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TonyStewart.com

TonyStewart.com: In late 1998 you were the rookie crew chief at Joe Gibbs Racing. Seven years later you’re the senior crew chief, overseeing the #20 team but also acting as a resource for the #18 and #11 teams. What do you think of that?
Greg Zipadelli: Crazy isn’t it? I look at it as how old you are and how long you’ve been doing this. I’m 39 years old, but in dog years I’m really 55 or 60. I’m surprised by it in some areas because this job is so demanding, emotionally and physically. It’s all a part of it, and he who does the best job of juggling it all survives the longest. It’s a matter of how hard you can continue to go.

TonyStewart.com: In today’s age is a crew chief’s job more on the mechanical side or on the human resources side?
Greg Zipadelli: It’s definitely not on the mechanical side in terms of working on the car. It’s on the technical side of ‘What are we going to do this week to prepare for next week?’ And a lot of it is human resources. It’s people. You can’t work on a race team without them but there are days when you wish you didn’t have any of them, as the old saying goes. In a lot of ways it’s fun, but it can also be pretty trying. It’s one of the things that I like the most but I hate the most. And sometimes it’s so overwhelming that I feel like I haven’t done as good a job as I would’ve liked worrying about my race cars.

TonyStewart.com: How much of a technology jump was it when you went from being a NASCAR Busch North Series crew chief to a NASCAR Nextel Cup Series crew chief?
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 different challenges.

TonyStewart.com: 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.

TonyStewart.com: As a crew chief, how do you go pace 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.