Changes in crew chiefs show team is not taking success for granted
Joe Gibbs Racing enjoyed a phenomenal 2015 season and believes a series of changes during the offseason have only made the team stronger in advance of the quickly approaching season.
Despite placing all four cars in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Chase for the Championship and winning it all with Kyle Busch, the Toyota superpower wasted no time in making changes before Daytona Speedweeks.
Mike Wheeler was promoted from the Xfinity Series to serve as crew chief for Denny Hamlin, while Dave Rogers moved over from the Hamlin team to work with veteran contender Carl Edwards.
Meanwhile, Adam Stevens will remain the crew chief for Busch, while Jason Ratcliff stayed on with 2003 champion Matt Kenseth. Even though JGR was good last season, team owner Joe Gibbs believe they have the ability to be great.
“In professional sports, I think the hardest thing is to stay (on top) because once you have a great year, everybody else is pointing or looking at you,” Gibbs said on Tuesday at the annual NASCAR Media Tour in Charlotte, North Carolina. “The other thing is that you have a tendency to sit back and feel pretty good about yourself, and we know, in pro sports, that’s a disaster.”
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And even though Busch and Kenseth contended deep into the playoffs, Hamlin and Edwards were still just a bit behind their teammates and that’s why they received the bulk of the changes.
“Only one of our guys won a championship, so we’ve got three guys we know are going to be after it,” Gibbs said.
For Hamlin, the offseason was about pairing him with a crew chief he had wanted to work with at the Sprint Cup level for several season. He and Wheeler won three races together in the Xfinity Series last season, and previously worked together in Cup when Wheeler was No. 11 engineer.
Hamlin, who has had three crew chiefs over the past five seasons, believes he will be paired with Wheeler for the rest of career as he pursues his first Sprint Cup championship.
“I was very happy with Dave Rogers to be honest with you, but we had a plan for many many years to get me and Wheels together and that started when he went to the Xfinity Series,” Hamlin said. “So we knew when he went there, he would make it back to the Cup Series. So I knew that I would need to make myself available for when he returned to the Cup Series…
“I think it works out for everyone in that everyone got who they wanted to work with and this is my last crew chief.”
Edwards seems poised to build on a two-win debut with Gibss last season and the methodical Rogers seems like a good fit for the thorough Edwards as well.
“I feel a lot more comfortable,” Edwards said of his second media tour with Gibbs. “I understand the system, and we should be able to get off to a better start.”
And then there’s Busch, who despite returning as season champion, is just hoping to complete the full campaign after an injury-filled 2016. The biggest obstacle for Busch to overcome was his prior inability to perform during the Chase.
Now that Busch has broken through for his first championship, he could be poised to win multiple crowns.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily tougher to win one of these back to back,” Busch said. “Look at Harvick. We just barely got by him last year and he’s going to be tough again this year. But I expect us to get back to the final four and then it’s up to us to perform.”
