Offside Undo.(Rufus Harvey, legendary crew chief in auto racing)(Brief Article)

We're with Rufus ``Snuffy'' Harvey, a legendary crew chief in racing's modern era. Harvey's unique resume represents the kind of background today's professionals must have to be a success. He started in go-karts, worked through dirt-track bullrings, spent time in Europe and the Far East wrenching on small-displacement open-wheel racers, then jumped to Formula One. Harvey's cars have set 12 speed and endurance records and have won at Le Mans, Daytona, Sebring and Eldora. He has two F1 world championships and three Winston Cup titles. For five years he ran a CART championship-winning team, the last two of which he also took home pro stock NHRA and soapbox derby titles.

Recently Harvey left the services of a major car manufacturer to join perhaps the best-known team in the world, St. Nick Motorsports. We caught up with him shortly after Thanksgiving.

AutoWeek: Snuffy thanks for spending time with us, especially during this busy time of year. This sure is a change. What's it like to work for a legend?

Harvey: Hey, I've worked with all the big names-Granatelli, Yarborough, di Montezemolo, Schmidhamer-but none are as big as The Nickster. It is humbling, you know? We want the same thing, and when a team works toward a common goal it makes life easy.

AW: What's best about the new job?

RSH: Two things: There are no sponsors to worry about, and elk ...