Cooper named new crew chief for Petty, No. 45 car

Petty Enterprises has named Stewart Cooper as the new crew chief for Kyle Petty and the No. 45 Dodge.

Cooper comes from the Nationwide Series where he worked with Braun Racing and the No. 38 Toyota driven by Jason Leffler. Cooper will be on top of Petty's pit box beginning this weekend for Saturday night's Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix.

"It's an honor to come on board a race team like Petty Enterprises," Cooper said. "Everyone here is committed to making this No. 45 Wells Fargo Dodge competitive on a weekly basis. If we do that, the points thing will take care of itself."

The No. 45 currently sits 41st in the owner standings, 141 points out of the top 35 positions that are locked into a starting position. Petty failed to qualify two weeks ago at Martinsville, and fill-in Chad McCumbee missed last week's race at Texas.

"Petty Enterprises has the pieces and they are all in place, we just have to put the pieces to work," Cooper said. "Our first priority is to qualify Kyle into the show this weekend and then perform well on Saturday evening."

"Stewart is that new breed of crew chief that couples a mechanical engineering education with a lot of practical at-track experience," Petty said. "With the success he has had as a crew chief in the Nationwide Series, I know Robbie [Loomis, general manager] has been trying to get him in the organization for some time."

Cooper replaces Billy Wilburn as Petty's crew chief. Wilburn is now heading up the test team for Petty Enterprises.

"Kyle, Billy and the team participated in the test at Phoenix last month so we have a nice book of notes to help us ..." Cooper said. "Billy Wilburn and Robbie have assembled a good team here and I'm looking forward to working with these guys."