Stewart-Haas Racing's 2013 Struggles Are at Least Partly the Result of an Ambitious Decision to Add Third Team for Danica Patrick

SHR Competition Director Greg Zipadelli Has Admitted the Extra Team is One of Reasons for 2013 Woes, but the Overall Reasons Are More Complex

By Matt Myftiu | Yahoo! Contributor Network – 7 hours ago

• http://sports.yahoo.com/news/stewart-haas-racings-2013-struggles-least-partly-result-055100373.html

COMMENTARY | Bigger. Better. More.

That's the way we all tend to think in this country, and in the world in general for that matter.
Things need to grow, and we're almost never satisfied with what he have, even if it is a success in its current form.
And not too long after his magical 2011 title run, Tony Stewart was presented with the opportunity to add a third team to his Cup series operation, Stewart-Haas Racing, with NASCAR superstar Danica Patrick behind the wheel of that third car and all the GoDaddy money that comes with her. He accepted that opportunity and saw it as a chance to expand his team in a positive way and continue its success on track.
Now as he and his teammates sit mired back in the standings, that decision may be one Stewart regrets just a little bit. Sure, team owner Tony is still raking in the cash, but he is a guy who is used to running up front and getting results, and that's not happening this year. It has to be frustrating for a three-time champ like Smoke.
Forget about Danica Patrick for a minute. Everyone knew she would struggle as her Cup career got started, so it's no surprise that she's 28th in points. But what's going on with Tony Stewart, and Ryan Newman for that matter? They weren't expected to have this kind of year.
Things got off to a rough start, but there was always the thought in the back of our minds of: "It's Tony Stewart, he'll turn things around like he always does." At this point in the season, I don't know if he will, to be honest with you.
Let's put it in numerical perspective: Here are the points positions where Tony has finished each season since he started racing in 1999: 4th, 6th, 2nd, 1st, 7th, 6th, 1st, 11th, 6th, 9th, 6th, 7th, 1st, 9th; In 2013, he is currently 21st in points. He has just one top-10 finish, an 8th at Phoenix, and a lot of finishes in the late teens and early 20s. That means he wasn't good enough to run up front, but didn't really crash out. He just had a mediocre day -- again, very un-Tony Stewart like.
Newman is doing slightly better (five top-10 finishes), but rarely is considered a threat to win the race this year.
Tony is behind Jeff Burton, Joey Logano, Kurt Busch, rookie Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Paul Menard, Aric Almirola and others who a driver as talented as Stewart should not be trailing in the standings. Ryan Newman leads the way for the Stewart-Haas team at 17th in points, but even if he or Stewart can make the Chase in some sort of super comeback, I doubt the other teams will be quaking in their boots based on how unimpressive the cars have been this year so far for SHR.
Were they ready to expand?
Expansion is not easy. Ask any business owner who has been through the process and they'll tell you all sorts of horror stories of failures along the way. Just because you do well with a certain number of teams doesn't mean you'll continue that success with more teams. Just ask Richard Childress, whose team tested expansion and didn't have it work out, then retreated back from four cars to three cars in 2012.
Stewart-Haas is in an especially tricky position, because they are struggling mightily with three teams but have plans to potentially add a fourth team in 2014 when Kevin Harvick arrives (assuming Ryan Newman's team doesn't disappear when Harvick's begins). If you are struggling with three teams, I'd be hesistant to continue expansion until things are on the right track. The chaos could get even worse.
The lesson I see in all of this SHR drama is that the Stewart-Haas struggles show how risky it can be to expand a team. Greg ZIpadelli, competition director at SHR has addressed the performance woes, saying that a combination of factors are contributing to their struggles.
The reasons Zippy listed for the struggles include: Failure to keep up with technology as well as other teams, the new Gen-6 cars; adding the third team for Danica, and shuffling of personnel.
But if you decipher that code, it really does all come down to the addition of a third team initially scrambling things up at SHR and things going downhill from there.
The dominoes fall like this, as I see it -- A new team is added, so you have to shuffle people around and hire new people to get the job done; As a result some things probably get lost in translation and you throw a whole new car into the mix to make it even more complicated. As you try to make sense of all the information, some of the new technical advantages other teams might have found don't make their way to SHR's cars. And the sport is so competitive that nobody (not even their buddies in the Hendrick camp) are going to tell the SHR crews about how to make their cars better.
Interestingly, this isn't even a story where Danica Patrick should be portrayed as any sort of scapegoat. She's just trying to do her job and drive and improve as a NASCAR driver and let the mechanics worry about how to get the cars running better.
Instead of blaming one person, It's a simple logistical issue to me of making a leap to three teams when SHR wasn't quite ready, and these overall team struggles probably would have happened regardless of who the driver of the third car was.
In a way these car issues limit Patrick too, because her ability to improve her lackluster performances each week is hampered by the fact that SHR's 2013 cars are not up to snuff with the rest of the teams on the track (Hendrick and Gibbs, especially).
Asked this week during media availability in Charlotte about the team's struggles, Newman tried to downplay SHR's problems: "I don't know that you can necessarily say behind. I think behind is a loaded word. I think our guys have been doing a good job. I think a lot of our development has been on time with respect to the new car and I think we just haven't got the entire package when it comes to the setup quite right yet," Newman explained. "But there's a behind way of looking at it. We're not behind body‑wise I don't feel. I don't feel like we're behind power‑wise. I think the Hendrick guys do a great job with that. But balancing all four tires of the race car, I'd say we're lacking in that. That's not necessarily behind, maybe behind in development, but it's something that we can click on right away. It's not something that takes three, four, five months to get things pushed through the system. I think that we're always continually working on it as are the guys on top of the board. But rest assured, nobody is sleeping more than they should."
That's a glass half-full type of view, and I agree the team should keep its head up and push on trying to figure out what is ailing it, but I don't see them flipping a switch and suddenly being a front-running team in 2013. Maybe they'll prove me wrong, but it would be quite an impressive feat if they can do so.
Victim of own success?
Stewart's successful title run in 2011 was one for the record books, but it may have had an adverse effect in one way. The team is still in bed with the Hendrick Motorsports organization -- sort of a sister team like Wood Brothers is to Roush -- but after watching Tony Stewart win the title and beat its own Hendrick drivers, there was probably a bit of discussion behind the scenes at Hendrick that maybe the best equipment should be saved for the A team and a little less help for SHR wouldn't be a bad idea. Hendrick hasn't won a direct title since 2010. That's a long drought for a team that's been so dominant in the sport for the past two decades.
Beating the hand that feeds him for the title in 2011 might have led in part to the struggles Tony is currently having in 2013. Hendrick will always work with Tony, but they still want to beat him.
Newman spoke on the Hendrick relationship in his media session this week, saying:
"Simply said, it's just ties with Hendrick, that doesn't mean that we have their spring inventory, it doesn't mean that we're building the same shocks, it doesn't mean that we're setting the same air pressures. Just because we have the inventory of knowledge doesn't mean we have the inventory of performance. And then I think conversely if you look at 2011 when Tony won five out of the 10 Chase races, I think if you're a Hendrick fan, you're wondering why isn't Rick Hendrick and these guys checking out ‑‑ Jimmie Johnson and Jeff and all these guys copying what the 14 is doing. I mean, it's part of the cycles of racing. We all click at certain times."
Bottom line
Stewart-Haas Racing's 2013 season is a very interesting situation to me that should be studied by any NASCAR team that is looking to expand. I'm not saying it can't be done successfully, because it has been done many times with great results. But if you're going to do it, be absolutely sure you can maintain the quality and performance that you were able to achieve with one less car. If not, the move to get bigger and better could leave you backward and spinning in circles, as it appears has happened to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2013. Matt Myftiu lives in Michigan, has been a walking encyclopedia of NASCAR since immersing himself in the sport over 15 years ago, and has worked as a journalist for two decades. His blog on the sport, NASCAR: Beyond the Track, has been published by The Oakland Press for the past 5 years. Follow him on Twitter @MattMyftiu.