CUP: Crew Chiefs Lining Up For 2011

Sprint Cup

CUP: Crew Chiefs Lining Up For 2011

Steve Letarte will be Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief next season...

Tom Jensen | Posted November 30, 2010 Charlotte, NC

Steve Letarte is a veteran of the Hendrick Motorsports organization. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

There is arguably no harder job in racing than being a NASCAR Sprint Cup crew chief, a position that requires the book smarts of an engineer, the people smarts of a motivational speaker, the guts of a football coach and the tactical skill of a military officer.

It is little wonder that between the end of the 2009 Sprint Cup season and the end of the 2010 campaign, more than half of the full-time teams in the garage changed crew chiefs, some more than once. Matt Kenseth alone went through three crew chiefs this past season and still managed a top-five points finish for Roush Fenway Racing.

An even more dramatic statistic: If you go back to the start of the 2008 Cup season, just four driver/crew chief/team pairings remain in tact: Denny Hamlin and Mike Ford at Joe Gibbs Racing; Greg Biffle and Greg Erwin at Roush Fenway Racing; Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus at Hendrick Motorsports; and Carl Edwards and Bob Osborne at Roush. It’s little coincidence that all four finished sixth or better in points this year.

And already the flurry of movement has begun for 2011, as teams, drivers, crew chiefs and sponsors move to align themselves with new partners and try to improve their respective teams.

Following are the big moves so far.

No. 2 Penske Racing Dodge: Driver, Brad Keselowski, Crew Chief Paul Wolfe — After a disappointing first full season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, the ante gets raised considerably in 2011 for Keselowski, who was the runaway NASCAR Nationwide Series champion in 2010.

Next year Keselowski and his NNS championship crew chief Wolfe will pair off with the iconic No. 2 Penske Racing “Blue Deuce,” where expectations will be much higher than to finish 25th in points.

“We've got room to improve everywhere as a team, and myself as a driver I see a lot of things that I can be better at and we've got to grow together,” said Keselowski. “So you kind of dissect that and look at it, and know that we're all on the same page. We all want the same things. As long as we continue to work forward on that, we'll get better.”

No. 4 Red Bull Racing Toyota: Kasey Kahne and Kenny Francis — Next year will be an odd one for Kahne and Francis, a 2011-only deal at Red Bull, where they expect to be one of two team cars, the other being driven by Brian Vickers, who was sidelined by blood clots for the final two-thirds of the 2010 campaign.

Kasey Kahne (Left) and crew chief Kenny Francis (Right) have enjoyed a lengthy run together in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

This team could deliver big things, as Kahne and Francis were frontrunners at Richard Petty Motorsports before the team imploded under George Gillett’s crushing debt load.

“I want to come out and win next year and the only way to do that is to be prepared and get off to a great start at the start of the season,” said Kahne, who spent the last five races of 2010 at Red Bull, posting a best finish of sixth at Homestead.

No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, Mark Martin and Lance McGrew — After nearly winning the Sprint Cup championship in 2009, Martin missed the Chase for the Sprint Cup in 2010, although he finished the year strongly and wound up 13th in points, with four finishes of sixth or better in the final seven races. Next year will be his third and final season with Hendrick Motorsports.

He’ll be paired in the No. 5 Hendrick Chevrolet with former Nationwide Series championship crew chief Lance McGrew, a man who in his tenure as Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s crew chief was more reviled by the Earnhardt Nation than President Obama is by the Teabaggers. McGrew should find working with Martin a whole lot more pleasant and less stressful.

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Tom Jensen

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