Newman braces for first season without Borland
Driver could see crew chief's departure from 12 team coming
By David Caraviello, NASCAR.COM
January 16, 2007
07:01 PM EST (00:01 GMT)




DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- At Penske Racing they were called the "three amigos," the triumvirate of engineers that made the No. 12 car go.

Driver Ryan Newman, crew chief Matt Borland and lead engineer Michael Nelson had been together since those first ARCA events seven years ago, and were as synonymous with the Alltel team as the sponsor's black and blue logo.

Some say Borland wanted to spend less time on the road and more with his family, others that an 18th-place finish in final Nextel Cup points took its toll. Now it's Nelson in the crew chief's seat this week at Jackson Hewitt Preseason Thunder, his promotion coming after Borland resigned to work for another team.

"It didn't ideally play out the way I'd have liked it to," said Newman, working with a new crew chief for the first time in his Nextel Cup career. "But I still have a ton of respect for Matt. He was still the best man at my wedding. He's still a great friend. My uncle is still restoring one of his old hot rods. It's still a cool deal, it's just not the cool deal that it was."

The company line is that Borland, now Dale Jarrett's crew chief at Michael Waltrip Racing, wanted to spend more time with his wife and daughter. Newman said he could see Borland's eventual departure coming, that he noticed the stress building in his former crew chief as one frustrating week blended into another.

It was at Kansas Speedway, Newman said, when Borland stated his desire to get off the road. Nelson actually assumed crew -hief duties for the final two races of last season, after the Penske brass elected to keep Borland back in North Carolina.

"It was not at all a shock to me. I could see it coming, and I think a lot of people in the garage area saw it," Newman said. "His level of stress was driven from outside of the racetrack as far as wanting to be home with his family.

"He's got a little bit of an advantage now in that Michael Waltrip's shop is literally a quarter-of-a-mile from where he lives. He's going to travel for two years and then maybe take a different role within Michael Waltrip Racing. That will leave him home more with his family, and that's the best thing for him."

But it's also clear that the formula that had made the No. 12 car so successful -- until last season, they had finished no worse than seventh in final points -- was no longer working. Rival organizations caught up to Penske, once ahead of everyone else in engineering. Newman's downturn followed a spate of NASCAR rule changes, and the fuel-mileage gambles the team once thrived on became extinct.

In terms of performance, the 2006 version of the No. 12 team was a long way from the one that had won eight races three years earlier.

"Obviously, last year was a frustrating year for us," Nelson said Tuesday at Daytona International Speedway, where his driver was the fastest in the afternoon session at 184.574 mph.

"Had our results been a little bit different, things could have been different. I didn't necessarily see the change that we had coming. I knew there was a lot of frustration, and we obviously had to assume that we would change something some way or another to try and change those results."

Even Borland will admit that performance played a part.

"We weren't getting the results we needed at Penske, and [leaving] definitely wasn't just a decision on my part," he said last week during the first testing session. "We decided it was time to do something different."

In steps Nelson, an Anderson, S.C., native and Clemson University graduate who sat next to Borland on the pit box through each of Newman's 12 victories. To the driver, he's a known quantity who was a familiar voice over the radio during races, and a familiar presence in debriefings at the shop.

"I spent six years with him just like I did Matt, and he's a very intelligent man," Newman said. "He's a lot better people person than I thought he was. Because Matt was the leader and he respected Matt so much, he didn't really say much. Michael is doing a great job hiring new people."

But Borland is still a presence, personally if not professionally, in the lives of the two friends he left behind. Newman said he still speaks to Borland "every once in a while." Nelson credits Borland for keeping him involved in decision-making processes, and helping to advance his career. And he's bracing for the moment when he sees his old boss wearing the colors of another team.

"I'm sure it will be different," Nelson said. "But I'll still see the same guy I've always known."

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