Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 24, 1994 TAG: 9404240210
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Long
It really isn't difficult to get along with soft-spoken Gary Nelson. It's his job description that at times has crew chiefs calling him four-letter words besides "Gary."
Nelson is NASCAR's director of Winston Cup racing, a title that doesn't approximate his responsibilities or clout. His job has more sticky sides than a stock car has sponsorship decals.
He's a crew chief-turned-cop. You'd think he turned state's evidence.
"Gary Nelson knows what someone might try before they try it, said one crew chief, demanding anonymity with a wrench in his right hand.
Nelson has a NASCAR officiating crew of 27 at Martinsville Speedway for today's Hanes 500. Their task is to make sure no team gains a competitive advantage before the green flag falls - which, of course, is what every team is trying to do.
Nelson, in his second year as Winston Cup director after Dick Beaty retired, came to the job with a reputation for bending a bit more in NASCAR than sheet metal. It's a notion he doesn't deny.
"It's a pretty common belief that if you want to find out how robbers operate, then you go to prison and ask them," Nelson said with a smile Saturday in the NASCAR trailer.
Nelson was sporting a bandage on his nose. No, he hadn't been decked by a crew chief. He'd had surgery.
The pit-side tales from Nelson's 11 years as a crew chief include some that are notably nefarious, whether factual or not - like when he supposedly hid tubing around the inside of a car's body and filled the tube with a couple gallons of fuel. You might say he was being energy efficient.
After Bobby Allison drove to the 1983 Winston Cup championship and DiGard Racing folded, a writer called Nelson and said when the garage of his former team was being sold, the items found included illegal fuel cells and illegal parts.
"The writer said he was going to write that we had won the championship by cheating," Nelson said. "I told him we hadn't won by cheating, but by not cheating.
"Bobby always felt that if all things were equal, his driving ability would make the difference, and it did. I told the guy that we hadn't used the illegal parts with Bobby. I admitted that all of the parts in the attic we did use, but it was with the previous drivers."
Nelson and his crew spend lots of time in the pits, leaning on fenders, peering over walls. They talk to tire men, body men, machinists and fabricators.
"It's not as much visual inspection as it is catching onto trends, finding out about the hot item a salesman will bring to someone's garage on Monday," he said. "The worst thing that can happen is for teams to start using something expensive that's not legal."
Nelson, 40, knows his way around a garage. He spent many hours of his California youth riding his motorbike and hanging around the track at Riverside. In 1977, he started in NASCAR as a floor sweeper for DiGard.
From 1981-91, he was a crew chief. His drivers won 21 times and the year before he won the points title with Allison, they were the runner-up team. Nelson won the '86 Daytona 500 with Geoff Bodine. His teams, in 258 races, won more than $5 million.
"I think being a crew chief is the hardest job in the sport," Nelson said. "Nobody has a winning record as a crew chief. The owner calls and wants to know what happened and you have to be a team player. You have to bite your lip and apologize for things you didn't do."
Nelson's job "runs the gamut from babysitter, to enforcement, to encouragement to discipline," he said. The constantly changing NASCAR rules are enforced with safety and a level racing field as base points. The goal is to accomplish those at the lowest cost to car owners.
"People are so hung up on the word `cheating,' " Nelson said. "Teams aren't out to cheat. They are trying to find an edge within the rules. They want to use the unwritten rules, to read between the lines.
"It's like, `If it doesn't say I can't do this, then I can.' They're trying to get an edge legally, maybe because of what they see as an oversight in the rules or a lack of legislation.
"No one out here wants to get caught cheating."
While some suggest Nelson was put in his current position to catch others doing what he did, "I'd like to think that, hopefully, I have the communication skills, developed as a crew chief, that are important in this job, that I know how to create a team attitude."
Nelson knows his former peers in the pits are always looking for an edge in a sport where three-tenths of a second can mean the difference between first and 21st, as it was in Friday's Hanes 500 qualifying. Last season, Nelson filled a notebook with potential revisions for the NASCAR rulebook, hoping to close some loopholes.
"It's like the United States has had the Supreme Court for what, 220 years?" Nelson said. "Every day someone did so-and-so and they end up before the Supreme Court. They say they thought it was legal.
"Well, after 220 years, it ought to be pretty clear what's legal and what's not, but you still need a Supreme Court. That's what it's like here. It's no problem. It is a constant evolution of cat and mouse."
And whatever it says in the NASCAR rulebook, just don't get caught between the lines.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB