First Move For Stewart? A New Crew Chief. ~ BumpDrafter

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

First Move For Stewart? A New Crew Chief.

1:12 AM

For NASCAR, the short offseason of mid-November to mid-February contains small bursts of relaxation separated by long hours of preparation for the coming season. Often there are changes to be made to improve a team's performance for the next year; sometimes they may be in organization, and sometimes in personnel.

All of this is nothing new. It is precisely the reason the last part of the NASCAR season is called "silly season". However, it usually holds true that the more success a team has they experience less change in the offseason. Not so with 2011 Sprint Cup Champion Tony Stewart and his #14 Stewart Haas Racing team.

As was rumored over the last week of the season, Stewart's Crew Chief, Darian Grubb, will be working elsewhere in 2012. Grubb, who has 14 wins as a Crew Chief, 11 with Stewart. Was reportedly told entering the Chase that his contract would not be renewed. Then he helped Stewart win his third championship and his first as an owner.

Two sentiments come to mind. Respect and wonder. I thoroughly respect Grubb for not letting up. Many Crew Chiefs may have put it in cruise control and finished the Chase searching for employment, but not Grubb. And I wonder just what he did to make Stewart so dead-set on replacing him.

Can Stewart replace Grubb with a talented crew chief? No doubt. He is rumored to be attempting to get Greg Zipadelli and Steve Addington away from Joe Gibbs Racing, where he drove for two championships with Zippy as his crew chief.

Even if he gets those two as a director of competition / crew chief combo, the kind of consistency and team cohesion a team needs to win a championship doesn't happen overnight. Will be win? Yes. Will he repeat? I highly doubt it.