Inside the Garage with the 25 crew chief Darian Grubb

It wasn't that long ago that Darian Grubb was designing dump trucks for a living.

Not that doing so is a bad way to make a buck, mind you. Grubb, a mechanical engineering graduate from Virginia Tech, was working at a Volvo plant in Dublin, Va., and making pretty good money for a kid just out of college.

But he yearned for something more. Specifically, he felt a need for speed that the dump trucks simply could not satisfy. So he posted his resume on a free Web site to see if anyone interesting might come calling, and pretty soon he was off to the races to begin a career that currently has him serving as crew chief for the No. 25 Chevrolet being driven by Casey Mears for Hendrick Motorsports.

NASCAR.COM caught up with Grubb recently and talked with him about this week's race at the California Speedway and several other subjects -- including the future with Mears, who won his first Nextel Cup race at the Coca-Cola 600 in May and thus began a march from 35th in the point standings to 16th. No other driver has gained more spots in the standings in that time span.

2007 Coca-Cola 600

Darian Grubb called the shots as Casey Mears raced to his first career Nextel Cup victory.

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Q: What characteristics of California Speedway make it different from most other places where you guys race, and how do you like your chances to do well there?

Grubb: It's a very unique place for the high-speed and big, sweeping corners, compared to a lot of the other racetracks we go to. We're really looking forward to going back there. The first race we had there with Casey was so early in the season, we really didn't know what he needed as far as a body build and things like that. We had a car that was really loose, compared to what he was used to driving.

Going back this time, I think we have a car that's a lot more suited to his driving style. It's actually the car we won with in Charlotte. He's been very happy with that car every time we've run it. We've finished in the top-five three times with it.

Q: So you'll be running the same car there as the one Casey drove to Victory Lane in the Coca-Cola 600?

Grubb: Yes. And I think that's going to mean a lot. It's a little bit of a confidence builder, just knowing you're getting in that same car. It's a big boost when you go in there and you know that you have a car that you do like -- compared to last time when we struggled the whole race [at California], just getting a handle on the racetrack and keeping the car fast. We had a lot of speed, just not a lot of comfort for Casey. So it was a tough race for us.

Q: What did the win in Charlotte do for your team?

Grubb: It was a huge confidence builder for just the whole team in general. We came in and I was new to the 25 team, coming on board [to replace Lance McGrew] just the week before we left for Daytona. Casey was new for the season, coming in [after previously driving for Chip Ganassi Racing]. It was just a big kind of a stir of the emotions start to the season. Everybody was kind of uneasy. It took a while for us to get settled down.

We had new bodies to get built for the racecar. We made a lot of changes to the team to get stronger and better. To have some fruit come out of that was special. ... We never gave up, we never quit working. To come back and win Charlotte, to have a top-five racecar all day and win on fuel mileage like that, it was just very, very fulfilling.

Q: What was it like coming on board as crew chief for the 25 right before the season like that?

Grubb: It was definitely something that was easier for me because I had already worked at Hendrick Motorsports for four years, and was very familiar with the system and how things are run there. I knew the guys on the 25 team, but I wasn't great friends with them just because I used to work in another building. I just had to come in and meet a whole new bunch of guys and get to building a working relationship with them -- build their trust in me and my trust in them. Same thing with Casey. He was new to the whole system as well.

We had to start up the whole communication trail, and make sure that the communication got stronger each week and we gave each other the feedback we needed to make the cars better and make the cars fast. It slowly built. ... After we got the new cars coming on-line and running the COT races where Kyle Busch won [in another Hendrick car], we got pretty good, pretty quick. (Continued)