Man behind Jeff Gordon’s T-Rex car leaves Hendrick after 18 years
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Stewart-Haas Racing announced Wednesday that it has hired veteran engineer Rex Stump as its technical director.
The move ends Stump’s 18-year tenure with Hendrick Motorsports, where he served as an engineering manager and a chassis specialist and was the founder of the team’s research and development department. It’s the second straight high-profile move for Stewart-Haas in as many days; Tuesday, the group appointed Matt Borland as vice president of technology for the company’s NASCAR operations and Formula One development.
During Stump’s time with the team, Hendrick drivers Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson won multiple championships at NASCAR’s highest level and Tony Stewart drove a Hendrick-produced chassis to the 2011 title. Now Stump joins the reigning Sprint Cup champions after Kevin Harvick‘s victory last weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“Hendrick Motorsports provided me a lot of opportunities to succeed and I wouldn’t be in this position if it weren’t for Rick Hendrick, Ray Evernham and all the talented people I’ve worked with the last 18 years,” Stump said in a release provided by the team. “I’m proud of my time there, but I’m looking forward to my new role at Stewart-Haas. This is a team that’s accomplished a lot in a very short period of time. There’s a championship to defend and races to win. I’m ready to go.”
Harvick won five Sprint Cup races in 2014, but the team’s other drivers — driver/co-owner Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch and Danica Patrick — combined for just one. The team also underwent a crew chief swap for Busch and Patrick ahead of the season’s final three races in hopes of boosting performance.
Stump, who first started working in NASCAR in 1991, was already loosely affiliated with Stewart-Haas, through the team’s technical alliance with Hendrick. Wednesday’s move brings him even closer.
“Rex brings a tremendous amount of knowledge and innovation to Stewart-Haas Racing,” said Greg Zipadelli, vice president of competition, Stewart-Haas Racing. “You can never sit still in this business, and Rex’s record of success will help us stay ahead of the curve.”
While Stump’s name has been linked to plenty of championship-winning cars, one of his most noteworthy engineering feats was the “T-Rex” Chevrolet Monte Carlo that Gordon drove to a dominant victory in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race in 1997. The chassis was so technologically and aerodynamically advanced that NASCAR asked that it not return to the race track, even though it appeared to conform to every rule.
The No. 24 car took its nickname from the Jurassic Park movie sponsorship and its dinosaur paint scheme, but it gave a nod to the chassis builder’s name as well.
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