After his victory in Friday night’s Diamond Hill Plywood 200, Tony Stewart was more than willing to divulge the secret behind the success of the No. 20 this season in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, even though crew chief Dave Rogers warned him not to.
“One of the prizes he (Rogers) got out of a Cracker Jack box he got, it was the darndest thing — it was just a helpful hint. It led to all of this,” Stewart quipped. “I can’t believe they give out set-up sheets inside Cracker Jack boxes.”
“I said don’t tell them,” Rogers said.
“I know, but it’s all right,” Stewart said. “We kept the box.”
It was all fun and games for the Joe Gibbs Racing crew after the team scored its sixth-straight Nationwide Series victory and the fourth in a row for the No. 20 team. But the rest of the competition was left shaking their heads, wondering what they can do to compete with the Gibbs teams.
“We’ve got to work on our program. The 20 car is whooping everybody’s butt every weekend,” Clint Bowyer said after finishing second to Stewart in Darlington. “They’re beating us in horsepower quite a bit. They’re getting through the corners awesome, too. We’ve got to improve our program all the way.”
Third-place David Reutimann echoed Bowyer’s sentiments.
“The 20 car’s getting a little old, seeing that thing win,” he said. “Hopefully we can do something to combat that.”
So far this season, Joe Gibbs Racing has captured eight of the series’ 12 events. In the four events that a Gibbs car did not reach victory lane, a Gibbs car was the dominant car or a race-winning car in three before something — contact at Las Vegas, a blown tire at Atlanta, a wild ride through the grass at Nashville — ended the team’s shot at the win.
Through 12 events, Stewart and teammates Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin, who split time between the Nos. 18 and 20, have led 1,126 of a possible 2,067 laps (though Busch and Hamlin have also spent time in Braun Racing’s No. 32 Toyota). Without a doubt, Joe Gibbs Racing has become this season’s Hendrick Motorsports in the Nationwide Series.
So what’s made the difference this season for the Gibbs crew?
“Last year, they were strong and I would say parallel to a [Richard Childress Racing] or a [Roush-Fenway Racing] car,” Stewart said of the team. “Their work over the winter has taken them to another level and, in my opinion, to the elite team in this series and put them a step ahead of Childress and Roush.”
Rogers, though, says Stewart is responsible for much of the success the team has experienced in 2008.
“I have to give Tony some credit here. He set the tone for this race team,” Rogers said. “He came in at Daytona and he said, ‘Hey, this year is going to be fun. We’re going to have fun going to the race track whether we’re first on the board or we’re 35th on the board.’ I think that’s a big part of it. We’ve tried to carry on that attitude with the other drivers, but when Smoke’s in the car, there’s no pressure. It’s just a fun time — the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.”
The team knows that everyone is gunning for them week in and week out, no matter if it’s Stewart, Busch or Hamlin in the car.
“When you walk in the garage area, guys from other teams are looking at you like, ‘Man, this guy is in the car this week?’ You can tell it doesn’t matter who it is that walks in the garage, they know we’re going to be a force to be dealt with,” Stewart said. “This car has been capable of winning every race it’s been to this year.”
And though fans may tire of seeing the Gibbs cars running up front every weekend, Stewart believes it’s good for the series.
“I think about it like what we see in Formula One every year. You think about the battles between Ferrari and McLaren. It’s kind of that way with this series, except you’ve got a third variable,” Stewart said. “It seems like it’s always a battle between Gibbs and Roush and Childress, and those are the three main players. The cool thing is now you’ve got Kevin Harvick coming in with his team and making a statement. It’s consistently week in and week out — it’s those three teams that are the titans in this series.
“That’s what makes this series fun for me. It’s not that you’ve got one group that is head and shoulders above everyone else, but you’ve got three main groups that are battling it out, keeping each other honest and making each other push harder to be better and better. That’s what makes these wins and these kinds of runs so gratifying…There’s still tough competition over here.”
In two more races, rookie phenom Joey Logano will climb into the No. 20 at Dover Int’l Speedway in his Nationwide Series debut. Though he’ll only turn 18 on May 24, Logano has already exhibited the driving skills of a veteran, capturing seven victories en route to the 2007 NASCAR Camping World East Series title. More recently, Logano took the ARCA RE/MAX Series Carolina 500 at Rockingham Speedway in his series debut, holding off NASCAR veteran Ken Schrader by 4.164 seconds and at one point lapping all but the second-place car. So will Logano continue to have the success that Stewart, Busch and Hamlin have had? Stewart thinks so.
“Trust me, he is licking his chops. I could see him standing there on the pit wall during the last 15 laps,” Stewart said of Logano. “It’s the perfect situation for him. That kid has a lot of confidence. It’s not arrogance; it’s not unrealistic expectations…Don’t be surprised if he wins multiple races before the year’s out.”
And if that’s the case, the competition is going to be chasing the Gibbs boys for a long time in the future.