A test of metal and mettle

HAMPTON, Ga. – A $250 part can be worth millions in misery and aggravation.

That’s roughly the cost of a rear axle used in Sprint Cup cars, the kind every team purchases and builds into machines worth hundreds of thousands and that represent sponsorships worth millions.

One of those $250 axles went bad on Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s No. 88 Chevrolet at Fontana, Calif., a few weeks ago, knocking him out of the race and sending a wave of anxiety through Hendrick Motorsports engineers, who had built identical parts into the team’s other three cars. Jimmie Johnson’s rear axle showed extreme wear, team officials said, but survived long enough to take him to Victory Lane.

But what about cars built for the next three races? Las Vegas passed without incident, but Atlanta Motor Speedway, where the Kobalt Tools 500 is scheduled Sunday, is another issue.

Inexpensive parts and pieces have a way of coming undone. At Phoenix in 2006, a window net fastener broke on Kurt Busch’s No. 2 Dodge, prompting NASCAR to black-flag him, sending him from the lead pack to a lap down and a 24th-place finish.

Machines break. Parts fail. The humans who build and install them are fallible.

No one is immune, not Hendrick Motorsports, which has dominated the sport since 2005.

Though Hendrick’s other cars endured to the end of that Fontana race, Johnson’s rear axle was within about six laps of failing, Earnhardt Jr. crew chief Lance McGrew said. HMS vice president of development Doug Duchardt said Friday the problem was not with the axle but how they were applied. He believes the problem was remedied at Las Vegas.

Few tracks expose lapses in metal and mettle like Atlanta, where Sunday a 1.54-mile crucible of long, smooth banking will create high RPMs, high speeds, long green-flag runs and incredible stress on parts.

“It’s very fast. Vegas was fast, only it was 100 miles shorter,” Duchardt said. “So you see guys who find different lines and get up in that high line and the engine wound up … it can definitely be hard on engines.

"The weather is cool, so you’re making more power. It’s bumpy. It’s hard on all the components.”

Teams attempt to attain quality control by creating as many parts as possible within their own shops. But teams cannot make everything.

“It turns out in Kurt’s case that the fasteners for the window net – although it looked the same as what we had before – the vendor had changed suppliers, and with no notice whatsoever,” said Tim Cindric, the Penske team president. “It breaks your heart when something like that happens.”

Alliances in modern NASCAR could mean that such quality control issues bite more than one team. Roush Fenway, for instance, has a direct link to 13 Fords.

“You always worry about the unintended consequences,” said Roush Fenway design manager Jim Ryder. “You move a part a half-inch, for whatever reason, and then there’s some unintended consequence for Team C that you’re supplying.”

Duchardt doesn’t have that long to figure out if those axles are going to hold.

“Atlanta is different than Vegas,” he said, “so I’ll tell you Sunday afternoon.”