Crew chief Blickensderfer far from overnight success (cont'd)

He's come a long way. After a victory at Daytona to open the season and another at Auto Club Speedway last week, Blickensderfer and Kenseth are bidding to make NASCAR history by becoming the first team to sweep the year's first three events. Many in the garage are still struggling to pronounce the new crew chief's name. But no one who knows him is surprised by his immediate success.

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Drew is a really, really cool guy, for a number of reasons. He's probably one of the more competitive guys I've ever been around. He's real savvy on a lot of subjects, not just the race car, but on people and motivating and stuff like that.

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-- CARL EDWARDS

"Drew is a really, really cool guy, for a number of reasons," said Carl Edwards, who worked with Blickensderfer on the Nationwide circuit last year. "He's a real nice person. He's probably one of the more competitive guys I've ever been around. He's a lot like Bob Osborne in that respect. He just wants to win more than anything. And he's got street smarts. He's real savvy on a lot of subjects, not just the race car, but on people and motivating and stuff like that. I think Drew's success is no accident. He's going to be successful. Right now he's batting 1.000, which is amazing. Hopefully he can keep it up. He's a really good guy. I'm proud to call him a friend."

Motivation is just what Kenseth's No. 17 team needed after last year, when the driver suffered through his first winless campaign since his second Cup season in 2001. When Kenseth's longtime crew chief Robbie Reiser was promoted to general manager at Roush Fenway Racing, lead engineer Chip Bolin stepped up to take his place. But Bolin proved better suited at managing data than people, and last December Kenseth -- taking control of team personnel matters for the first time -- met with Bolin and the two determined that the engineer would be more comfortable back in his old position. Then Kenseth called the person he next wanted sitting on top of his pit box.

"He usually just texts me, so I knew he had something to say, calling on the phone," Blickensderfer said. "We talked for a long time about who he wanted, what he wanted, why he wanted me, what Chip's idea was, what Jack [Roush's] idea was. We had a great conversation. It really was a perfect fit for me to come in, being someone who hasn't dealt with the [new car], to come into a team that's already established, a Chase regular. Everybody's still going to stay there, I'm just putting in my influence and some of my opinions and some leadership. It couldn't have worked out any better."

Blickensderfer saw it coming. Late last season, Roush asked the Nationwide crew chief to start sticking around on Sundays for the Cup events. Since Blickensderfer knew Bolin and Kenseth well, he'd often wind up watching from the No. 17 pit box. Little did he know that Kenseth was also watching him.

"I was really comfortable with Drew. He was kind of my personal selection. That's who I wanted to get in there, somebody young, somebody who hasn't been a Cup crew chief before. I wanted to get somebody in there who hasn't been there and done that and seen that. They work that much harder and they're that much more loyal and everything," Kenseth said.

"We worked together a couple of years in the Nationwide Series, and I think we learned some things from each other. I liked working with him right away in the Nationwide Series, and actually when we started, I said that he was probably the next guy in the company that had the potential to move up when there was an opening. Now, when I said that, I didn't think that would be for us. I didn't think we would have the opening. But I knew that he probably was the guy with the most potential over there to move up, and had the leadership abilities, the work ethic, and all that stuff to step up if he wanted to." (Continued)