CHARLOTTE, North Carolina – The 2015 NASCAR XFINITY Series season hasn’t started, but Elliott Sadler is already feeling exuberant. With the season-opener three weeks away, Sadler’s exemplifying he’s in a great place at Roush Fenway Racing, as he prepares to embrace his seventh season of XFINITY competition.
Sadler, 38, left Joe Gibbs Racing after a two-year stint and mediocre success. Two years before that he joined Richard Childress Racing all with one goal in mind: championship.
Four years later, Sadler and sponsor OneMain are still looking to hoist that championship trophy. He came close in 2011 and 2012 as a runner-up both times. Many expected the move to Gibbs to bring the organization their first championship since 2009, but the combination was unable to deliver.
“I really wasn’t close the last couple of years like I was the first two years when Ricky (Stenhouse Jr.) and I battled together,” said Sadler. “It’s definitely frustrating not winning that championship, cause it’s something I want to be able to give to my parents – to my dad who sacrificed so much as I was a kid coming along so I could have the good stuff to race with.”
But despite one win, seven top-fives and 25 top-10 finishes (the most in his XFINITY career) last year Sadler knew it was time to change the landscape once again.
“We (OneMain and Sadler) didn’t feel like we fit in over at the Gibbs place, so we decided we wanted to go in another direction and decided to do that.”
With the graduation of Trevor Bayne to full-time Sprint Cup, the doors opened to bring Sadler and OneMain Financial to the Concord, North Carolina-based operation.
But, there was still one condition — Phil Gould.
Sadler worked with Gould during his two-year tenure at Richard Childress Racing and while the results were more than gratifying, the duo departed with unfinished business.
“That’s hard to swallow to not win the championship,” Sadler recalled. “Is it incentive? You damn right. I still just eat, sleep drink racing 24 hours a day. I still have that fire to want to win that championship. That’s what my number one goal is. I don’t care how we did it or how we try to make it happen.”
Gould left a promising combination with Brian Scott at Richard Childress Racing to join Sadler in his next racing chapter to finish what they started in 2011.
The addition of Gould though has the ability to do more than just bring Roush Fenway Racing a championship form, he has the credentials and motivation to lead them to a championship title for the first time since Ricky Stenhouse Jr did in 2012.
The task won’t be easy, but Sadler knows there isn’t a better more knowledgeable person in the garage that could lead the brigade other than Gould.
“We’re going to be good,” Sadler said with a smile. “I’m in such a great place right now. So a great atmosphere right now at that shop. I brought Phil (Gould) over. He and I had a lot of success at Childress together, won a lot of races and lots of poles together. He’s come in with so much optimism. We like what we see at that shop.
“We’ve made a lot of changes. We’re changing a lot of things, but the tools are there to make us competitive. I have so much more optimism this year than I’ve had the last couple of years about how we’re going to run and the way the season going to go. We’re going to be in great shape.”
Jointly, Sadler and Gould are hoping that the changes will produce to on-track results and a championship-caliber race team – much like fellow competitor Ernie Cope did with JR Motorsports, the defending championship team.
“JRM is going to be tough,” Sadler admitted. “When they hired Ernie Cope to go over there a couple years ago, I told my guys then at Gibbs they (JRM) just changed the whole landscape of this series. And it showed. They won more races in one year than they won ever since their existence. I knew if I brought Phil in it would do the same thing with our race team. He’s going to change the way this organization runs as a whole. He’s (already) changed the landscape of our race team. The same way Ernie has changed it with JRM.
“The Ford Mustang is a really good racecar. I didn’t realize how good it was until we got over here and saw the numbers and saw what it could do. If we could put our normal package under it, we should be in really good shape.”
For OneMain, the move made sense too as they continue one of the longest XFINITY Series driver / sponsor relationships.
“OneMain has been at Roush Fenway Racing before and has wins here in the XFINITY Series so they feel very comfortable here, they feel welcome here and I think Roush Fenway is happy to have them.”
The sky is the limit for Sadler and Gould and while it’s remained to be seen if their chemistry can work a second time – with a new team and another manufacturer, one thing is for certain they seem to think so and that could spell trouble for the rest of the competition.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
