2009 Crew Chief Moves

January 4, 5:13 PMDetroit NASCAR ExaminerJosh Lobdell

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Every off-season it is my tradition to hang out on the Jayski Team Chart page, and figure out which driver is where and who there crew chief is going to be. Since this has been a tremulous off season there are many changes some of them seem to make sense, while other seem to not. Here is a look at a few of each.

Chip Bolin of the #17 Matt Kenseth team is moving back into an engineering role and Nationwide Crew Chief Drew Blickensderfer is assuming the crew chief role for Kenseth.

This is a great move, Drew and Kenseth worked together in the Nationwide series and had some success there. Drew was also able to turn around Carl Edward’s 2008 Nationwide campaign. Look for this new combo to achieve early success.

Shane Wilson moves up from the Richard Childress Nationwide operation to assume crew chief on the new #33 ride with driver Clint Bowyer. I like this move as well as Wilson has been one of the best crew chiefs of NASCAR’s junior circuit over the past three seasons. I would expect this duo to win multiple races in 2009.

I don’t understand why Roush Fenway decided to move Larry Carter from Jamie McMurray’s #26 team over to the #98 team of Paul Menard. Donnie Wingo moves over from Ganassi racing to assume the crew chief role for McMurray. Sure Jaime and Donnie were together at Ganassi but they did not win any races, but they did finish just outside Chase qualification two years in a row. Hopefully these moves will finally being to the surface all the potential that Roush saw in McMurray.

I also question the move of Stewart Haas Racing hiring Darian Grubb. Sure he has the experience with the Hendrick equipment that team will be using, but we have seen plenty of engineering guys not be able to move over to the crew chief role. Sure Grubb won a Daytona 500 with Jimmie Johnson while Chad Knaus was serving a suspension but Tony is hardly as soft spoken as Jimmie. I really wonder how this relationship is going to play out.

Another move I don’t quite understand is Stewart Haas racing hiring ex DEI crew chief Tony Gibson for the #39 Ryan Newman team when the team already employs Matt Borland. Matt and Ryan were an excellent combination and neither has ever been able to achieve any kind of success since they were split up. Either they have a personal falling out or this just makes too much sense.

Another big move that I cannot believe has happened yet is the firing of Tony Eury Jr., as Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s crew chief. This paring has never worked, and it seemed last year that Rick Hendrick was on the verge of making this move. If anyone has listened to the in car conversation between these two it is a wonder that they can even manage to get the car of the truck at the race track each weekend.

Apparently I am not the only who thinks this. I ran into this article by David Exum, of scenedaily.com who lays out a very convincing argument as to why this move must be made.

In the end though I am sure that some of these new driver/crew chief combos will surprise us. Some of them will work out for the better, while other will not. As the season progress we shall all find out together which were the good moves and which were the bad.