Hendrick - The fifth teammate

dpkimmel2001

dpkimmel2001

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Okay, maybe this little story was or wasn't mentioned elsewhere. I had seen this until now but found it somewhat interesting.

Stewart/Addington sits in on Hendrick meetings: during a Frontstretch Tech Talk interview with Steve Addington, crew chief for #14-Tony Stewart:

Frontstretch's Mike Neff: "You are affiliated with Hendrick. They supply you with chassis and engines and support. Since they got all four cars in and you guys are in, from the engineering and assistance side, how much are they able to give you? I don't know what the normal number of guys they give you is at the track or shop, but is that stretched thinner now that five cars are in the Chase?"

Steve Addington: "We have a mutual understanding. They know how we're going to the race track and we know how they're going to the race track and what they're going to work on. I am in their Tuesday meeting with their drivers for debrief. Me and Stewart are either there or on the phone to talk with them every Tuesday. We're very open about it and that is something that is the cool part of it that I didn't have last year, having just two drivers with the Dodge camp. Being able to have that affiliation with Hendrick and to have Rick's support and to be able to talk to him one-on-one is really cool. We all share and that is the way it is. We work hard together and we share information and we take it from there and everyone can run and do with it as they want".
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Info from jayski
 
Not surprised by this at all. I've said all along Stewart's money man to help buy part of the team from Gene Haas was Rick Hendrick. Remember, Stewart paid nothing to get half the team. Somebody had to and that person was Hendrick. Roush is doing the same thing with RPM. The difference is the people running RPM aren't as good as the ones running SHR.
 
Grubb and Gibson used to do this too. You can bet HMS wanted to debrief Addington on anything Penske was doing or had planned. I still feel that Addington passed some info during his last year at Penske. Those Penske cars were hooked up off the corners and restarts, and had great gas mileage. All areas Stewart showed huge improvement during the chase.
 
FenderBumper said:
Grubb and Gibson used to do this too. You can bet HMS wanted to debrief Addington on anything Penske was doing or had planned. I still feel that Addington passed some info during his last year at Penske. Those Penske cars were hooked up off the corners and restarts, and had great gas mileage. All areas Stewart showed huge improvement during the chase.
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HMMM
 
That's not quite what I got listening to Addington on xm radio. I heard him say they sat in on the meeting by conference call.Mostly him , sometimes Tony . They are great meetings but not about specific setups . They want to hear if there are motor problems or parts issues , etc . . Individual driver and/or crew chief preferences regarding set ups are just that . Individual preferences . I think that if you asked any two crew chiefs if they would trade setups , the answer would be ..no way . (at least ..before the race :D )
 
ted@economy said:
That's not quite what I got listening to Addington on xm radio. I heard him say they sat in on the meeting by conference call.Mostly him , sometimes Tony . They are great meetings but not about specific setups . They want to hear if there are motor problems or parts issues , etc . . Individual driver and/or crew chief preferences regarding set ups are just that . Individual preferences . I think that if you asked any two crew chiefs if they would trade setups , the answer would be ..no way . (at least ..before the race :D )
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According to HMS, ALL setup info and changes made during the race are shared between the SIX teams. Go back to Tony killing HMS on restarts during the chase. JJ said they looked at the data and decided it was all driver, and they think they figured out what he was doing. I'm convinced Tony and Kyle half clutch it to keep revs up, then pop it to get a jump. That would show up on the data sheet.
 
It's really no big deal, they've been doing it all year. Last years Non-working together issue is part of the reason that Addington is there now.

MRM, I'd like to hear a little bit more of your "Tony's Moneyman" theory. My understanding has always been that Gene Haas wanted Tony Stewart AND the Sponsor Money/Exposure/Talent/Connections with Chevrolet he could bring with him and thats why the partial ownership came about. If your saying there's an black ops deal going on and Hendrick actually owns part of SHR there's some real legal and rule issues and NASCAR needs to get involved.
 
MRM said:
Not surprised by this at all. I've said all along Stewart's money man to help buy part of the team from Gene Haas was Rick Hendrick. Remember, Stewart paid nothing to get half the team. Somebody had to and that person was Hendrick. Roush is doing the same thing with RPM. The difference is the people running RPM aren't as good as the ones running SHR.
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:rolleyes:
 
Zerkfitting said:
I didn't think they had data acquisition during a race.
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Correct. No realtime data acquisition during the race, but they read tons of data logged from the ECU after the race. NASCAR uses this data to check for cheating, but teams are also allowed to look at it.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
They don't. It is only allowed during testing.
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http://www.nascar.com/news/120207/fuel-injection-opens-possibilities/index.html

The implications for Cup racing are far-reaching. Teams can plug into the ECU post-race and use the after-the-fact telemetry to make performance decisions. Traditionally, NASCAR has taken a firm stance against real-time data acquisition, and that won't change.

About the system.

http://www.mclarenelectronics.com/Products/Product/HSL-500
 
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