Overlooked to chosen: No. 7 NOAPS crew chief Andrew Overstreet details journey

Editor's Note: This is Part 1 of a two-part series detailing the No. 7 JR Motorsports team in 2026. When Jim Pohlman decided to leave JR Motorsports after three seasons as Justin Allgaier's crew chief in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series, the 2024 champion had one request: Keep the core of the No. 7 team together. Enter Andrew Overstreet. RELATED: Justin Allgaier driver page | JR Motorsports website "We weren't sure what to do with Overstreet," Dale Earnhardt Jr., co-owner of JR Motorsports, told NASCAR.com. "We had a couple of different ways we could have went about putting our teams out for this year as far as drivers and crew chiefs. I'm glad we went with what we did because Overstreet has found a really badass situation with Justin and it's worked. I don't know what Overstreet would be doing if he didn't get that opportunity." Overstreet's 2025 campaign was a mixed bag, leading the way for rookie Carson Kvapil. The No. 1 team made it to the Championship 4, but Kvapil went winless, while fellow rookie Connor Zilisch won a league-best 10 races. "I've been doing this a long time, and I've worked with a lot of rookies," Overstreet said. "I think there was a lot of people frustrated because they saw what the other rookie did, and that leads to unrealistic expectations a lot of times. You can sit there and beat yourself up, but at the end of the day, I had to right the ship. "When you get to the point where you feel like you should have won by now, sometimes there is finger-pointing. It's tough to try to make it right." Overstreet, whose brother Tyler was a longtime public relations representative for Earnhardt, has deep ties to both the Earnhardts and Hendrick Motorsports. He grew up in the NASCAR hub, native to Concord, North Carolina, a hop-and-a-skip away from Charlotte Motor Speedway and had family who worked within the Hendrick walls. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a mechanical engineering degree, and many of his classes met in UNCC's Alan D. Kulwicki Motorsports Laboratory. While navigating the college lifestyle, Overstreet secured an internship at Hendrick. He did odds and ends with the hope of getting to the race track. Upon graduating, he had a role with Jimmie Johnson's 2006 championship-winning team. Overstreet needed a full-time gig and departed Hendrick for Red Bull Racing in 2007, working in the R&D department as the data engineer while testing with Brian Vickers, AJ Allmendinger and Mike Skinner. He made stops at a handful of other teams before returning to the Hendrick pipeline at JRM, including Michael Waltrip Racing, Turner Motorsports, Red Horse Racing, Kyle Busch Motorsports, Wood Brothers Racing and Team Penske. Upon returning to JRM in 2023, a directive from Earnhardt led to Overstreet having a direct approach in his first of two starts of the season at Bristol Motor Speedway. "Dale pulled me aside whenever he was going to run Bristol, and he told me, 'I want you to have your hands on this car,' " Overstreet said. "Dale had a shot to win and caught fire. It was a lot of fun, and I think that opened people's eyes." That success led to a part-time opportunity in 2024, with Overstreet named the crew chief of JRM's part-time fifth entry. Zilisch won in his series debut at Watkins Glen International, and Kvapil scored a trio of top fives in nine starts. "We did a lot with a little, and it led to what we had last year," Overstreet said of 18 attempts as a leader in 2024. "We didn't win any races, but we finished top four in the championship with a guy who had no heavy stock-car experience before that. A lot of people would say that's actually a win." Last September, JRM hired NASCAR Cup Series championship-winning crew chief Rodney Childers as the new leader of the No. 1 entry, splitting time between Kvapil and Zilisch. That left Overstreet in the dark until rumblings began that Pohlman would leave the organization to seek Cup opportunities. [caption id="attachment_523344" align="aligncenter" width="1300"]Meg Oliphant | Getty Images[/caption] Whether Overstreet would get a shot with Allgaier was pending. But if he was relegated to the part-time entry yet again, he had one motive. "When they made the announcement with Rodney, I told Dale that I'm fine just making the fifth car better than ever," Overstreet said. "We will make sure it's not a hindrance to the team and the organization, and we will make sure we win races." Less than a week after the 2025 season finale at Phoenix Raceway, Overstreet recalls a conversation with Allgaier. The savvy veteran knew the crew chief paid his dues and gave him words of wisdom along the way. In 2011, he interviewed to be Allgaier's lead engineer at Turner. "We sat down, and I told him I don't care what you do, but I know I believe in everything that you can do and I know that this team is capable of it," Overstreet said of that conversation. "If I got the opportunity, the sky is the limit." Switching crew chiefs comes with unknowns. Both parties are north of 40 but have a lot left in the tank. Allgaier quickly realized Overstreet would fill in smoothly. "I've raced against Andrew and have been teammates with Andrew for a long time, but until you get down to brass tacks and start to work with somebody, you don't know what to expect," Allgaier said. "Andrew came in and plugged and played really easily. Some crew chiefs come in and want to change things immediately and put their own stamp on it. Andrew was able to come in and fine-tune, tweak the details of what we already had that was good and made it even better." MORE: O'Reilly Auto Parts Series schedule | O'Reilly Auto Parts Series standings Allgaier leads the series in most statistical categories in 2026. He has the most wins (six), top fives (14), top 10s (17) and laps led (559). He clinched the No. 1 seed for The Chase with three regular-season contests remaining after winning his sixth race of the year at EchoPark Speedway. "We still have our goals, and we've talked all year of just putting another brick on the pile each week," Overstreet said. "We're building that championship, and that hasn't changed. We're focused on one week at a time, and we know the end goal is that big trophy."