Bill Parcells the great Football coach once said right after quiting the New England Patriots "If you want me to cook you dinner, then let me shop for the groceries " He was mad that he did not have complete control in hiring and firing players. One would think that it must be the same to be a good Crew Chief , let them shop for the parts, and give them time for it to come around.

Absolutely. Even Dixon said it would have been easy for Snake to replace Bender or bring in help, but he left him alone, and now look. These cars are incredibly fickle, just look at what Force is going through. Should Austin Coil be replaced? Probably not.

Back in the day, ( mid 70's ) I would get my copy of National Dragster, it was the only news source of the day. On the cover after a race was the winners. Don Garlits , Don Prudomme and Bill Grumpy Jenkins. They had the hot setups, and were untouchable. At least for a while. Same with Force, it looked like he would never lose, also Shumacher. Then for no apparent reason they start losing. Same car, same crew, same driver. And it seems to be very hard to get it back.

Tuning combinations are fickled. You change X, Y, and Z and get improvement in certain areas but the improvement is negated in other areas. Most tuners see an increase so good in those areas, they just hate to go back to their old combos. They just keep at it until it comes around, the money runs out, or they get replaced.

Remember the year Austin Coil had a combination that was very quick but there was one minor glitch, the damn thing blew up allmost every run in the lights!
The safety safari called it there test vehicle. When Force would stage all the safety safari vehicles would start the motors and put them in gear!!! John left broken parts from coast to coast but he won a lot of races so they just stayed with that combination until Coil figured it out!

That year he had several spare bodies at every track!

That's the difference between a successful team owner and one who changes crew chiefs like underwear.




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* *Jim Yates' Blog* *

Crew chiefs.......even the great ones all go through slumps.

It is so interesting to see how the owners, fans and media handle it.

People even questioned Alan Johnson at this point of last season, he sure figured it out going down the home stretch.