After a year where hardly any sponsors stepped up to fund big-time rides for new drivers, there will still be a bunch of people on new teams come Speedweeks in February at Daytona.
Sure, there may be one decent ride available at this point after Kurt Busch left the #22 Dodge vacant, but whoever fills that spot will be the seventh driver among those who finished in the top 30 in points last season to either strap into a car for a different Sprint Cup Series team in 2012 or still be without a ride for next season.
In addition to the driver changes, at least 12 crew chiefs who worked for teams that finished in the top 30 in points last year will sit atop a different pit box during the Daytona 500 than the one they sat on at the beginning of the 2011 season.
That means nearly one-third of the teams in the field for the Daytona 500 will look different than they did at that race a year ago. That is amazing considering all of the talk of there being no opportunities to move in the sport and everybody better stick at their current job because there likely won’t be another option.
Of course, many of these moves weren’t made by the choice of the driver or the crew chief. The crew chiefs for drivers such as Greg Biffle and Juan Pablo Montoya were replaced mid-season and crew chiefs for Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin were let go from their respective teams once the season ended.
Team lineups have been relatively stable during the past several years, but 2011 will go down as the year where a bunch of crew chiefs lost their job, or at least changed teams. This sort of shuffle happens every few years, and the stability during Jimmie Johnson’s run of five championships is remarkable considering every other team lost for five years in a row.
Overall, the group of Sprint Cup Series drivers has also remained pretty stable in the last five or six years. Early in the last decade, NASCAR had a large influx of young drivers enter the sport, but once the group of drivers such as Kasey Kahne, Ryan Newman and Jamie McMurray reached the Cup level, the pipeline of young drivers quickly shut off.
Just look at the rookies of the year for the past five seasons. Montoya and Joey Logano both finished 20th in the points in their rookie seasons, but the other three have failed to crack the top 30.
This current group of drivers might not have changed much in the past several years, but this year an entire new group of crew chiefs will take their spots atop the pit box for new teams.
One might think all of the crew chief changes could shuffle the running order at many of the races next season. However, just two of those changes happened to teams that finished in the top 10 in points, and one of them just won the championship. The teams that finished outside the top 10 needed to make changes because the current setup obviously wasn’t working too well.
All of the personnel changes could make for a season similar to 2011 where multiple drivers won their first race and no team really pulled away from the pack. Or, it could make for a season where the same top 10 teams dominate as the other teams work to build their chemistry and performance on the track.
For the sake of many race fans, here’s hoping we get another season where different teams show up at the front of the field each race.
Showing posts with label crew chief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crew chief. Show all posts
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Hendrick shuffles crew chiefs and teams for 2011
Just days after winning his 10th championship, Rick Hendrick has swapped the crew chiefs for 75 percent of his organization and switched which teams will work in the same shop together for the 2011 season.
Steve Letarte will move from Jeff Gordon’s #24 team to lead Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the #88 team. Earnhardt Jr.’s former crew chief Lance McGrew will take the position with Mark Martin’s #5 team previously held by Alan Gustafson, who will call the shots for Gordon in 2011.
The only team left intact this offseason is the championship winning #48 team with Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus. However, it is still unclear whether the old #48 pit crew will return to pit Johnson’s car in 2011 or if it will remain with the #24 group. Also, the #48 team will be affected by the changes because it will no longer be able to work side-by-side with the #24 team. Instead, the often dysfunctional #88 team will move in alongside.
Obviously, Hendrick wants to make Earnhardt Jr. as competitive as possible, but is he risking the overall success of his organization to do so? The #48 and #24 teams have both finished in the top 10 in the final standings in eight out of the last nine seasons, or every year but one of Johnson’s career.
The main issue at hand is the performance of the #88 team. If Earnhardt Jr. had made the Chase and Martin came nowhere close, I don’t think we would have seen these changes. Overall, as with most changes, there are pros and cons to the move.
First, if Earnhardt Jr. isn’t successful in 2011, he’s never going to be successful at Hendrick Motorsports. Hendrick promised in 2010 to give the #88 team all of the resources necessary to put a competitive car on the track, yet Earnhardt Jr. was rarely in contention at any race. So, now Hendrick has gone to the edge. He broke up the dynasty that was the 24/48 shop. The success out of that shop has been unmatched in the sport for a decade, but now it may finally come to an end.
For those who love to hate Johnson and Gordon, 2011 might be the year those two slip. Knaus and Johnson will still be right at the top of the standings in 2011, but they will also be carrying the weight of the #88 team, even though Letarte and Knaus will still be able to work together. I guess we’ll finally find out whether it’s the driver or the car that hasn’t been able to make the #88 team go.
Overall, the crew chief change will probably work out well for Gordon, because Gustafson knows what he is doing on top of a pit box. That guy is good. However, the other two moves might not work out quite as well.
If Letarte hasn’t been able to win with Gordon in almost two years, why would he suddenly find Victory Lane with Earnhardt Jr.? But, the most confusing move in all of this is the thought of McGrew working with Martin. I just don’t see those two personalities meshing very well. McGrew is a tough guy who was brought in to bring some discipline to the #88 team and get away from the family/buddy team Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Eury Jr. had assembled.
Martin is a professional in every sense of the word, and he doesn’t need a hard-nosed guy to lead his team. At this point, Martin also knows what he needs out of a car better than almost any driver in the field, and a technical guy on the pit box can work with him to dial it in. McGrew is not that type of guy. He is there to motivate people, something Martin does not need.
Maybe these changes won’t noticeably affect the performance of the Hendrick cars, but the door is now open for the Hendrick dynasty to come to an end. NASCAR has hurt itself in the past decade by making short-sighted changes; maybe Hendrick just made such a change.
Steve Letarte will move from Jeff Gordon’s #24 team to lead Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the #88 team. Earnhardt Jr.’s former crew chief Lance McGrew will take the position with Mark Martin’s #5 team previously held by Alan Gustafson, who will call the shots for Gordon in 2011.
The only team left intact this offseason is the championship winning #48 team with Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus. However, it is still unclear whether the old #48 pit crew will return to pit Johnson’s car in 2011 or if it will remain with the #24 group. Also, the #48 team will be affected by the changes because it will no longer be able to work side-by-side with the #24 team. Instead, the often dysfunctional #88 team will move in alongside.
Obviously, Hendrick wants to make Earnhardt Jr. as competitive as possible, but is he risking the overall success of his organization to do so? The #48 and #24 teams have both finished in the top 10 in the final standings in eight out of the last nine seasons, or every year but one of Johnson’s career.
The main issue at hand is the performance of the #88 team. If Earnhardt Jr. had made the Chase and Martin came nowhere close, I don’t think we would have seen these changes. Overall, as with most changes, there are pros and cons to the move.
First, if Earnhardt Jr. isn’t successful in 2011, he’s never going to be successful at Hendrick Motorsports. Hendrick promised in 2010 to give the #88 team all of the resources necessary to put a competitive car on the track, yet Earnhardt Jr. was rarely in contention at any race. So, now Hendrick has gone to the edge. He broke up the dynasty that was the 24/48 shop. The success out of that shop has been unmatched in the sport for a decade, but now it may finally come to an end.
For those who love to hate Johnson and Gordon, 2011 might be the year those two slip. Knaus and Johnson will still be right at the top of the standings in 2011, but they will also be carrying the weight of the #88 team, even though Letarte and Knaus will still be able to work together. I guess we’ll finally find out whether it’s the driver or the car that hasn’t been able to make the #88 team go.
Overall, the crew chief change will probably work out well for Gordon, because Gustafson knows what he is doing on top of a pit box. That guy is good. However, the other two moves might not work out quite as well.
If Letarte hasn’t been able to win with Gordon in almost two years, why would he suddenly find Victory Lane with Earnhardt Jr.? But, the most confusing move in all of this is the thought of McGrew working with Martin. I just don’t see those two personalities meshing very well. McGrew is a tough guy who was brought in to bring some discipline to the #88 team and get away from the family/buddy team Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Eury Jr. had assembled.
Martin is a professional in every sense of the word, and he doesn’t need a hard-nosed guy to lead his team. At this point, Martin also knows what he needs out of a car better than almost any driver in the field, and a technical guy on the pit box can work with him to dial it in. McGrew is not that type of guy. He is there to motivate people, something Martin does not need.
Maybe these changes won’t noticeably affect the performance of the Hendrick cars, but the door is now open for the Hendrick dynasty to come to an end. NASCAR has hurt itself in the past decade by making short-sighted changes; maybe Hendrick just made such a change.
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