Cole Pearn is returning to his old gig, but it’s only a brief hiatus from the new life he has built far away (figuratively and literally) from NASCAR.
In a snow-kissed valley known as “The Rocky Mountain Trench,” Pearn now fills his days with “a little bit of everything” since he stunned the Cup Series by walking away from his job as a championship-caliber crew chief following the 2019 season.
With his wife, Carrie, he owns and runs Golden Alpine Holidays, a 50,000-acre vacation playground in the Esplanade Range of the Selkirk Mountains. Pearn dotes on his two kids who are growing up at ice rinks that appeal to him as much as an asphalt oval. He juggles a jack-of-all-trades existence that runs the gamut from coordinating weekly helicopter landings to posting picturesque photos as an Instagram influencer.
Pearn even helps coach a youth hockey team in Golden, a town of roughly 4,000 that sits at the junction of two rivers, three mountain ranges and five national parks in southeast British Columbia.
Though still “a massive fan” of motorsports, which dominated over half his life and took him to the United States for the fame and glory of excelling in NASCAR, the Canadian now is experiencing his other dream of living, hiking and skiing among the peaks of his native country.
“I still wake up every day and feel like I hit the lottery,” Pearn told NASCAR.com. “It’s been great. I get to do all the things that I love to do, and it’s been really good for my mental health and physical health. I’ve learned new things and obviously owning a business is an adventure. It’s been a lot. It’s crazy it’s been five years already.
Even crazier might be Pearn being back atop a NASCAR pit box this week.
In a reunion of the duo that won the 2017 Cup championship, Pearn will be the crew chief for Martin Truex Jr. on the No. 56 Toyota Camry. If successful in making the Daytona 500 (as an open entry, the car will need to qualify on speed or in a Duel race), it’ll mark the Cup debut of Tricon Garage.
And it’ll be the first race as crew chief for Pearn since the 2019 season finale that seemed his final chapter as one of the most brilliant and unconventional minds in NASCAR. A month after Truex finished second at Homestead-Miami Speedway (the second consecutive year the team was one spot short of a title), Joe Gibbs Racing suddenly announced Pearn was retiring from NASCAR after 24 wins and four championship-round appearances in five seasons as a crew chief.
His surprising comeback was revealed in a way that felt just as shocking.
In the laid-back manner that made him such a good fit with Pearn, Truex casually dropped the bombshell just before his final Cup playoff run began last September. Cracking “I didn’t know it was that big of news,” Truex said his ask of Pearn to crew chief the season’s biggest race “just kind of popped out” during a casual conversation.
“Martin caught me at a weak moment,” Pearn said in his familiar deadpan. “They kind of put the bug in my ear and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to maybe do a one-off. Would you be interested?’ I didn’t see a reason not to. I made sure I checked with my better half, and she was fine with it. It seemed to make sense. Not very often do you get these one-off deals, so if there’s ever a time to come back and do a race, it seemed like a good one to do.”
Well, at least until last month when he began getting a taste of the breakneck pace and overwhelming pressure tied to a workaholic job that he chose to leave behind.
“I was like, ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ saying yes to this,” Pearn says with a laugh. “But now that we’re right on top of it, I’m definitely looking forward to it. It’s not something you get to do every day, to step in and call a race with a good team for the Daytona 500. It’s a pretty cool life opportunity, and I’m really thankful.”
Speaking from his home in Golden, Pearn seemed typically low-key and stress-free 11 days before the Daytona 500. He would spend the next day flying cross continent to North Carolina, checking on the Daytona 500 car and team for the first time in person. Confident in Tricon’s technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing (which will supply most of the team personnel in preparing the No. 56), Pearn was at ease sticking to his daily routine of varied activities while managing the NASCAR one-off remotely.
“I’ve done the classic thing of I don’t have any one job that requires a lot of time,” he said. “I’ve just stacked on a lot of different jobs that all require time. Every day is kind of its own adventure.”
On this Wednesday morning, it meant being at the local rink before 7 a.m. for skating sessions with both kids before a junior hockey practice.
His 12-year-old son, Callum, is a defenseman on a high-level traveling hockey team based in Calgary (which means regular drives across the Alberta border up to three hours each way), and his 10-year-old daughter, Freya, is an aspiring figure skater who also has taken to hockey.
“Lots of time in the arena, not as much time skiing as we probably would like, but it’s for a short time in your life,” Pearn said. “I grew up doing it as well. So my wife and I both love it and are happy to be their chauffeurs.”
The rest of their days are consumed by managing the small staff that operates Golden Alpine Holidays, a collection of four lodges (Sunrise, Meadow, Vista and Sentry) located at 7,000 feet and surrounded by 130 ski runs and 125 kilometers of hiking trails.
Most of the heavy lifting involves reaching the lodges. Every Friday, two helicopters ferry up to 60 arrivals and departures as weeklong stays begin and end. “My first biggest challenge was just getting the operation sides of that down,” Pearn said. “We’re more efficient now.”
In addition to a dozen guests, each lodge has a caretaker, cook and guides who are part of a full commitment to austere outdoor living among nature. The buildings are heated by wood and propane. Water comes from nearby lakes and streams, and outhouses are in place of indoor plumbing.
“I always say it’s like four crappy Airbnbs that are just really hard to get to,” Pearn said. “They’re pretty rustic and basic. That’s part of the experience, though. With the kids being as busy as they are, I’m not up there as much as I want, but in a few years when the kids are older, I’ll hopefully build an owner’s cabin and just live up there for part of the winter.”
Though Pearn spent most of his adult life in the United States (his kids were born in Colorado while he worked at Denver-based Furniture Row Racing), he and his wife eventually wanted a “simpler” life in their native Canada (both grew up in Ontario).
That meant leaving motorsports despite having been a champion since a teenager (as a driver of go-karts and cars before becoming a crew chief).
“I knew I didn’t want to do it my whole life,” said Pearn, who turned 42 last year. “I wanted to do other things. I grew up in racing. My dad raced cars, and I raced cars and then worked in the sport full time. My whole life to my late 30s had been all about going to a race track, and it was just time to do something else.”
Tricon Garage co-owner David Gilliland could appreciate why Pearn made such a staggering move to leave NASCAR.
“It’s just priorities change and obviously he had accomplished his goals,” Gilliland said. “A lot of people get stuck doing what they think other people think they should be doing, and he’s obviously not that person.
“I always admired his passion and dedication. He was very well respected, and I think everybody is excited to have him back in the garage for another weekend. I just feel very fortunate that he’s willing to come back and just super excited to see what we can accomplish together. And who knows what the future holds.”
Pearn has kept a hand in NASCAR from thousands of miles away. Since 2021, he has handled Joe Gibbs Racing’s aerodynamic mapping — taking wind tunnel data and fitting it for the simulations that have become instrumental in making cars go fast in Cup. Every layout — short track, road course, intermediate and superspeedway — requires its own map, which makes for a painstaking job.
“It’s critical work and definitely took some time to get my arms wrapped around it,” said Pearn, who was new to the process. “It’s got to be right. If not, then it kind of leads you down the wrong path in terms of setup and stuff. It’s been a perfect kind of job for me to stay abreast and involved in the technical side.”
The work comes “in spurts” but usually keeps him busier in the offseason and around rules changes. It’s a good schedule for Pearn, who worked the 2020 Indy 500 as a lead engineer for Conor Daly (who called him an “alpha wizard of engineering”) but had no plans to be a crew chief again until the Tricon deal materialized after being brokered by Truex and Toyota Racing Development.
“I’ve made peace with that part of my life and that part of my career,” Pearn said. “So this definitely feels a bit daunting. But I’m just looking forward more than anything else to seeing all the people and old friends that I haven’t seen in quite some time.”
Aside from a couple of NASCAR cameos — Pearn was a spotter in 2021 at the Roval and a substitute engineer in 2022 at Sonoma — Truex and Pearn hardly have seen each other but maintained their longtime bond in sporadic conversations. “Sometimes a few times in a week, sometimes not for a few months at a time,” said Pearn, who admittedly doesn’t watch every Cup race to keep in constant contact but tries to check in around wins and big events.
“We don’t talk very often, but when we do, it’s just like old times,” Truex said last year. “He can pretty much read me like a book. He’s a special guy. He’s different than anyone I’ve ever known. He knows the answer to everything.”
Their understated and complementary personalities always seemed to mesh. Truex is the laconic New Jersey native who quietly posted impressive results while avoiding controversy as one of the cleanest drivers in NASCAR. Pearn is the savvy Canadian who introduced T-shirts as acceptable crew chief attire and became known for his biting social media posts.
“We have always had an easy relationship,” Pearn said. “We’re not overly complicated people. So to be able to speak matter of factly to each other and not have anybody’s feelings get hurt, it’s pretty easy to reconnect and rekindle things.”
Gilliland, who has won as a NASCAR driver, crew chief and team owner during his lengthy career in the sport, said chemistry was the secret sauce for Pearn and Truex.
“Those two don’t doubt each other and that’s hard to find,” Gilliland said. “That’s what makes that particular pairing extremely potent. Everybody’s going to make mistakes. When you’re sitting on top of the box, there’s decisions to make that are not going to be right every time. The championship-caliber teams, when a bad decision or call is made, they’re not dwelling on it or sulking in the negative consequences. You’ve got to believe in each other.”
Pearn and Truex built that trust at Furniture Row Racing, which slowly morphed from obscure single-car underdog into NASCAR powerhouse. The anti-establishment team cultivated an outsider reputation through its Midwest base that was mandated by team owner Barney Visser, who preferred to spend only on substantive parts instead of flash. There are similarities to Tricon, a scrappy startup that grew from running quarter-midgets out of Gilliland’s backyard into an organization now fielding five trucks.
“That’s definitely a role I’m comfortable in and have lived, so that part is definitely kind of cool,” Pearn said. “But you’ve got to temper expectations for sure. I know the cars and guys working on the team, so that helps make things a lot simpler.”
There is extra motivation for Truex, who is winless in 85 superspeedway starts. Furniture Row’s most memorable superspeedway moment was unveiling a gigantic power saw (quickly outlawed by NASCAR in 2017), and Daytona has been the site of multiple disappointments — namely losing the 2016 Daytona 500 to Denny Hamlin by inches. Though Pearn said he jokingly asked Truex, “Why the hell are we going to Daytona? Let’s maybe go somewhere where we have a chance,” he knows his driver wants a win at the track that got away.
“But it’s hard,” he said. “We never won one when we were at the peak of our game. So coming in off the couch, it’s going to be challenging.”
A strong result could open the door to more offers. Truex has hinted at wanting to run more races this year, and Gilliland said his team would be ready.
Pearn’s work in aero mapping Cup and Xfinity cars has planted another seed. Less enthused about the Next Gen rules package, Pearn would like to make his crew chief debut in the Xfinity Series. (“They have a gem in that car.”)
With his phone lighting up in the last few months, he probably would have no shortage of opportunities — though he naturally would put limits on what he’d accept.
“Since I’ve left, it’s been super flattering to have a lot of good opportunities thrown at me,” he said. “It’s just not something that I’m interested in. People have a viewpoint of what you used to be like and how you operated at a high level.
“I might not necessarily be that person anymore. But I was able to leave the sport, and people still hold you in high regard. That is a nice feeling for sure.”
Nate Ryan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA TODAY and for the past 10 years at NBC Sports Digital. He also has covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.