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Crew Chief Changes at HMS..
Topic Started: Nov 23 2010, 05:36 PM (717 Views)
Jenny
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2x Raceski Cup Champion
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Rick Hendrick knew the world would be watching when he brought Dale Earnhardt Jr. into his race organization and, before he retires, the championship car owner wants to give NASCAR's most popular driver every tool he can to try to win races and contend for a championship. This week brings another step in that process, as Earnhardt assumes the crew chief and the team that once supported Jeff Gordon.

As part of a massive personnel swap intended to bolster his entire organization, Earnhardt will now work with Steve Letarte, whose crew chiefed Gordon for the past five seasons and never missed a Chase. Gordon will be paired with Alan Gustafson, who was previously Mark Martin's crew chief, while Martin will work with Lance McGrew, who for most of the past two years was teamed with Earnhardt.

Only Jimmie Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus, who together have won the past five championships in NASCAR's premier division, will remain together. It's more of a driver change than a crew chief change -- Hendrick said the people at the shops will all remain the same, the only differences being the driver, car number, and sponsor. Which means that Earnhardt, 25th and 21st in points the past two years, will be inserted into the group that had been working around Gordon.

"When your confidence is shaken and you just get to the point where you need something to give you that feeling you can do it, and you've got faith in the guy you're working with, sometimes the frustration sets in and it just can't work," Hendrick said Wednesday. "That doesn't mean Dale wasn't a good driver, or Lance wasn't a good crew chief. It just got to the point where it wasn't working, and we needed to do something different. I've seen this many, many times, you make a switch and you get a new lease on life and everybody gets excited."

But Hendrick was quick to point out that these moves weren't made for Earnhardt's sake, rather to bolster an organization that had grown somewhat stagnant despite winning its fifth consecutive title. He began thinking about making changes following the recent Sprint Cup race weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, after which he called crew chiefs and engineers together for a meeting that lasted three hours. In it, Hendrick quoted Winston Churchill: "It's not enough to do what's best. Sometimes you have to do what's required."

And what was required were changes. Hendrick admits his team fell behind after NASCAR moved from the rear wing to the spoiler. The organization's cars simply weren't as good as they had been in 2009, when Johnson led Martin and Gordon in a Hendrick sweep of the top three points positions. The result was a reshaping at Hendrick, which will now have the Nos. 48 and 88 teams working out of one building, and the Nos. 24 and 5 out of another. The Johnson and Gordon teams had been joined at the hip since the No. 48 team's founding.

"I think, in a nutshell, our whole organization after last year winning the championship and finishing 1-2-3 in the points ... we just got complacent, and other teams were stronger, and we were not where we needed to be," said Hendrick, who officially announced the changes Tuesday afternoon.

"After the championship, we decided these moves would make all four teams better. Excitement inside our organization yesterday afternoon and last night, everybody was pumped and excited and have a new energy level to attack and get ready to go into 2011."

Even though the changes were organization-wide, of course much of the focus falls on Earnhardt, who's won once since joining Hendrick prior to the 2008 season and has made the Chase as many times over that span. Hendrick looked for chemistry when pairing drivers and crew chiefs, and liked the existing relationship he saw between Earnhardt and Letarte, who is good friends with Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt's cousin and former crew chief. A people person who is known for his ability to keep his driver's confidence up during races, Letarte became the natural choice to lead the No. 88 team.

"Steve is probably, of all the crew chiefs we have, more of a people person," Hendrick said. "He's very smart, but he's got a tremendous personality. He knows how to get close to people. He and Junior have a relationship, I'm not sure if it's online racing or fantasy football, it's one of those things. But I think Junior has a lot of respect for Steve. Steve has a lot of insight into Junior, because he's mentioned it to me a couple of times in some debriefs and so forth. I feel like Dale needs a guy he can communicate with and has a proven track record. And the chemistry between the two of them, I think that is very good."

By contrast, Hendrick said Gustafson is an engineer who is very matter-of-fact and engages in very little small talk, something he thought would mesh with Gordon at this point in the driver's career. The car owner added that Gordon, who in 2010 went winless for the second time in three years, approved the move before it was announced.

"Jeff is a team player. He has a tremendous amount of respect for Alan," Hendrick said. "Over the years we've talked about different alignments at different shops, and Jeff wants to do whatever's necessary to give him an opportunity to win championships. Not that he's unhappy with Stevie ... [but] I think that the opportunity to try something different and new again would create a spark inside the company. I think Mark and Jeff would be a good combo in that building."

Pairing Martin and McGrew combines an engineer crew chief with what Hendrick called a "very technical" driver. It also reunites Martin and Chris Heroy, who was lead engineer on Martin's No. 5 team when they nearly won the championship two years ago, and was moved to the No. 88 after that season to try to bolster Earnhardt's effort. Hendrick also made the moves with an eye toward 2012, when Kasey Kahne will join the organization and be paired with Gordon in the 24/5 shop.

But: "We're not going to have a lame-duck situation," Hendrick said. "We're going to go for wins and championships. Mark can do that, and that team can do that."

Hendrick called the personnel shuffle one of the most radical moves he's ever undertaken. But his organization clearly struggled to adapt after NASCAR moved from the wing to the spoiler, and Johnson's title run overshadowed the fact that his other three teams combined for zero victories in 2010.

"The proof will be in the performance next year," he said. "I'm excited about making all four teams better. We are going to get better across the board. We're not going to leave any stone unturned."

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Gordon Owns
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"But Hendrick was quick to point out that these moves weren't made for Earnhardt's sake"

Keep telling yourself that Rick. lol

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MartinMan
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nooo not alan!

bah lol
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