For Tony Stewart's right-hand man, Bobby Hutchens, 2009 was a heart-breaking season

  Bobby Hutchens (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)  

 
   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   CONCORD, N.C.
   It was heart-wrenching to watch, as the final chapters unfolded.
   But Bobby Hutchens' long ordeal is now over.
   Or maybe, as anyone who has lost a spouse knows, he's just begun down a different road.
   Probably not one of us hasn't been affected at sometime in our lives by the death of someone close, and too many of us have had to deal, however close or at whatever distance, with the decline of a loved one to cancer.
   Hutchens, whose lost his wife Sharon a month ago, is now trying to find the right road back.
   "When I went back to work that Monday, the guys told me I could take some more time off," Hutchens said.
    "I won't say it's the easiest thing I've ever done....but I took a week off and then came back, and now I'm ready.
    "I don't know anything else to do.
   "I'll have to admit – and I told these guys this when I came back – that I feel clearer in my head now. She and I fought this for five years, and the last year was really a struggle..."
   The Hutchens' long battle took a turn for the worse last September, just as Tony Stewart and teammate Ryan Newman were charging down the stretch of the regular season, part of an amazing first-year run for the redesigned team now headed by owner-driver Stewart, with Hutchens as competition director.
   Every Monday, after wherever the race had been, Hutchens would be at his wife's side for chemo in Winston-Salem. "And whenever she had issues I was out too.
   "You don't realize subconsciously how that wears on you....and now some of that weight is off my shoulders."
   The strain of it all appeared telling on the team itself, which seemed to falter down the stretch after such a strong run during the regular season.
  
  

  Bobby Hutchens: the N.C. State engineering grad who knows race cars literally from the inside-out (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   But a new season is now on the horizon.
   Hutchens, 45, has been a fixture in NASCAR for a long time, going back to his teenage days racing at Bowman Gray Stadium in Modifieds. After a long run as competition boss at Richard Childress', Hutchens, in mid-2008, got the assignment to try to rescue Dale Earnhardt Inc. However, despite having four teams in the top-35 that season, sponsorships ran out, and DEI was forced to merge with another team.
   And Hutchens moved on, to help Stewart launch this new venture, which has been a resounding success.
   Can they all build on what they developed over 2009?
   First, they and the rest of the Sprint Cup teams will have to come to terms with the engineering and driving challenges of the new 'old' flat-blade rear spoiler, which NASCAR wants to phase in, replacing the criticized rear wing, in late March and early April – with the April 10th Phoenix and April 18th Texas races seen as key.
   And these teams will also have to deal with new, larger, restrictor plates – and thus more horsepower, and a faster closing rate – at Daytona....and what that might mean for Talladega April 25th, with the then-expected flat-blade spoiler (Daytona will feature the current wing).
   "I think they're waiting to get through Daytona and see what happens before getting into Talladega," Hutchens says. A test is tentatively planned at the Alabama track in mid-March.
    A few key issues here: How much more downforce, if any, will the new flat-blade spoiler create? Will it in fact move the front-rear downforce balance closer to the nose, and make the cars turn better? And how will drivers deal with the air patterns around the new aerodynamics?
    Hutchens says after spending more than two years developing aerodynamics around the rear wing, the flat-blade makes it a whole new ballgame.
   "I wouldn't even venture to guess how the downforce will be affected," Hutchens says of the blade, which NASCAR first plans to set at a tall 70-degrees and at four inches. Even though the blade spoiler was a long-time NASCAR staple, for some 30 years, the current car-of-tomorrow has always been fitted with the wing.
   "We don't have any data or race time or test time with this new car with the blade to consider all that – because we've got a taller, wider greenhouse, different quarterpanels, and the 'splitter' (front bumper valence) in the front, so the air is going over the cars differently.
   "If NASCAR is going to put that flat blade spoiler on us at Talladega, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have a big test at that track before the race."
   The cost of all this? "We need to have the best product we can have out there on the weekends....and at the end of the day if this makes the product better, we're all better off," Hutchens says. "NASCAR is sensitive about costs...but this isn't about costs, this is about trying to make the racing better."
   Indeed the sentiment among teams so far is that it's a very good move by NASCAR to start allowing some changes like this, to let teams have a hand in making things happen.
   NASCAR already has a major test of the new rear spoiler for Charlotte Motor Speedway in late March.
   Greg Zipadelli, the crew chief for Joey Logano, says that he would be even more concerned about having a big test at Daytona sometime in June with the new aerodynamic package, before the July Fourth weekend 400, because Daytona is much more of a handling track than Talladega.
   And then of course there is the not-so-inconsiderable issue of tires. Goodyear has come up with an excellent lineup of tires over the past year, because of extensive testing, after numerous issues in 2008. More downforce on these cars could throw a wrench in that part of the game.
   On the plus side – all this should keep Hutchens busy. And that may be the best medicine.
 
 
   
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  Tony Stewart (C), leader of the Stewart-Newman gang, with (L-R) crew chief Tony Gibson, Ryan Newman, Stewart, crew chief Darien Grubb, and competition director Bobby Hutchens (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)