CUP: Addington Disappointed By Removal

Sprint Cup

CUP: Addington Disappointed By Removal

Joe Gibbs Racing's Steve Addington will serve as Kyle Busch's crew chief for the final time in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway...

SceneDaily.com | Posted October 31, 2009 Talladega, AL

Steve Addington had served as crew chief for Kyle Busch in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for the past two years. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Steve Addington said he was disappointed and surprised that as of next week he will no longer be the crew chief for Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch and the No. 18 team, but he wouldn’t go into details of why he was released or who called him this week about taking over as crew chief at their organizations.

Busch has won 12 Cup races since joining Joe Gibbs Racing and being paired with Addington, who had been crew chief of the No. 18 team for one season with Bobby Labonte, two with J.J. Yeley and then nearly two years with Busch. But the team missed the Chase For The Sprint Cup by eight points and is 13th in the current standings – and now Addington is in his last weekend as crew chief for Busch before Dave Rogers takes over the team.

“Kyle’s talent brought a lot to this race team, but I think this race team [had] a lot to do with Kyle Busch winning 12 points races and one non-points race with the 150 at Daytona,” Addington said.

“He was a piece of the puzzle that worked good with this group when he got here. When something like this goes down, you do think about what do you have to do because there’s a lot of teams in this garage area that would have had this past 18 months that we’ve had.”

Did this come down to the eight points?

“It’s probably [a performance-based decision] for the standards that were set for the 18 car,” Addington said. “The way things went last year [with eight wins], it went really smooth and there’s things that have happened to other guys in this Chase that happened to us in the Chase with engine problems [last year].

“[I’m] not pointing fingers at anybody in the organization. Things happen. And somebody has got to be the person that is responsible for that and that was me. And I understand that. I’ve got big enough shoulders to carry that. That’s just part of being in this position.”

Did he think Busch forced him out?

“I don’t know,” Addington said. “Something happened there. I don’t know. I can’t comment on that because I don’t know what the whole story is. I just got that we were going in a different direction with the 18 car and we will move on. And Steve Addington will land on his feet.”

Addington said he didn’t think his relationship with Busch had deteriorated. He said it was difficult working with Busch’s schedule as Busch was running a full schedule in both the Nationwide and Cup series.

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