Q&A: Greg Zipadelli.

Greg Zipadelli, crew chief for Tony Stewart and the #20 Home Depot Chevrolet, has anything but a quiet off-season, and here he describes the preparations being made for the 2004 NASCAR Nextel Cup - plus his take on such issues as the recent rule changes...
Q: You spent last year's off-season cutting bodies off cars as you made the switch from Pontiac to Chevrolet. This off-season you've had to cut all the bodies off your cars again due to changes in template configuration. Was this off-season just as busy as last year's?
Greg Zipadelli: "It feels very similar. It's been a lot of work getting these cars rebuilt. Every one of them had to be reskinned. We weren't happy with a lot of the cars we had, so we've ended up reskinning them again. It seems like it's been an extremely short winter."
Q: NASCAR has altered the testing policy this year. Instead of the seven test sessions you received in previous years, this year you have five two-day tests and four single-day tests for a total of 14 testing days. Does the new rule change your testing strategy?
Greg Zipadelli: "It gives us a little more leeway as to where we can test. That's fine with me. If they gave me 25 test days I'd be happy."
Q: You're one of the few guys in the garage area who actually enjoys testing. Why?
Greg Zipadelli: "We get paid to work and we get paid to perform. The only way you see where you're at and learn how to get better is to go and try different things and work in different directions. That's what this job is about. That's what this sport is about. It's just work, work, work. For me, testing is fun. The pressure is off a little bit. You can reach out into different areas and do things that you don't normally do, and that's where you learn things that make you better. I'd test every week if I could."
Q: What are your thoughts on the altered point system?
Greg Zipadelli: "I don't think there's anything wrong with what we had. But I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to make the point system better. We just need to put our faith in NASCAR that it's the right thing for the sport. Their past decisions are the reason this sport is at the height it is today, with a network television deal and a new title sponsor in Nextel. If they feel that's what we need to do, we'll just race that way. I'm not worried about it either way. It's fair for everybody."
Q: With the #20 team's history of always seeming to finish the season strong, could the altered point system work to your benefit?
Greg Zipadelli: "I don't know. We're not going to change the way we go race, by any means. We're going to go out and race and try to win every week. Every year it seems like we have something that kind of sets us back a little bit through the mid-part of the season, but then we come on strong toward the end. I'd like to think that it will benefit us a little more than most other people. But last year there were two or three other cars that ran exceptionally well the last third of the season too. We'll just do what we've been doing."
Q: Does Joe Gibbs' move to the Redskins change anything that you do as a crew chief?
Greg Zipadelli: "Joe was always good in that he was around to encourage everyone in good times or bad. In that area, we'll all have to step up to make sure the guys around us are motivated and focused. His presence was very positive. But we can't worry about it. We just have to go out and race, run well, and take care of our guys."
Q: When you have a moderately successful season like you did last year - two wins and a pole - does your preparation change any coming into this year?
Greg Zipadelli: "We take what we learned from last year and apply it to this year, while also keeping the number of distractions down to a minimum. In this sport you can't have any distractions. You hiccup even the slightest bit and you're going to get run over. This year we're in good shape with our people, our motor program and our body fabrication. Our whole team is in good shape and everybody's pretty pumped up. Last year was a long year, a tough year, and our attitude is we're going to be back on top regardless of what it takes. We're not afraid to work."
Q: Keeping a crew together is obviously important. In the five years that this team has been together, there's been very little employee turnover. How hard or how easy has that been?
Greg Zipadelli: "When we started we put a young group of people together and we all made a commitment to work together and take care of each other as best as we could as a company. Without them we couldn't have gotten as far as we have in the past four years. Everyone takes a lot of pride in what we've been able to accomplish and how we're structured. They ought to. They all helped and they're all a good group of people. They're the hardest working group of guys in the garage. I'd be willing to put them up against anybody. I've been lucky that they've all hung together and I haven't had any indication that any of them wanted to leave. To me, that's good. They all plan on being here this year and in the years to come."
Q: How much of a technology jump was it when you went from a crew chief in the NASCAR Busch North Series to a crew chief in what we now know as Nextel Cup?
Greg Zipadelli: "It's just a whole different deal when you're racing 18 races a year up in the northeast and you're pretty much doing it all yourself. I've painted the cars, put bodies on them, wired them - you did all that stuff. But you come down south and you get more specialized in certain areas. You're dealing with more engineers, more people, more races and you're just trying to make better decisions. Every year it gets, I don't want to say complicated, but there are certainly more variables that you have to keep straight. So, I miss those days an awful lot. I enjoyed working on the cars. Now it's just more people stuff and being organized and preparing and things like that. It's definitely changed, but for the most part I still enjoy it because there are a lot of different challenges."
Q: How tough is it for a crew chief to stay ahead of the ever-increasing technology curve?
Greg Zipadelli: "You just try to surround yourself with good people, and hopefully they can help you do some of those things that are cutting edge. You've got to be open-minded enough to take the resources around you and use them to their advantage. Sometimes that's hard when you're used to doing most of it or having most of the responsibilities. It's hard sometimes to adjust, and give other people responsibility and trust. That's a big thing."
Q: As a crew chief, how do you go about pacing yourself and your race team for a season that races 38 weekends over a 10-month span?
Greg Zipadelli: "We'll just go until we can't go anymore, I guess. If you stop you're going to get run over in this sport as much as things are changing and as much as we've got going on at the shop. For myself and all of our guys, we've all gotten to take a little bit of time off. We always shut the shop down between Christmas and New Year's. A few people worked to try to get some speedway cars done, but for the most part everybody has gotten a little bit of time off and got to enjoy themselves and their family. We're ready to go again."
Q: It seems like every year there are more and more teams that are capable of competing for a championship, and this year there will be at least 10 with the altered point system. As the level of competition has increased, has the number of championship-calibre teams increased?
Greg Zipadelli: "It will probably level off a little bit, but it has surely increased each year that I've been here. For our sake I hope it doesn't increase too much. I just want to keep racing as few cars as we can. But this is a competitive sport that only gets more competitive each year."
Q: On January 23-24 you had your second annual Crusade for Kids charity snowmobile ride in Old Forge, N.Y., an event that raises money for children in need. How did it go?
Greg Zipadelli: "The Crusade for Kids ride went really well. It's been a very positive thing in our life as well as many other people's lives. It was an exciting event. It was an awful lot of work for my wife Nan. I don't get to put the same amount of effort into it as she does because of my schedule, but she does a great job with it. We learned a lot from last year's inaugural ride that I really think made this year's ride a lot better."