Harvick OnLine: Love of Racing in Plain View from Pit Box

Love of Racing in Plain View from Pit Box
By: Steve Tucker, Chicago Sun-Times

A seat in a pit box made Sunday's Sheetrock 400 at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet a special day at the races.

An early morning visit to the trailers behind pit row got me a few minutes with Todd Berrier, the crew chief for the No. 29 Shell-Pennzoil Chevrolet.

After standing on the track for the introduction of drivers, I got a seat in the pit box for the No. 29 crew just behind Berrier and driver Kevin Harvick's wife DeLana. Racing people who called it ''the best seat in the house'' weren't kidding.

Harvick, who won Saturday's Durock 300 race, was in the top 10 for most of Sunday's race and held the lead early.

''My Shell team did a great job,'' Harvick said. ''We could never quite get the car where it needed to be. We struggled getting a handle of it. The first half was really loose, then the track kind of swapped tendencies on us. The second half it was really tight.''

After the last caution with just 12 laps to go, Harvick experienced some bad vibrations from his car.

''Sometimes, lugs are loose and tires shake,'' Berrier said. ''I just told [Harvick] to hang on and fight it. The same thing happened [on Saturday].''

''The Shell crew is great. These guys, we've been together for a long time,'' Harvick said. ''And they're a mature group of guys.''

The pit box, a platform with seats just above pit row, did afford the opportunity to both watch the crew at work and listen to the strategy and dialogue between the driver and crew over the radio with headphones. And to watch the crew chief in action.

There was also a visit by a crew from TNT with an announcer and cameraman.

In the morning, there were greetings from Richard Childress, the president and CEO of Richard Childress Racing, Greg Cooke, a member of the No. 20 crew, and Greg Johns, who is a part of Childress' North Carolina winery.

Childress has three cars and crews. There were close to 90 workers at the track and he employs almost 400 people.

''Seventy-five million people can't be wrong,'' Johns said.

For Cooke, the appeal of the sport comes from the fact ''almost everybody has a car. They can't all relate to going 200 miles an hour, but it is loved by Americans.''

These cars cost $150,000-$160,000 and the drivers all have spare cars.

Berrier's Sundays start between 6 and 7 a.m. and last until dark.

''The garage is open early,'' Berrier said. ''Our m.o. is to get it done and get out of here.

''I've been doing this for a living since 1988 and I've been here since 1993. Dale Earnhardt was the man and he was with these people. It's a good place and we have a good record here.

''When I was growing up, my dad raced at local dirt tracks for a hobby. I knew what I wanted to do and where I was headed from an early age.''

Berrier loves what he does, but he acknowledged that days off are few and far between.

''The hardest thing about what I do is you have to make changes and split-second decisions.

''The more decisions you make, the more educated. It's hard to know when to pit and when not to pit. You try to be close 99 times out of 100.''

Berrier said doing the same thing with the same driver makes it work.

''You have to know the attitude of the driver and that takes a while,'' Berrier said. ''It takes a while doing the same thing.

''This weekend, we probably talked about the race for three minutes. To talk for 10 minutes about the particulars of a car would be extreme.''

Berrier leaves home Thursday for races and doesn't get back until after midnight Sunday. From testing in January until Thanksgiving, there are few breaks for racing teams.

But it's easy to see why the sport is so popular. The people in it love it. And a pit box is the perfect place for a behind-the-scenes look.

Read the full story at www.suntimes.com