Rick Crawford has made all 301 of his Truck Series starts for one team, but his owner has never seen him race live. How does the combination work? Trust and loyalty.[Tom] Mitchell had run a CART race team for a few years, and even put a Cup car on the track for 18 races between 1985 and ’86 before concentrating on NASCAR’s All-Pro Series. John Kelly was the driver at Mitchell’s Circle Bar Racing team. Kelly’s brother, Robert, was the head engine builder for Crawford, but moved to the Circle Bar team as crew chief for John. The existing relationship between the Kellys and Crawford ended up in Crawford practicing the Circle Bar car for a few laps one weekend. The results turned heads. Mitchell had plans to shut down the team after the 1990 season. He was finished with racing. He had been burned a few times on business deals, and had lost the glow and enjoyment of racing, according to his daughter. Crawford switched to Ford products and purchased some equipment from Mitchell’s team. He had success with it, but he needed more. He needed strong backing with a rock-solid foundation. So he called Mitchell’s office again. He got the secretary. “She shielded my dad from Rick for quite a while, which was her job — to screen things,” said Lisa Mitchell, who handles her father’s media requests now. “And I think at some point that Rick — he’s such a low-key, nice, gentleman-type person and has that personality — it’s almost like he won her over. Once he convinced her he wasn’t a bad guy out to get Tom, she kind of let the doors open a little bit for Dad to interact with Rick.” Crawford’s persistence rekindled Tom Mitchell’s flame.[just a brief excerpt from an article depicting the history surrounding the long-stand relationship between Circle Bar, The Mitchell Family and Rick Crawford] (Read the entire story at nascar.com)(4-22-2009)
