New crew chiefs can enter an intimidating situation (cont'd)

"You've got to figure out his sensitivities to adjustments, air pressure, wedge, how he gets in and off pit road, where he needs a little pick me up sometimes, where he needs to get told to settle down a little bit," Erwin said. "There was that side, the real crew chief side of the game, that I was not prepared for, either. It was a hard year."

Ultimately, they missed the Chase, finishing 14th. But looking back on it now, Biffle remembers how positive that situation felt. The No. 16 team has made the Chase the past two seasons, and is back in contention again this year.

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"I think you're in the best-case scenario when somebody steps in like Erwin or somebody for Junior, because really the only way to go is up. That's a good thing," Biffle said. "When you take the reins of something, the graph is going to naturally be up, so that's a good thing. The other thing is, it gets the whole team excited and it gets the driver excited. It's like you see somebody qualify on the pole and then they run good. It's momentum, and that's what a new crew chief does -- it's instant momentum ... because of the camaraderie around a new crew chief and a new program and all that. A lot of times you see a bump in performance, even when we swap crew chiefs and teams. It's that energy level that always gives a team a little bump, so I think you'll see [Earnhardt] pick up a little bit. The whole team is going to be working hard to come up with results, and I think you'll see a little bump in performance."

That natural lift, the buoyancy that comes with a new crew chief sharing new ideas, may help Earnhardt more than anything else. Still, there are no guarantees -- from his perspective, Erwin believes that vaunted momentum bump is more myth than reality, and doesn't set in for good until performance begins to turn around. But from the driver's perspective, a little fresh perspective can be everything.

"Sometimes it's not the players as much as it is the change. Sometimes change is what people need," Letarte said.

"You get to a certain point where in order for things to get better, you have to make a change, and it sort of puts everybody on edge," added Mark Martin, who's been through his share of crew chief changes. "Everybody does more. I think Junior will do more because of this change, and he'll be more tolerant of situations because it's a growing pain rather than something that has been festering and getting sore. I think that will be good for the whole team."

For the sake of the new crew chief, you can only hope so.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.