BY: Darrell Waltrip
In a race near the end of the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season, the championship points leader, Jimmie Johnson, was caught up in an accident and had to take his car to the garage on Lap 3. Crew members from other Hendrick Motorsports teams rallied around their teammate and worked together to get the car back on the track as quickly as possible. The next day, everybody was talking -- and a lot of them were criticizing -- their efforts.
It's funny. I was listening to some of these people complaining about crew members from other Hendrick Motorsports teams coming over and helping to fix that car. And I thought to myself, "What is wrong with these people? Have they lost their minds?"
Teamwork is the very essence of our sport. That is why we are successful. And that is why when people look at the selfishness it takes to be successful in other sports, sometimes they miss the fact that in NASCAR, things just don't work that way.
Through the years, there is not a one of us who has been around for any length of time who has not needed help from somebody else. I've had to borrow engines from other competitors to put in my car to go out and race. I've borrowed crew members because I've needed somebody to change a tire. I've borrowed trailers, and I've borrowed trucks, just so I could get to the race.
That's what makes NASCAR different from all the other sports. When we say we're a family sport, people think that means all those people in the grandstands are actual families who come with their wives and their kids -- and they are, and they do.
But what I'm talking about here is the garage area, the camaraderie and the respect that we all have for each other. We all know how hard you have to work to just show up at a race track, particularly back in the day. And so when someone's there and they need something and you've got it, you never give it a second thought. Even if you loan an engine to somebody and then they go out and beat you with it, you take pride in the fact that your engine was in their car, and boy, look how it ran. Or that's your tire changer, and boy, he did a great job for you guys, didn't he?
That's something that so many new fans do not understand about our sport and how we all feel about each other. This is a fraternity in every sense of the word. These people live together, probably 325 days a year. We're all in the garage together. We police each other; we're accountable to each other. It's a different atmosphere in NASCAR than it is in some locker room somewhere, or out on some field. It's just not the same.
Things never stand still. They always progress; they always evolve. The atmosphere I grew up in was different, because we truly did depend on one another a lot more. Nowadays, some of the guys are more independent. There's a lot more money, and there's a lot more opportunity out there for guys to sort of isolate themselves. For the amount of exposure this sport gets, the kind of coverage it gets, and the kind of microscope that everyone involved with it is under, you have to admit that it's a quality product, with quality people. Every driver is a role model. They all have a lot of morals, a lot of values and a lot of ethics, and that is what makes our sport great.
In every part of society and every part of life, there is a season of change, and I think we're going through some of that right now. You don't want some things to change, and sometimes you don't understand why they have to, but that's just a product of the times.
But I still look at the core people in the sport today -- the Hendricks, the Yates, the Pettys, and the France family -- and those are the people that built the foundation of NASCAR, and they built it strong. As long as we don't shake that foundation too bad, I think we'll be OK.
http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2010/06/NASCARs-Strong-Family-Foundation.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter
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