In the Field: Elliott Sadler

I hope everyone got to see me last weekend in Texas. It was kind of a sneak preview of what I'll look like all winter.

Not only will I have a cool and different paint scheme this weekend at Phoenix, on our No. 19 Siemens/Dodge Dealers Charger -- I'm looking a little different, myself.

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As we discussed a few weeks ago, it's deer hunting season back home in Virginia; and you know I'll be spending all the time there that I can for these last two weeks of the season -- even after Texas -- and then right through the holidays and the end of the hunting campaign.

As part of my hunting regimen, yes, my beard has grown out. I'll have to maintain it a little over the next two weekends but after that it's all about being an outdoorsman. Hunting involves a certain amount of trekking through the woods and dealing with brambles and vines and twigs and things of that nature -- so I need to protect this mug of mine for next season's Sprint Cup.

Texas was the second top-15 finish in a row for our No. 19 team, and it was a good first race with Rodney Childers, who has stepped in as team director on our car. Rodney came over from the 10 car, where he had been working with Scott Riggs, and Scott McDougall went over as the team director for the 10.

We'll keep that alignment on our car for the rest of the season, and Scott will be working with Patrick Carpentier this weekend on the Valvoline/Stanley Tools Charger.

For Rodney and I, the communication was good. We had a good team effort, so it's fun when you're making progress and we've done that in recent weeks. We want to turn those top-15 finishes into top-10s these final two races.

Our thought process on making the change was simple. We went ahead as a company and are trying to kind of line our teams up now to get ready for next year, so we brought Rodney over, to give us a chance to work with each other.

I think there is a big difference in working with someone rather than speculating over the winter how you are going to work together starting at Daytona. It's a lot easier to work together at a test, like a Kentucky or whatever, because you've got computers and you can sit there and analyze all the data that goes on in a racecar.

It's a lot harder to do it at the racetrack where you've got to work strictly off communication, so Ray [Evernham] and Sammy [Johns, Gillett Evernham competition director] and the guys decided to put our team together for now, work really hard for these last races, and learn as much as we can about each other and go from there.

These last few races have really been a breath of fresh air in a frustrating season. All of us have been running a lot better the last two months than we have all season long, so we feel pretty excited about our chances at the end of the season and as we move into next year.

Our COT program has just improved by leaps and bounds from where we first started the season, so it makes us excited about going to Phoenix. It makes us excited about going to the Daytona 500 as well as we all ran at Talladega.

We feel good about our stuff. We were behind, but everybody dug in deep and put a lot of extra hours in at the shop. It is very hard to play catch-up in this sport. I mean, it really is.

I am very proud of my guys for doing that. We've been beaten down pretty bad this year with the finishes and the stuff that we had going against us, but the guys have made some great improvements and we feel pretty good about our chances going into Daytona next year.

We feel like we are going to have some really good cars for all of Speedweeks and we'll just build on it from there.

I want to get back in the Chase and I think we can. That's why I came to [what is now] Gillett Evernham. I wanted to be a part of the Chase. I've done it before and just missed it one other time, another year.

I think we can get it done. I feel like my team right now, with the people we have in place with Rodney, Kevin [Kidd, team engineer] and all the guys, we have a good enough and strong enough team to do that.

We've got to do a lot of homework this winter. We've got to make sure that when we get to Daytona that we have all the front-end stuff, all the COT package, everything we need to be competitive because right out of Daytona is California, Las Vegas and Atlanta -- a lot of great, fast racetracks.

We feel like we had a decent test in Atlanta with the COT. We felt like we learned some things and you know, we'll see. Kasey [Kahne] and I are working very well together right now and we are sharing a lot of information.

We've got to do that all winter long and get ready for next season, but we are definitely going into next season thinking we can make the Chase.

I'll tell you one thing. I'm really looking forward to working with Patrick Carpentier, who'll join our group at Phoenix this weekend. I'm especially trying to tune up my impersonation of Patrick.

I think he ran very well at the COT test in Atlanta. He's a very nice guy and he's got a lot to learn. Kasey and I are going to try and help him as much as we can. I love the way that he explains stuff.

I can't do his accent right now on cue, but I'll get better at it and maybe try and get it at Phoenix. I look forward to helping him.

They're putting some good guys around him so we'll see. I think there is going to be a learning curve. We just have to do our job as teammates and as teams to try and help the No. 10 out as much as we can each and every week, because the first five or six races next year are going to be tough on everybody.

Elliott Sadler, now in his ninth full season in the Cup Series, shares weekly with NASCAR.COM readers life on the road through staff writer Dave Rodman.