Sadler noted that one of the main keys to his success within the team is crew chief Kevin Meendering, who has been the No. 1 team’s leader since Sadler first came to JR Motorsports.
“Kevin Meendering is my hero; I love that man. He’s brought a lot of life back to my career as a race car driver,” said Sadler. “Working with him and the communication that we have between one another … he makes it fun to drive race cars and he’s given me a lot of race cars that were fun to drive over the last few years and are fun to drive right now, as well.
“It is frustrating not to win more often, because I want to win for my guys. It’s about them; it’s not about me. They deserve to be in victory lane and share that moment, and that’s what I want to give to them.”
Sadler stressed that even though he’s not sprayed the champagne in victory lane yet this year, it’s not been from a lack of chances to do so or any difficulty in performance.
He’s completed all but one lap of action this year and leads the Xfinity Series in top-fives and top-10s. Sadler also missed out on a win in the season-opener at Daytona Int’l Speedway in February by four ten-thousandths (.0004) of a second to teammate Tyler Reddick.
“We’ve definitely been running well enough to put ourselves in position to win,” noted Sadler. “We lost at Daytona by an inch or two, and at Talladega I had the fastest car I think I’ve ever had in 22 years of racing, and we got collected in a mess coming to pit road after the 42 (Nemechek) wrecked underneath us and we got a penalty. That one sticks in my mind as one that really got away from us.
“At Richmond, we ran very well through the middle part of the race and at Dover, we were strong all weekend and just got outrun by Justin (Allgaier) there after some good, hard racing between the two of us,” Sadler continued. “I don’t think it’s one specific thing that we’re pointing to as something that we have to do to win; I just think I probably have to do a little bit better job on the communication side so that we can get our cars better at the end of these races.”
At the end of the day, Sadler smiles because he knows he’s got the chance of a lifetime to continue following his passion at the race track each week.
“All in all, we’ve had a very strong season so far,” Sadler noted. “I can’t complain too much. I’m very happy and very content with where I’m at in my life and in my career. It’s a dream come true to be where I am and doing what I’m doing.”
