Mantle and Maris. Monroe and Gable. Csonka and Kiick. Davis and Blanchard.
Famous partners, all, in sports, life.
There are some pretty famous partners in NASCAR.
Dale Inman and Richard Petty ruled the roost for a long time in NASCAR’s premier series, winning seven championships and 200 races.
Then there was Kirk Shelmerdine and the late Dale Earnhardt, Sr. up there at Richard Childress Racing in Welcome, N.C., who combined for five of Earnhardt’s seven Cup titles.
What about the combination of Ray Evernham and Jeff Gordon, which produced three of Gordon’s four championships before Evernham moved on to become a car owner?
There are other famous combinations, too.
But there’s a couple of pairings which just might be the best partnerships ever formed.
That would be crew chief Chad Knaus and driver Jimmie Johnson in the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Lowe’s Chevrolet. They’re seeking their third-consecutive Sprint Cup Series title in 2008. No one has done that except for Cale Yarborough in 1976-’78.
But one of the most perfect matchups of partners has to be Greg Zipadelli and Tony Stewart in Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 20 Home Depot Toyota.
Entering their 10th year together, Zipadelli has been the only crew chief Stewart has ever had in his Cup career.
And the combination has produced results. It’s the longest active driver-crew chief relationship in the Sprint Cup Series.
They’ve won two championships, 32 victories, 192 top 10s and finished outside the top 10 in points only once.
The Zipadelli-Stewart pairing has survived a decade together despite trials, tribulations, near self-destruction and a ton of self-reflection.
The partnership clicked almost immediately because the two essentially are the same person. Both grew up in racing, working with their fathers on cars while spending most of their childhood around race tracks.
They started out by agreeing to give each other space. Zipadelli, often called Zippy, builds the cars; Stewart, known as Smoke, drives the cars. Neither interferes with the other.
“We didn’t set out saying we were going to spend the next 10 years working together, but it’s happened and it’s worked,” said Zipadelli. “My personality of being somewhat controlling of the car and his lack of wanting to be involved in it — there’s a mutual respect of, ‘This is my area, this is his area.’ I don’t tell him how to drive and he just tells me what’s wrong with the car. That’s helped us.”
It took Zipadelli time to learn the patience he needs to work with the enigma that is Stewart.
Zipadelli has never turned his back on Stewart despite some of his temper tantrums and punching a photographer after losing a race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“I don’t think either of us has feelings,” said Zipadelli. “If something needs to be said, I can air it and I know that he’s not going to go home and take it personally. He may holler back, he may tell me I’m full of (it), he may disagree with it. But he will listen to me, he will take it to heart and he will learn from it — and vice versa.
“We have that relationship, we’ve been fortunate enough to have that openness and we know it’s not about feelings. You check them at the door when you get here.”
Stewart says the two share the same passion.
“We desire to win and it makes you work really hard to protect it,” said Stewart.
Maybe that’s what Jimmy Makar saw when he spent some four hours with Zipadelli some 10 years ago at a Cracker Barrel Restaurant when he decided Zipadelli was the man to run the team for Gibbs.
“When that conversation was over, I came back and told Joe, ‘Hey, this is a guy that I think can get the job done as a crew chief,’” said Makar, now the senior vice president of racing operations for Joe Gibbs Racing.
It’s a partnership that has withstood the test of time and may become one of the most famous of all time in NASCAR.