Crew Helps Carry Morris To Another Championship Season
Las Vegas — The driver is the one with his name attached to the race results, the one interviewed in Victory Lane, and the one who gets to hold the trophy for the cameras. But for Philip Morris, the 2008 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Championship was very much a team effort.
Morris, of Ruckersville, Va., racked up 14 wins and 23 top-five finishes in 26 starts en route to his second NASCAR Whelen All-American Series title in the last three years and his third top three finish in a row. Although he is undoubtedly one of the premier race car drivers in the nation, Morris knows the importance of an entire team putting forth the effort week-in and week-out.
“When you’re by yourself working on a task, you lose heart,” Morris said. “But when you have guys that are shouldering up beside you, getting dirty, getting tired, having to drink Mountain Dew and coffee real late at night – I’d say I owe this championship to my crew chief Chad McCoy and the whole gang.”
Morris brought each of his crew members out to Last Vegas for the championship festivities, which will conclude with the 27th Annual NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Awards Banquet Friday night in the Rio Hotel.
In addition to McCoy, Morris’ crew consists of car chief Billy Adkins, mechanic Jason Adkins, mechanic Jeff Coffee, Web site manager Kris Janezic, mechanic and cook Robert Johnson, tire man Darrell Sowers, team manager Calvin Spencer, and spotter Scott Totty.
“My crew members are volunteers that work normal jobs day-in and day-out and then sweat out another eight hours with me,” Morris said. “Sometimes they’ve had to take off work to go test, which in the later part of the season we really spent a lot of time testing, and everybody was on board and everybody was gung-ho. Everybody agreed that if we worked hard enough we could do it.”
Morris especially singled-out McCoy for being the backbone of the entire team.
“Chad McCoy would probably give himself the least amount of credit for us being competitive,” Morris said. “He is a very humble guy who doesn’t claim to know anything, but he knows a lot. He’s one of the go-to guys, he’s always there, he’s the one you can count on.”
After consecutive seasons inside the top three in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series standings, Morris’ team headed into the 2008 campaign with another national title as the focus.
“This year was a much more calculated effort towards a national title, starting from day one all the way through with the championship in the crosshairs,” Morris said. “It was better executed, just following through with the swing every week. We utilized all of our resources for the very end. Personal resources to, not just financial, but time, effort, energy, technology and research and development.”
Morris believes that careful planning and the total dedication to sticking to the plan was a big factor in getting the No. 26 Clarence’s Steakhouse/Spencer & Brown Crane & Rigging/Trailer Town USA team to where they are today: National Champions.
“It all goes back to really deciding where you’re going to race, and making a commitment to race against the hardest people you can race,” said Morris, who also won his sixth Late Model title at his home track of Motor Mile Speedway in Radford, Va. “You’ve also got to go with the track. Our average car count this year was probably around 28, which is one of the highest in the nation. Along with that comes such a competitive field, which makes life really tough.”
Las Vegas and the 2008 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Awards Banquet is a fitting end to a tough – albeit very successful – season for the team.
Sources: Jason Cunningham/NASCAR WA-AS PR