Elliott Sadler excited with team improvement, family life

Elliott Sadler has a lot to be excited about these days – both at the track and beyond.

Sadler and his wife, Amanda, are set to become first-time parents next March, and he hopes the child is the first of several for the couple, who were wed in January.

On the competition side, Sadler has endured his share of adversity this NASCAR Sprint Cup season, but he believes his Richard Petty Motorsports team is heading in the right direction under the guidance of new crew chief Wally Rogers.

Sadler is 26th in the standings after posting just four top-10s in 29 races this season.

Rogers replaced Kevin Buskirk prior to the Aug. 22 race at Bristol and has been atop Sadler’s pit box for six races.

Rogers, who previously served more than five years as a Truck and Nationwide series crew chief at Kevin Harvick Inc., was working as the car chief on Sadler’s No. 19 team when he was promoted to crew chief.

“I love his attitude, I love his demeanor,” says Sadler, a winner of three Cup races but none since 2004. “He’s very optimistic, he’s very upbeat. The guys love working with him. I’ve had a ball getting to know him and working with him. We just now have to get ourselves on the same page, and we feel like we’ve [done] that.”

Over their races together, Sadler has one top-10, an eighth-place finish at New Hampshire on Sept. 20. He understands the growing pains that accompany a new driver-crew chief pairing.

Sadler, 34, is working with his third pit boss in less than two full years, having spent 2008 with Rodney Childers, who left at the end of the season to join David Reutimann at Michael Waltrip Racing.

“It’s getting better each week,” Sadler says of working with Rogers. “The first couple weeks, you’ve really got to figure out what language to use with each other to where you can best understand each other. Wally has to know when I’m saying ‘too loose’ what is too loose or ‘too tight,’ what is too tight. He’s got to understand what feel I like in the car.”

Rogers was pleased with how Sadler and the team performed at New Hampshire after they struggled early in the weekend with the handling of their Dodge. They finished eighth in that race. Both driver and crew chief also found positives two weekends ago at Dover in their effort before being involved in a crash that relegated Sadler to a 30th-place finish.

Sadler came home 20th, one lap down, in last Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway.

“It’s certainly a starting point,” Rogers says of the last three races. “I know it sounds funny saying ‘a starting point’ here in October, but you’ve got to start somewhere.”

Sadler doesn’t hide his disappointment in failing to make this year’s Chase For The Sprint Cup – a feat that teammate Kasey Kahne accomplished – but harbors high expectations for the rest of the season and 2010.

RPM announced in September that Sadler is one of four drivers that will be part of its lineup for next season when the organization plans to merge with Yates Racing and switch from Dodge to Ford.

The team’s majority owner, George Gillett, wouldn’t confirm a driver lineup last weekend at Kansas Speedway, however, and said the organization could field three or four teams.

Sadler sounds as if he believes he will be back at RPM, noting that his team has already begun to turn some of its attention toward 2010.

“Once it comes to the point that you’re not a part of the Chase, it’s very disappointing,” the Emporia, Va., native says. “It’s because you’ve put a lot of heart and soul and time into your career and into your job and when you don’t get the results that you want, it’s frustrating, it’s upsetting.

“Me, as the leader of our team, I want to lead my team into battle to be a part of the Chase every year, and when you don’t do that as a leader, it falls on your shoulders, and you feel like you want to do a better job on it, but you still have to show up every week to perform to the best of your ability.”

Rogers believes in his driver.

“He has shown that certainly over the last two or three weeks that when the chips are down, he’s right on board,” the crew chief says. “I think that that’s a product of me at least keeping him involved, and we’re so close in age that if I start getting frustrated or aggravated with things, he’ll tell me that I need to chill out and maybe think about what we’re going to do and let’s come up with a plan together, not as one individual.”

While Sadler’s season hasn’t yielded the results he wanted, he’s at the top of at least one category – races without a DNF.

He is actually tied with Tony Stewart for the longest active non-DNF streak among Cup drivers who have competed in every race over the same stretch. Sadler and Stewart, whose most recent DNFs came at Dover on June 1, 2008, have been running at the finish of the last 52 races.

“We want to run as hard as we can, get the best finish we can, but me as a driver, I’ve got to try to take care of my car the best way I can on the race track,” Sadler says. “It’s a cool deal. It’s not like winning a race or anything. It’s not like being a part of the Chase, but I think it’s a good system for my guys.

“My pit crew, they really buy into this no-DNF streak. … I’m happier for my guys than I am for myself that they’re part of this no-DNF streak. They’re doing really good things at the race shop to make sure that we’re not having any problems.”

Having a child on the way makes Sadler even more optimistic about the future.

“It makes me race harder and love my job more because I want to get home after a great race and be able to share good times with my wife and with my baby and stuff like that when it happens,” he says. “It’s like it gives you more to race for, and it gives you more to concentrate for on the weekends. So it’s neat how that has already started transforming my mind when I get to the race track now every weekend.”