Massive schedule makes for bad haircuts

Mike Harris

Thursday, Nov. 1, 2001 | 5:42 a.m.

Dean Mozingo has had some very bad haircuts this year.

But Mozingo, the truck driver for Terry Labonte's No. 5 Chevrolet, isn't complaining. He's just citing an example of what the longest season in the last 30 years of NASCAR racing has been like.

"It's been pretty hard," Mozingo said, leaning against the gleaming semitrailer truck.

He and Dave Radney have driven it to Winston Cup races and numerous test sessions from coast to coast and border to border just about every week this year.

"We haven't been home very much," Mozingo said. "And when we are, there's not much time to get anything done. You don't even have time to have a regular barber, so we get a lot of haircuts on the road, and some of them are pretty bad.

"I am a little tired, a little worn out. With the year we've had, I'm ready to start over next year."

That's a common feeling the days in the garage area, where the usual high energy level is somewhat dimmed and few people want to talk about having four more races the four weeks.

Everybody needs a break from a schedule that includes a modern-day record 36 races, including the Pop Secret Microwave 400 on Sunday at North Carolina Speedway.

NASCAR's top series has had only four weekends off since the season began in February in Daytona Beach, Fla., and one of those was due to the postponement to Nov. 23 of a race in New Hampshire four days after the terrorist attacks.

"All that did, though, was make the season a little longer and a little harder," Radney said.

Everyone knew coming in how physically tough the schedule was going to be. But no one could have predicted the stress added to the situation by the death of seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt in the season opening Daytona 500, or the horrifying events of Sept. 11.

Ty Norris, executive vice president of motorsports for Dale Earnhardt Inc., has been in the middle of the storm since the death of Earnhardt, his boss and friend.

"Dale Earnhardt was just as much a motivator for our team off the track as he was on it," Norris said. "To have that big of a void is just devastating to a company."

Racing goes on, though, for DEI and the rest of the teams.

"I think what you find in all the racers is resiliency," Norris said. "This group can spring back from some of the most tragic situations, from a tiring situation, situations that have the most pressure. I think it's because all these guys who work in this garage are conditioned to it."

There also is a certain amount of resignation in accepting things that happen - good or bad.

"My wife and I had a long conversation about a month ago about how numb you can become to things," Norris said. "The guys in this garage area are so used to adverse situations, whether it be competition on a racetrack, personal issues, sponsor issues or life and death situations. They handle it."

Norris attributes that to passion.

"People drive themselves to be successful in this sport," he said. "It's more of a passion to do this than it is a job.

"Right now the schedule is so brutal on families. It is the worst schedule in professional sports, bar none. When you have to hear how your son did in a Little League game or how he is doing in school over the phone, or see how shocked he is to see you at home on a Monday morning, it's hard.

"However, it's what everyone here has chosen to do, and they get paid well for doing it."

Paul Andrews, crew chief for Alan Kulwicki when the former champion was killed in a 1993 plane crash and now in a similar job with one of the cars owned by DEI, said living through the death of his boss in February was like a flashback.

"There are definitely some similarities," Andrews said. "It just makes you realize everybody's vulnerable. It gives you a different perspective on life, I believe."

Andrews, like so many people in NASCAR, throws himself into his work to get through the difficult times. That isn't easy, either.

"The schedule alone makes it tough on everyone, whether you're a crew chief or a mechanic," he said. "There are a lot of demands on a team to run the full season and have time to yourself. Sometimes you can do it, sometimes you can't.

"The smaller the team, the harder it is to get time off for your road guys. We try to keep coming up with ways to make it better for our employees, but you've got to have people who enjoy doing what they do or it doesn't work."

Norris said he and others at DEI couldn't help but laugh when NASCAR announced that the postponed New Hampshire race would be run the day after Thanksgiving.

"To have to take one of your two seemingly protected family days and give it up to go to Loudon to finish the season, it makes you laugh because it's just so typical of this season," he said. "I think when that checkered flag falls in Loudon, the wind's going to blow about 250 miles an hour when everyone takes that big sigh of relief that it's over."