Nextel Cup crew chief Greg Erwin is one of the key players in the current building process of Robby Gordon Motorsports, the multi-purpose racing conglomerate wielded by its namesake in a widely divergent number of disciplines.

Erwin is in his second stint working with Gordon, currently tuning his No. 7 Chevrolets. Due to Gordon's record at Infineon Raceway, this week's venue -- including 2003 when Gordon won both Cup road races -- Erwin's enthused, but also feeling some pressure about Sunday's Dodge/Save Mart 350.

: Do you have any desire to do the Baja with Robby?

Erwin: A desire to go see it, sure -- but not really to go and work on it, because I know that I really couldn't contribute at a level that he needs. The guys that he has doing that program are very experienced.

I played a lot with some off-road cars growing up; so all that would be interesting to me -- but no. That would be like one of their guys coming over here and actually thinking they could contribute to what we do here.

You have to understand the game, I think, in order to contribute.

Q: When you look at what Robby's off-road team does to compete, working out in the desert or wherever they are, does it make you think you've been living right to be working in Nextel Cup racing?

Erwin: The whole thing has developed so much, over the years, that everybody is such a specialist anymore. It's crazy.

Our schedule alone is what sets this racing series apart, other than the cars and the drivers and the technology, because it's so much different than most other automobile racing series that compete, especially in the United States.

People that come here for the first time, probably the biggest shock to them is how much we're continually on the go -- from morning to night and from weekend to weekend.

And, like Robby says, they campaign that truck for a fixed number of races each year. He has a much more limited staff to do it with. But they have weeks, and sometimes months on end to prepare those things in between.

We just don't have that kind of time. It's two very, very different worlds, I think -- and fortunately common sense still plays a big part in both of them, I'm sure.

Q: Assuming Robby isn't ever going to quit dabbling in other types of racing, whether it's the Busch Series, off-road racing or even Indy cars, what's the biggest challenge in prepping his Nextel Cup cars?

Erwin: The biggest challenge we run into is that Robby is still very involved in running this race team. Although I'm the crew chief, I don't have 100 percent control over the way we do things.

It seems as though sometimes, when he's not around, I have to make decisions on things that matter, but he always has the final say. So probably the biggest challenge is not having him 100 percent involved on a day-to-day basis.

He's just partially involved and then he wants to cram a lot of information exchange into a very short period of time, and then he's off doing something else.

It's frustrating at times. I've not even started the battle of trying to talk him out of doing any of that off-road stuff, because I know that would never happen. It would be useless.

I knew what I was getting into when I came here. I knew what I was in for. I knew what his involvements were.

But if this team and organization can continue to grow at the rate that it's been growing -- not just in the number of people but also in experience and procedurally the way that we do things -- he'll have a very competitive organization here.

He has one now. So next year, I would see it being even stronger.

Q: What's next on your personal list of goals at Robby Gordon Motorsports?

Erwin: To do a better job of scouting, recruiting and maintaining quality people in the shop. We've had some turnover. Some has been on our side and some has been guys choosing to leave for all the normal reasons.

We need to get some stability in our personnel, and then, I think when we have that we can have more stability in the way that we prepare cars.

The manner in which we prepare them and the timeframe that we have to operate in, I think, becomes more concrete when you get more accustomed to peoples' abilities and schedules and tendencies.

The racetrack performance, obviously, is the most important thing but it's the end result of a week's worth of preparation, or to be quite honest, weeks and week's worth of preparation.

And it all begins at the shop. The problems we've had at the racetrack, over the last year that I've been here, the majority of the time they were problems that could have been avoided, given the proper checklists and procedures and personnel -- not just at the shop, but also here on the road.

Q: Looking ahead to Sonoma, given that California's Robby's home and his record there, is there any extra pressure going out there?

Erwin: Yeah, sure there is. It's a lot of pressure, but it's a different kind because you know going out there that you're going to do well, as long as you stay within the parameters.

I know what we ran there last year and I know what he's run there in the years past with RCR, and again, I was with him when he drove that Coors car out there for Felix [Sabates].

As long as we don't get away from his baseline road-course setup you know you're going to go out there and be competitive -- probably one of the top three or four cars out there.

The problems and the pressure come in trying to see the unseen, if I can put it that way. The failures that we take for granted on this mile-and-a-half stuff, because we look at these oval cars so much more than we look at road-course cars.

We don't have near the experience in dealing with brakes and there's shifting in the transmissions and all those things that come into road course racing, that's the biggest unknown.

Q: Is that where Robby's background in car construction and in road racing in different divisions might be your ace in the hole?

Erwin: He plays designer/engineer quite a bit. It's just like anybody else. Some of his ideas I like and we try to incorporate. Some of his ideas I'm not so crazy about, but we incorporate 'em anyway.

His name's on the building, his name's on the racecar and on the hauler here, so for the most part we do what he asks. Sometimes he's not very specific in the way he wants things done, and then we interpret for ourselves.

Sometimes he's very specific in the way he wants things done.

Q: Is he good about giving up on something that doesn't work, even if it was his idea?

Erwin: Yes. He's not too stubborn.

If it doesn't work, if it doesn't show up on the stopwatch or give him the feel he's looking for, he'll be the first one to say, "that wasn't it" or, "I'm sorry I led you down the wrong road on that."

And he does that when he's driving the racecar.

Q: What's the road race test program been like for you this year?

Erwin: We took it to VIR [Virginia International Raceway in Afton] a couple weeks ago for a shakedown.

We had a DEI engine in there and they worked on a few things for us from an engine side that they wanted to put some miles on and make sure it was going to be OK.

They know they have a real good chance of winning the race out there, with Robby, and they don't want to take any chances. So they built us up a road course-spec engine to go up to VIR.

We probably ran 40 or 45 laps up there and put the car through its paces, again, to make sure it was going to shift and steer and stop, and that the brake bias was like he wanted -- and that the engine did everything it was supposed to.

We didn't get too crazy in working on the actual balance for that racetrack -- in fact, I don't think we were geared very well to actually turn a really fast time. But it was more of a shakedown for the car.

Last year, we actually went all the way out to Sonoma to try to do it -- twice. We went out there and got rained out, came home and went back out there a week later. That put us in a hole. That was hard on everybody.

Q: Is there anything new or different on your road-course cars this year?

Erwin: We're going to try a few different things from last year. Some will be setup related -- maybe a little bit different gearing and obviously the DEI engine is going to be different.

Other than that it's the same car. The pit crew has been coming along and they've been getting quite a bit better.

I know we got hurt on fuel mileage last year just a little bit, so I suspect our fuel mileage will be better and with that whole road-course pit strategy, the way that plays out I think our pit strategy should be on par with the guys there this year.

Q: Do you worry about any of the specialists that are brought in for these road races, like Ron Fellows or Scott Pruett or Boris Said? Do you think they ought to be worried about you? Or is it the in-house guys like Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart that cause you the most trouble?

Erwin: They are probably the two guys that we're most concerned about, honestly. You know the road-course ringers, so to speak -- the rental guys, whatever -- are going to be strong.

But those guys, and maybe it's because I'm around them every weekend, but when I think about road courses, you have to think Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon. Those guys have shown dominance over the years -- as has Robby -- he won 'em both just a couple years ago.

But I think if you talk to most people in the garage, they would mention those three guys. Certainly Fellows is fast, and everybody that goes out there that does road-course testing for some of these bigger teams, they have a lot of time in those [road-course] cars.

I'm sure Scott Pruett will be out for Ganassi again, and I know he's been testing with Ganassi ever since I worked at Chip's four years ago. So he's got a long history with them and I'm sure they've got great racecars for him.

It just comes down to, I don't want to say luck, but keeping the thing on the racetrack and what we talked about earlier -- you can't have any mechanical failures.

We're going to spend extra time going through that racecar, front to back, working on things that we can see. There are going to be things that we aren't able to predict, so we'll cross our fingers and hope we don't have any real part failures.

Q: I don't think you can question Robby's focus, but since California's what it is, and it's his home, what's the strangest or oddest thing that's occurred with you and he around racing out there?

Erwin: I think probably the thing that makes everybody wonder -- not just when we go to Sonoma, but whenever we go out West, to Phoenix or Fontana -- is what Robby's going to show up at the track with, that week.

He always has a new dune buggy or a hot rod truck -- he had that '55 Chevy street rod a few years ago at Fontana -- and I think we were in Fontana earlier this year and he brought his Hummer from Dakar.

It had its 38-inch jacks and he had it all jacked-up in the coach lot and all the wheels off the ground. That's probably the biggest thing.

He does a real good job of keeping his personal friends and family out there -- he doesn't mix them with the racing team or the racing guys. Maybe I should do a better job of paying attention -- I don't know.

But that's probably the biggest thing -- what's Robby going to bring to the track this week? Or where does Robby want to take us this Saturday afternoon? Are we going into the desert?

He's real good about sharing. He's a pretty generous person, deep down. He comes across a certain way, sometimes, and he can be a little hard to work for, but he can be very generous, as well.

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