many ways a microcosm of Sadler’s career.
“If you’re a kid and know anything about racing, you dream of being a part of the Daytona 500, and we missed it by 30 seconds,” he says. “If it had rained 30 seconds earlier, we’d be 2009 Daytona 500 champions and sponsors would be happy and we could be moving on from that. It’s tough; it’s hard to swallow. I’m not going to sit here and try to downplay it.”
While a victory in NASCAR’s biggest race may not have completely cured what has ailed Sadler in recent seasons, it certainly would have been a major step in the right direction. Once hailed as one of the sport’s up-and-comers, Sadler no longer finds himself the subject of such acclaim. The 34-year-old hasn’t won a race since 2004, when he won twice with Robert Yates Racing. His lone appearance in NASCAR’s Chase For The Sprint Cup – which also occurred in 2004 – is a distant memory. This season, Sadler is paired with his third crew chief in as many years at Richard Petty Motorsports, the team he left Yates for in August 2006 when the organization was known as Evernham Motorsports.
Over his two full seasons with the outfit, Sadler finished 24th and 25th, respectively, in the standings while notching just two top-fives and 10 top-10s. The 2009 campaign has also been a struggle, as he hasn’t placed better than 12th since that stellar run at Daytona.
Could 2009 be Sadler’s last opportunity to prove worthy of a ride with one of NASCAR’s better organizations?
“He’s got to pick it up,” says Ray Evernham, a minority owner of Richard Petty Motorsports and the man who hired Sadler for his current ride. “He’s got to be able to perform at least three quarters of the time as good as [teammates] Kasey Kahne or AJ Allmendinger. So the window of opportunity is small. Wherever the Petty cars are running, he needs to be in that group.
“Elliott and I have [had] that discussion before where this is a pivotal time in his life. He’s at that age where he’s at his best years right now and he needs to capitalize on them.”
Does Sadler agree that he has entered a pivotal stage?
“Oh, big time,” says Sadler, who earned the first of his three Cup wins in 2001 with Wood Brothers Racing. “Yeah, definitely. I feel this year especially is a good season that we need to go out and perform each and every week the best way we can and we need to be in or around the Chase when it comes time to have a shot to make it, and we’ve got to get every point we can every week. … I feel like definitely we’re at a crossroads right now; we have to run good and show up each week and do the best job we can because it can get a lot worse, but it can get a lot better, too, and it’s just my job to make sure I show up focused every week and try to get all the points we can.”
If there was any doubt that Sadler is on the hot seat, it was affirmed in the offseason when the team reportedly planned to replace Sadler with Allmendinger in the No. 19 Dodge. It was only after Sadler, who signed a multiyear extension in May 2008 to drive the car through 2010, threatened to sue the organization for breach of contract, that he was able to continue in his role.
Sadler says all the offseason tension was forgotten the moment the team unloaded at Daytona to start the season.
“I think his ability to keep the ride isn’t in question,” says Richard Petty Motorsports Vice President of Competition Mark McArdle. “We have Elliott under contract through the 2010 season. The ride’s his. We simply got together as a group this winter, talked over what we could do to get that 19 car running the way we felt it should. … I think it got a little panicky there on his side for a few days, but by no means was anyone ever trying to orchestrate some sort of exit from the seat for him. Rather it was an attempt to say, ‘Look, we’ve got to do whatever we’ve got to do to keep that car at the front of the results so that we can maintain sponsorship and keep going forward.’”
Just why Sadler has struggled so much after appearing headed for stardom not all that long ago is a subject of speculation in the Cup garage.
Evernham believes the biggest problem has been Sadler’s struggles to adapt to the handling nuances of NASCAR’s new Cup car, which debuted in 2007.
McArdle blames Sadler’s pitfalls more on a lack of continuity within his team, which has undergone more personnel changes in recent times than the more successful No. 9 team of Kahne.
Todd Parrott, the crew chief with whom Sadler had his most success at Yates, says Sadler has been beset by bad luck.
Sadler, though, says if there’s any blame to be cast, it should fall principally on him.
“I don’t like pointing fingers; I’d rather take the responsibility,” the Emporia, Va., native says. “It doesn’t do any good to push blame or point blame on any other thing. Sometimes I feel like I have a gun at a gunfight and sometimes you feel like you’ve got a knife at a gunfight.”
But not all of Sadler’s bad days have been his fault. He’s been a victim of circumstances, too. Like the 2006 season finale at Homestead, where he led 17 laps and was in position to win until a blown engine ended his day 38 laps from the end.
And the 2005 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, where he started on the pole and spent 39 laps out front before a flat tire turned a potential victory into a 32nd-place finish.
And the fall 2003 event at Talladega, where Sadler started from the pole and led 23 laps before being caught in a big crash that sent his car flipping seven laps shy of the checkered flag.
No matter how good or bad Sadler has run at times over the course of his career, it seems that trouble has a habit of following him.
“In reality, there are some guys that just don’t seem to have the same luck as other people,” Evernham says. “ … He was 15 seconds away from winning the Daytona 500, you know. Man, he was going to win Homestead for me. We were going to win Homestead, he was the fastest car on the track just hauling butt and we blow up.
“Elliott should have had three or four or five wins when he drove for me. You just look at some people and go, ‘Man, that guy’s got like a dark cloud over him.’”
Even as Sadler has dealt with the ups and downs of racing, he’s managed to keep them in perspective.
Part of the credit goes to Amanda, his wife of five months and the woman who has been a calming force in her husband’s life.
“Back when I was single if you have a bad weekend on Sunday you’re at home by yourself the whole week, so you really just kind of mull over what kind of bad weekend you’ve had and you can’t wait to get to the next race,” Sadler says.
“Well now, it’s a team of us and we have so many other things going on in our life. Married life, it takes up a lot of time where I can kind of take what happened Sunday whether it be bad or good [and] I can kind of put it behind me and I get a good, fresh start for the next week. … Plus, she’s so optimistic about everything and she is
such my No. 1 fan and my No. 1 support group that I feel like I can lean on her a lot, especially when times are tough on the race track.”
Sadler’s adversity doesn’t appear to have dampened his competitive fires. If anything, he seems more motivated than ever.
“I could not ask for greater cooperation, a better attitude,” McArdle says. “In a sense, he’s the best Elliott Sadler we’ve ever had right now. I wish we could be getting more results for him but it will come.”
Sadler is well aware this may be his last good chance to show critics he can still get the job done.
“I can’t probably put in words what it does to my sleeping habits at night, just up all night thinking about it because I’ve been racing since I was 7,” he says. “This is all I know how to do and I put my heart and soul in it, and when you don’t run good, it’s very hard to swallow. But do I think I can still do it? Hell, yeah, I can still do it. Is it going to take a lot of hard work to get back to that? Yes, of course it is. Man, we’ve just got to keep plugging away.”
2009 Sprint Cup Race for the Chase Standings
Driver Standings after the AMP Energy 500
| 1 | Jimmie Johnson | 6248 |
| 2 | Mark Martin | -184 |
| 3 | Jeff Gordon | -192 |
| 4 | Juan Pablo Montoya | -239 |
| 5 | Tony Stewart | -279 |
| 6 | Kurt Busch | -312 |
| 7 | Greg Biffle | -340 |
| 8 | Ryan Newman | -402 |
| 9 | Kasey Kahne | -414 |
| 10 | Carl Edwards | -437 |
| 11 | Denny Hamlin | -448 |
| 12 | Brian Vickers | -556 |
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1 response to "Elliott Sadler finds himself at the crossroads of his racing career".
blackstar said:
Jul 6, 2009 at 10:53 AMTwenty or so teams can win on any given Sunday. The better teams are in the top 12 every year. There are those who run well enoungh to stay in the to 35. And the feild fillers that need to qualify on time. Elliot has always been No. 2 on any team he has been apart of, but he has consistantly run well enough to be in a position to win. He should be happy about that.
Report as AbuseUntil the coil-bind is gotten rid of for Cup, Gibbs and Henderick will be the only winners for a while.
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