Crew Chief Appreciation Thread



Hey Randall....Give me a hug! LOL.
 
My heroes have always been crew chiefs, and they still are it seems, er, sorry Willie!
 
Hands down, Adam Stevens is my favorite. I will be honest now, my jaw dropped when he walked away from @StandOnIt new favorite driver. Walking away from two championships, and all that brings a crew chief in terms of credibility.....Wow....and now he takes Toyota's prized Development Driver to the Round of 8. Good dude too.
 
Blake Harris to the 48 is a brilliant move. Great guy, and a great racing mind IMO. So interesting that the Ex Con has to go outside of his organization to fill this spot. JGR has more great crew chiefs than cars.
 
Revman said:
Blake Harris to the 48 is a brilliant move. Great guy, and a great racing mind IMO. So interesting that the Ex Con has to go outside of his organization to fill this spot. JGR has more great crew chiefs than cars.
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Between retirements and guys moving to other teams to be crew chiefs, the HMS/JRM farm team roster is a little depleted right now.
 
What the hell will they do when Kelley bucks up the $58 Million for a pair of charters?

I think Shane Huffman is available.
 
Did we ever find out what this gentleman did to that deck lid?

 
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Shout out to this fella, my all time favorite crew chief. Wish they had stayed together the full duration of JG’s career
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The Man that won with the Intimidator
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This crusty old bastard was one of the best
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in 1999 I cheered against these two every single week. DJ Had some good cars because of Todd
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Zippy was awesome. Him and Smoke were Lethal
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Jimmy Makar is like a god father at JGR
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Because this dude built such consistent cars in 03, we now have a hell of a way to crown a champion
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Definitely some of my all time favorites there, especially the first three. I never got to meet Jimmy Fenning, but Ray and Kirk were both VERY nice to me.
 
Formerjackman said:
Definitely some of my all time favorites there, especially the first three. I never got to meet Jimmy Fenning, but Ray and Kirk were both VERY nice to me.
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I enjoy a good crew chief, and sometimes think the good ones don’t get enough credit. I thought this thread would be more popular I could have kept posting about crew chiefs all day.
 
One of the things that is really kind of disappointing to me is the somewhat diminished role the crew chief has in the modern NASCAR. You have engineers telling you how the car should be set up, you have reams of 7 post and simulation data to guide decisions, you have tech centers and computer programs telling you when you should pit and how many tires you should take, the crew chief becomes more of an overseer than anything. If you grew up like me idolizing Smokey Yunick and Harry Hyde and Dale Inman, AJ Watson, Chickie Hirashima, and George Bignotti, later Kirk Shelmerdine and Barry Dodson and Ray Everhham, it's just such a different world now. There was a time when the top crew chiefs and chief mechanics were as well known as the drivers they wrenched for. Now it's hard to remember who many of these people are. Indycar has changed so much, I haven't been able to name one single top man on ANY car in the field for many years.
 
Adam Stevens is a damn genius.
 
Totally biased here, but I think Bob Osbourne was one of the two or 3 best crew chiefs when he was with Edwards at Roush.

I love me some Cliff Daniels. Best leader in the garage, super smart and is the rationale brain Larson needs.

But he sometimes tend to out think himself. Cost Larson the race at Texas and owned it (along with pit crew).


Zippy was another favorite CC of mine. Can't forget Fatback McSwain.

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The following question will probably reveal your age group. If you know the answer without googling it you are probably are older than 40 (please no posted actual spolier answers for the question until tommorow or Wednesday).

Who was Suitcase Jake?
 
Greg said:
The following question will probably reveal your age group. If you know the answer without googling it you are probably are older than 40 (please no posted actual spolier answers for the question until tommorow or Wednesday).

Who was Suitcase Jake?
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Jake Elder, called Suitcase Jake. I believe he was crew chief for Dale Earnhardt right before he won his first Cup with Dough Richert. He wasnt around teams for long, as he propensity to move on quick.
 
Spotter22 said:
You did not follow the rules!
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I didn’t google, I swear on my son’s life. I just remember hearing about him during race broadcasts when I was a kid as well as his name came up on a recent-ish episode of the Dale Jr Download. I wasn’t lying about being interested in crew chiefs lol at one time these fellas were pretty popular too
 
Jorge De Guzman said:
Jake Elder, called Suitcase Jake. I believe he was crew chief for Dale Earnhardt right before he won his first Cup with Dough Richert. He wasnt around teams for long, as he propensity to move on quick.
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Auto correct. That should be Doug and *he had a
 
Jorge De Guzman said:
I didn’t google, I swear on my son’s life. I just remember hearing about him during race broadcasts when I was a kid as well as his name came up on a recent-ish episode of the Dale Jr Download. I wasn’t lying about being interested in crew chiefs lol at one time these fellas were pretty popular too
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No worries and a great answer. But the idea was for no spoliers or not to answer until tommorow just to give those in doubt more time to consider the question.

But again no worries it is all good and the whole idea is just to have a little fun.
 
Jorge De Guzman said:
I didn’t google, I swear on my son’s life. I just remember hearing about him during race broadcasts when I was a kid as well as his name came up on a recent-ish episode of the Dale Jr Download. I wasn’t lying about being interested in crew chiefs lol at one time these fellas were pretty popular too
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lol. Heres a lesson for you Jorge

In high school my teacher always taught us we should read anything we had to report on all the way to the finish to make sure we got the full story. One Day she gave us a 2 page test and told us we had 1 hour to finish it. I read it and the on the last line it said do not take this test, sign it and bring it to me. I did and she sent me out of the classroom so the others would wonder why lol. I had 3 others join me the rest were stopped about 15 minuets in to the test. It was awesome
 
jaqua19 said:
love me some Cliff Daniels. Best leader in the garage,

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I bet you weren't saying this in 2019/20 lol.

Best leader in the garage is a stretch, it's not even really something you can measure. His hoorah style probably wouldn't mesh with a lot of guys to be honest.
 
AdoubleU24 said:
I bet you weren't saying this in 2019/20 lol.

Best leader in the garage is a stretch, it's not even really something you can measure. His hoorah style probably wouldn't mesh with a lot of guys to be honest.
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Cliff's attitude over the radio with Jimmie was completely different than it was with Kyle. He was almost restricted and it just didn't work out in the way Chad and William did. Cliff and Larson both were generally unproven, and really were a good fit. Half of Cliff's job with Larson is managing his attitude, and keeping him focused and out of his own head.

The Coke 600 was a textbook example of this. Borderline won that race, and Larson spent the first 200 laps bitching and moaning about how much he sucks as a driver, and pitying himself for ruining the race for the team. Cliff more or less reframed the first 300 miles, told him to get his head out of his ass, and had the race won until Briscoe Briscoe'd it.

Maybe Cliff isn't the CC for anyone...but I think he's a damn good fit for any driver who lacks composure...which is a good chunk of the field.
 
Greg said:
No worries and a great answer. But the idea was for no spoliers or not to answer until tommorow just to give those in doubt more time to consider the question.

But again no worries it is all good and the whole idea is just to have a little fun.
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My mistake, I was skimming your post as I was eating lunch at work yesterday. Apologies for ruining your post, I just read all the way through.
 
Jorge De Guzman said:
My mistake, I was skimming your post as I was eating lunch at work yesterday. Apologies for ruining your post, I just read all the way through.
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No problem or apology needed and I enjoy reading your thoughts. I have made similar mistakes.
 
jaqua19 said:
Cliff's attitude over the radio with Jimmie was completely different than it was with Kyle. He was almost restricted and it just didn't work out in the way Chad and William did. Cliff and Larson both were generally unproven, and really were a good fit. Half of Cliff's job with Larson is managing his attitude, and keeping him focused and out of his own head.

The Coke 600 was a textbook example of this. Borderline won that race, and Larson spent the first 200 laps bitching and moaning about how much he sucks as a driver, and pitying himself for ruining the race for the team. Cliff more or less reframed the first 300 miles, told him to get his head out of his ass, and had the race won until Briscoe Briscoe'd it.

Maybe Cliff isn't the CC for anyone...but I think he's a damn good fit for any driver who lacks composure...which is a good chunk of the field.
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A crew chief-driver relationship is just like a marriage, and what works for some won't work for others, and even the ones that work often eventually go stale. In either case, when you stop listening to each other, things go down hill quickly. Chad Knaus was one of the best of all time, but many drivers would have wilted under him, or just fought him at every turn. I think Evernham was much the same way.
 
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