Drivers, crew chiefs must communicate to win.(cohesion of stock car racing pit teams can determine success of driver)

A week after Dale Earnhardt's death at Daytona, tension was high in the garage at Rockingham. Most drivers declined interviews until after their qualifying attempts, but Ricky Rudd was gracious enough to answer questions from the gaggle of reporters that gathered around him.

This wasn't a weekly prequalifying Q-and-A with the media. This was a barrage. As Michael McSwain, Rudd's crew chief, watched the frenzy unfold from his transporter, he thought only of the welfare of his driver.

Known as "Fatback" to his friends in the garage, McSwain hustled over to Steve Post, Rudd's public relations director, and asked, "Is he OK?"

Post replied, "He's fine. He's handling it."

But like a mother protecting her young, Fatback had to see for himself. "I'd take a bullet for him," McSwain says. "That's how much I care about Ricky."

That sort of relationship is essential to success in stock car racing. Team chemistry can't be bought, no matter how well-heeled an owner might be. Sometimes drivers and crew chiefs make an instant connection. Sometimes it takes years for the rapport to develop. Regardless, mutual respect and confidence among team members are necessary ingredients to this high-speed, high-risk profession.

"Everyone has to remember that I put myself inside that car every week, and I need to run it at its fullest potential," says Steve Park, who won at Rockingham in a car prepared under the direction of crew chief Paul Andrews and team engineer Dave Charpentier. "The confidence I have in the guys who are preparing these cars and what Paul and Dave are doing is paramount.