Posted on by Nascar

Visit to Boys & Girls Club comes with red tutu

Editor’s note: Photos via Jessica Christian, MLive

ADRIAN, Mich. — She played air hockey and helped build paper race cars, mixing and mingling with youngsters while wearing jeans, a black T-shirt and a red tutu.

"That’s part of the fun … you can be silly," NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Danica Patrick said of her outfit. "It also just helps the kids feel relaxed. If I’m willing to be silly, then they can be silly and we don’t need to be serious, we can just have a good time."

The Stewart-Haas Racing driver will compete in this Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway (1 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM), stop No. 15 of 36 on this year’s schedule. But on Thursday, Patrick spent the afternoon at the Boys & Girls Club of Lenawee. Along with Alba Colon, General Motors’ program manager for its NASCAR Sprint Cup Series effort, the pair entertained and informed approximately 200 kids taking part in the after-school program.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• Latest news
• Standings
• Schedule

"I’ve done lots of Boys & Girls Club appearances. They’re easy, they’re all about having fun," she said. "It’s all about kids that want to be and can be inspired. The time always goes really quickly with them, and you kind of feel like you’re really making an impact."

Some recognized her, some didn’t. Nearly all seemed impressed.

"She’s that famous race car driver," her air hockey opponent said. As for her skills at the table? "Yeah, she’s really good," he admitted.

"My grandpa is a big fan," another youngster offered. "I can’t remember his favorite driver. He drives that Mountain Dew car."

"Dale (Earnhardt) Jr.," Patrick said.

"Yeah, that’s him," came the reply.

The 90-minute session passed quickly as kids of various ages each got a chance to spend time with the driver. 

"I know what it was like to watch TV and see someone on there and think ‘What are they like in person?’ or ‘How did they get there?,’ " Patrick said. "So it’s neat to be able to come to a Boys & Girls Club where it’s a different experience for them to meet someone that’s on TV. Just have them see that they’re just like them except that I had something that I really enjoyed doing. I just decided when I was 10 that I wanted to be a race car driver … you’ve got to have that dream. If you don’t have a goal, how are you going to reach it?"

Danica Patrick makes a connection at the Boys & Girls Club of Lewanee.

• Patrick enters this weekend’s event 20th in the points standings with a best finish of seventh (at Martinsville) this season. She was running just outside the top 10 during the second half of last week’s race at Pocono Raceway when she tagged the wall and ended up finishing 37th.

"It was definitely a heartbreaker," she said. "But those are the things that you just can’t do if you want to be in a position to be in the top 16, you can’t make mistakes. Especially for me, it’s not like I run top five or 10 every weekend and you just have bad ones and it’ll all balance out. It’s like I need every point I can get to hope for that.

"It’s part of the learning experience, too; with these stock cars you really have to push to the edge to be competitive, but pushing over the edge gets you in big trouble. I used to do it a lot more when I first started in NASCAR and it has gone down. But you sure find that when you’re trying to get that last little bit … and you’re doing really well that you sometimes go over that edge. Those are just mistakes that I need to avoid."

Patrick will be making her fifth Sprint Cup start at MIS. She finished 17th here last June and 18th when the series returned in August.

Posted on by Nascar

Manufacturer responds to team owner, would be disappointed if team left

RELATED: Truex says they’re ‘gonna surprise some people’

ADRIAN, Mich. — Chevrolet officials took note this week when team owner Barney Visser broached the subject of a possible manufacturer change for his Furniture Row Racing No. 78 team.
 
Asked about retaining the services of driver Martin Truex Jr., whose contract is scheduled to end after the 2015 season, Visser told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Wednesday that re-signing the driver is "certainly something we want to do."

RELATED: Remembering Truex’s first career Cup win | Furniture Row team page

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• Latest news
• Standings
• Schedule

"We just hate to screw around with anything right now, any negotiations, anything that might upset the applecart," he said. "… We’ll get it done. We’ll get in there and get started on this stuff. We’ll see."
 
Sponsorship, he said, was needed "to really negotiate the kind of contract we’d both like to see.
 
"It may involve a change in manufacturer here, we’re not sure. There just doesn’t seem to be any money out of General Motors and probably never will be for us. So something’s got to give."
 
Furniture Row has fielded Chevrolet entries since it debuted in 2005 and is one of approximately 10 full-time teams fielding its SS model in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
 
"We don’t want to lose them; we’ve been there with them in every stage of their business and we’re very happy to see they are doing that great," Alba Colon, General Motors program manager for its NASCAR Sprint Cup Series effort said Thursday during an appearance here at the Boys & Girls Club of Lenawee.
 
"It’s a little bit personal when you have seen how their team started with nothing and how far they have come; how that first day they came out to prove ‘we are a small team from Colorado and we can prove that you can have a team that’s not (based) in North Carolina.’"
 
Truex Jr.’s win last Sunday in the Axalta ‘We Paint Winners’ 400 at Pocono Raceway was his first since joining the team at the beginning of 2014 and just the second for the single-car operation — current XFINITY Series driver Regan Smith scored its first, at Darlington in 2011.
 
RELATED: Truex’s long road back to Victory Lane

Second in points entering this weekend’s Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway (1 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM), Truex has led the most laps in the last four Sprint Cup races. He is one of only four drivers, joining NASCAR Hall of Famers Lee Petty (1954, ’59), Richard Petty (1969) and Kevin Harvick (2015), to start a season with 13 top-10s in the first 14 races.

MORE:  Schedule for Michigan, Gateway weekend
 
The only active full-time Sprint Cup organization based outside the Carolinas, Furniture Row is funded through Visser’s own business entities. It has a technical alliance with Richard Childress Racing, which supplies engines and technical/engineering support.
 
GM officials don’t provide financial details of the group’s support, financial or otherwise, for the different NASCAR organizations with which the company is aligned. Nor does Ford nor Toyota, the two other auto makers currently competing in the series.
 
It would be disappointing if the relationship with Furniture Row came to an end, Colon said.
 
"First of all, they have been a Chevrolet team (from the beginning); pretty much 10 years I believe that they have always been a GM team," she said. "They started to build their engines themselves and after that they went to Hendrick Motorsports and now they have the alliance with RCR so they have been a part of the Chevy family since they started.
 
"Don’t tell me you don’t (build) relationships in 10 years. We have a good relationship with our teams; we don’t want to lose any of our teams. But at the end of the day, outside of the personal side, business is business and manufacturers and teams make the decisions that they think are the best for their circumstances.
 
"The biggest example — Joe Gibbs Racing when they made the decision (to switch from Chevrolet to Toyota in ’08) that they thought was the right choice for them.
 
"It’s just part of the business and we understand that."

RELATED: Is Truex a legitimate championship contender?

Posted on by NASCAR Official Release

Kim Brink departs NASCAR for COO role at Global Team Ford

RELATED: Gregory to integrate marketing, industry services

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (June 11, 2015) — NASCAR today announced that Senior Vice President Jill Gregory, who currently oversees the company’s Industry Services department, will also assume leadership of NASCAR Marketing effective immediately. Gregory replaces Kim Brink, who was named Chief Operating Officer of Global Team Ford — the WPP-owned group of agencies dedicated to Ford — earlier today.

In her current role, Gregory oversees a group that includes Driver, Team and Event Marketing Services, as well as Industry Operations. She has led NASCAR’s Driver Star Power initiative and spearheaded industry integration on the rollout of numerous marketing initiatives, including the new NASCAR Sprint Cup Chase format in 2014. With her added responsibilities, she will now lead Brand Marketing, Marketing and Media Research, and NASCAR Creative Design. She also serves as a member of the board of directors for The NASCAR Foundation. Gregory will report to NASCAR Chief Marketing Officer, Steve Phelps on Marketing and continue to report to NASCAR Chief Racing Development Officer, Steve O’Donnell on Industry Services.

"Jill is an extraordinary leader with world-class marketing experience from the client, agency and sports property perspective who also has deep relationships across NASCAR and keen understanding of the needs of all our stakeholders," said Phelps. "Her combined skills, experience and ability to integrate make her a perfect choice to lead this critical discipline into the future. We can’t thank Kim enough for what she has built over the last four years and her new opportunity certainly reflects her immeasurable contributions at NASCAR."

Gregory joined NASCAR in 2007 after serving as Senior Vice President of Motorsports Marketing at Bank of America and prior to that served as Director of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Marketing at Sprint NEXTEL. Earlier in her career she worked in-house at Texaco, as well as top sports marketing agencies, GMR and Wunderman. She was among the inaugural class of "Game Changers: Women in Sports Business" by SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily and the California Polytechnic, San Luis Obispo graduate stays active in the community, currently serving as corporate chair for LLS Light the Night Walk in Charlotte.

"NASCAR is a globally recognized brand and this is an important moment in our history so I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to lead marketing," said Gregory. "We have many strong assets in the sport right now and I look forward to integrating Industry Services and Marketing as we work across the industry to build our brand and the profile of our drivers, tracks and events to grow NASCAR."

Brink has led all marketing initiatives at NASCAR since 2011, spearheading award-winning advertising creative, the launch of NASCAR’s current Hispanic outreach efforts, as well as the development of NASCAR’s acclaimed youth marketing platform, Acceleration Nation. She also led NASCAR’s Agency of Record review that resulted in the selection of class-leading Ogilvy and Mather.

Brink joined NASCAR after a long tenure at General Motors in Detroit where she led global advertising and sales promotions campaigns for Chevrolet and Cadillac. As COO at Global Team Ford, Brink will report to Team Detroit CEO, Satish Korde, and play a lead role driving marketing support for Ford Motor Company worldwide.

"My experience at NASCAR has been outstanding and I look forward to staying connected to the sport through its relationship with Ford," said Brink. "The sport is headed in the right direction and I’m confident the team and marketing foundation that has been built positions Jill and the team for great success going forward. She is a talented leader with strong experience and relationships that will serve the sport very well."

Posted on by

Two of Junior’s most memorable wins came in the Irish Hills of Michigan

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has a knack for ending winless streaks at Michigan International Speedway.

While his current drought is only four races thanks to his win in May at Talladega Superspeedway, there was once a time when NASCAR’s most popular driver ended a pair of glaring winless streaks at the 2-mile track located in the Irish Hills of Michigan.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• Latest news
• Standings
• Schedule

With the Sprint Cup Series heading to MIS for Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400 (1 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM), it’s a good time to look back at 2008 and 2012, when the Hendrick Motorsports driver quieted the critics and brought roars from the stands.

When Junior entered Victory Lane on June 15, 2008 after he took the LifeLock 400 checkered flag, it brought plenty of relief to Junior Nation, knowing that Earnhardt’s decision to leave Dale Earnhardt Incorporated for Hendrick Motorsports could pay off. By picking up his first win since 2006 — in just his 15th race with his new organization – it allowed his fan base to exhale a bit and focus on all the wins to come in the years ahead (more on that later).

In the video above, you may have noticed the final lap lacked much drama, as Junior won the race after Patrick Carpentier spun on the white flag to bring out the yellow — meaning all Earnhardt had to do was maintain speed as he came to the finish.

It worked out because the No. 88 was running low on gas — Junior didn’t even have enough to do a victory burnout and needed to be pushed to Victory Lane — so if the final lap had been run at full speed, it’s possible he’d have run out.

Besides, the slow lap just gave fans a chance to cheer louder and longer.

Now, as for all of those "wins to come in the years ahead" — they didn’t.

Following his landmark win in 2008, Junior then found himself mired in a 143-race winless streak, equating to just under four full seasons.

Gas or no gas, after a streak like that, Earnhardt made sure he celebrated with one of the best burnouts we’ve seen in recent years after he took the Quicken Loans 400 checkered flag in 2012.

Worth the wait.

Posted on by RJ Kraft

Driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet ready to compete in the Irish Hills

MORE: Daytona paint scheme revealed for No. 88
SHOP: Dale Jr. gear, paint schemes

CONCORD, N.C. — The paint schemes on his No. 88 Chevrolet continue to impress Dale Earnhardt Jr., especially his look for this weekend.

At a 7-Eleven just minutes from Charlotte Motor Speedway, Earnhardt showed off the fresh look that his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series ride, sponsored by AMP Energy, will have at Michigan International Speedway for the Quicken Loans 400 (Sunday, 1 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM).

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• Latest news
• Standings
• Schedule

"This is definitely unique," Earnhardt told NASCAR.com. "I like the idea behind the paint scheme and how it came about. I had a little influence on the paint scheme itself. I think it’s pretty cool. I have never ran a car with purple on it, so that’s new.



"And I enjoy being involved in that part of it. I want to like the car that I’m driving. I want to like the way it looks, and that sort of is a bit of a motivating factor behind driving the race car in the first place, is to be able to design it and paint it yourself."



So what influence did Junior have on the look that fans ultimately chose as the winner in a Facebook contest?

"Some of the logo placements. The big deal on the door. They had some other things going on, where all that was a lot smaller, and I thought some of that stuff should get really blown up and be obnoxious on the side of the car to sort of give the car a little bit more of a dynamic look and some more energy.



"They sort of had these little passion fruit emblems placed sporadically along the car and they were a lot smaller. And I just thought, ‘Man this stuff should be coming at you and be really big.’ "



The Concord, North Carolina 7-Eleven location won the event and appearance from the sport’s most popular driver by being the store of the 70-plus 7-Eleven’s in the Charlotte area to sell the most AMP Energy drinks from May 18 to June 3. Passion Fruit is one of four new flavors AMP Energy recently introduced to its product line of energy drinks and is the one that will be featured on the No. 88 Chevrolet.



Fans came in full force to see the Hendrick Motorsports driver, and the interaction with Junior Nation is something that the driver values tremendously, whether it is in person or through social media. Last month, Earnhardt crossed the one million followers mark on Twitter.



"Trying to keep an understanding, I guess, of where they’re at mentally with what we’re doing, whether they’re enjoying the marketing, the partnerships that we’re creating. What they think about our racing and obviously our efforts out on the track. The best way to really get an understanding of that is to reach out and have conversation and let ’em rip. They tell you about the cars that they like, the partnerships you’ve created that they like and give you a good idea of where to focus your energy."

RELATED: #TBT recalls Dale Jr.’s two Michigan wins



This weekend, Earnhardt will be competing in the Irish Hills at the 2-mile venue at Michigan. He has two wins in 31 starts at the track and both of those wins snapped sizable winless streaks. Last year, Earnhardt finished seventh in the June race and fifth in the August race. The driver, who is fifth in the point standings and won at Talladega Superspeedway last month, feels good heading into the weekend.



"I really enjoy racing there. Every time we show up to the racetrack, we go with new ideas because Greg (Ives, who is in his first year as the crew chief of the No. 88 team), he brings a lot more to the table that we didn’t have last year. We ran great last year, but anytime you bring in a new guy, with new ideas, it adds to it and you hope that it improves and hope that it allows you to be more competitive. 



"The cars have been real fast and real fun to drive this year and that’s a real, direct connection to Greg and his ideas and his ability to work with our lead engineer, Kevin (Meendering). I’m looking forward to it. We should run well, have fun. We’ve been enjoying ourselves this year, and it should be another week of that."

Posted on by RJ Kraft

JR Motorsports driver scored first 21 Means 21 Pole Award there in 2014

LONG POND, Pa. — Rewind the clock back to a year ago: Cole Custer had made two NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts that resulted in two top-15 finishes.

In his third race, the NASCAR Next product really turned heads at Gateway Motorsports Park, site of Saturday night’s American Ethanol presents the Drivin’ for Linemen 200 brought to you by Ameren (8:30 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM). Custer scored his first 21 Means 21 Pole Award for the event last year as well as his first top-10 finish (a sixth-place result) in a NASCAR national series event.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• Latest news
• Standings
• Schedule

"I’m really looking forward to it just because we were so fast there last year," Custer told NASCAR.com at Pocono Raceway, where he ran in the Pocono ARCA 200 last weekend. "I think we are going to bring a real great truck and we are going to have a lot of speed. We are really looking forward to that one. We have it circled on our calendar."

The 17-year-old California native ran a nine-race slate last year with Haas Racing Development. That includes a victory at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last fall, where he led 148 of 175 laps en route to becoming the youngest winner in NASCAR national series history. 

This season, Custer is helping to build the foundation for the truck operation at JR Motorsports, the Dale Earnhardt Jr.-owned racing team. 

"It’s such a great organization," he said. "It’s one of the top ones in NASCAR. It definitely helps us on the truck side trying to bring fast race cars to the track."

Gateway will be the third of 10 planned races Custer will run for JRM this season, and part of a stretch that sees him run three races (Dover, Gateway and Iowa) in four weeks. Custer is not of age to run at tracks under 1.25-miles per the NASCAR rulebook. 

"You got to be good in (Turn) 1," Custer said of what he considers a key at Gateway. "You got to get your car turning. You are probably not going to be able to be perfect in both ends because the corners are different. Just being able to turn through Turn 1 and then being a little on the loose side in Turns 3 and 4. It’s different a tricky track."

To fill the gaps in his schedule, Custer is running a handful of ARCA events as well as some NASCAR K&N Pro Series races this summer. Moving between different series and cars is a bit of an adjustment for the young driver.

"It’s a little bit difficult," Custer said. "It usually takes you about half a practice session or so to get used to the different cars. Once you get used to it, it’s just like anything else with driving. I think it makes you a better driver just from getting different feels and everything."

That track time in other series could pay off big for Custer when the Truck Series hits Iowa for his fourth start of the season on June 19 for the American Ethanol 200 (8:30 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM). Custer finished eighth in the Truck Series race there last year.

"I’m looking forward to Iowa, too, just because I won there in the past (2013) in the K&N Pro Series. I really like that track and I feel like we were pretty good there last year. We weren’t dominant, but I feel like we got a real good package this year and I think we are going to be strong there."

Posted on by Staff Report

ISC CEO briefs international media on the reimagining of an American icon

Hundreds of international media members got an in-depth look at the vision behind the $400 million DAYTONA Rising project from International Speedway Corporation CEO Lesa France Kennedy at the annual 24 Hours of Le Mans press conference in France this morning.

Many of those same media will be among the first to experience the finished product, as the 2016 Rolex 24 At Daytona on Jan. 30-31 will be the inaugural event in what has been dubbed the "World’s First Modern Motorsports Stadium."
 
"DAYTONA Rising is the complete re-creation of the Daytona International Speedway, home of the Rolex 24 At Daytona," Kennedy said. "DAYTONA Rising will fundamentally change how our guests experience our races, and transform the quality of entertainment at our flagship racing facility."
 
In addition to providing specifics of the DAYTONA Rising project, Kennedy gave the media a brief glimpse at the history of Daytona International Speedway, which opened in 1959 under the direction of her grandfather, Bill France Sr. She made a point to clarify the importance of the word "International" in the names of both the Daytona International Speedway and International Speedway Corporation.
 
"My grandfather dreamed of more," she said. "He imagined and then created a 2.5-mile race track with 31-degree banking in the turns, an engineering concept never seen before. He was not satisfied with creating the most important track in stock car racing, however. He wanted his sparkling new facility to play a major role in international motorsports.
 
"To further that end, he came up with a brand-new concept of creating a road course on the infield so Daytona could host sports car and motorcycle racing."
 
Daytona International Speedway has hosted major international sports car races since 1962 and 24-hour races since 1966. The 2016 Rolex 24 At Daytona will be the 54th running, but few will be as greatly anticipated.
 
"We are taking guests to new heights — literally — creating sightlines never before experienced," Kennedy said. "In motorsports, the best seats in the house often are at the very top. Our brand new fourth level provides views of the entire track, including the road course, and on a clear day, even the Atlantic Ocean.
 
"Three new concourse levels will span the frontstretch with 11 social areas that we’re calling ‘neighborhoods,’ each the size of a football field. For those who visited us this past January, you may have gotten an early look. You won’t believe your eyes when you return in January 2016.

Posted on by Staff Report

18-year-old will take full control of No. 8 Chevrolet in Truck Series

One day following his 18th birthday (June 11), John Hunter Nemechek will settle back in the driver’s seat of the No. 8 NEMCO Motorsports Chevrolet for good.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• Latest news
• Standings
• Schedule

Nemechek, who has been sharing seat time with his father Joe in the No. 8 truck, will grow old enough to be eligible to finish the remainder of the NCWTS schedule beginning in Saturday’s American Ethanol presents the Drivin’ for Linemen 200 brought to you by Ameren at Gateway Motorsports Park (8:30 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM).

The NASCAR Next member will spend his first day as a legal adult, not celebrating, but doing what he does every day – improving himself as a race car driver.

"I’ll be here at the race shop working on my birthday," Nemechek said. "We’re non-stop working, trying to get these trucks done, trying to make everything better, so we can go out and contend for wins."

If Nemechek races as well at Gateway on Saturday as he did last season, he has a very good chance at visiting Victory Lane. He led 53 laps before a late spin relegated him to 15th. In the process he drew praise on Twitter from NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stars Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Danica Patrick.

"How cool is it watching @JohnNemechek leading at Gateway in the @CampingWorld Truck Series race! Go get ’em kid!", Stewart tweeted.

Nemechek, who will be competing in his third race this season feels ready to attack the 1.25-mile track.

"Last year at Gateway we ran very well," he said. "We made huge improvements from hitting the fence in the first lap of practice to contending for a win. We had an unfortunate event that happened at the end of the race that put us out of contention, but I’m really looking forward to going back this year. It’s a very fun place. Both corners are different so you have to get you’re truck handling in both.

"It’s more of a driver’s track. You’ll see some guys struggle and some guys will prevail. I’m really looking forward to going back."

Posted on by Nascar

Bruce: Challenges run deep for two-car organization

After 14 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races, Clint Bowyer finds himself 17th in the points standings, a position that’s better than a lot of folks in the garage today.

By picking up one or more spots between now and the fall race at Richmond, Bowyer would likely find himself in this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. 

Of course, a win would all but seal the deal as well. But there’s a long stretch of lonesome asphalt between the Michael Waltrip Racing driver’s current residence and Victory Lane these days.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• Latest news
• Standings
• Schedule

Competitive isn’t a term that’s been over-used this season at MWR when it comes to the organization’s two Sprint Cup Series teams. Bowyer has managed only three top-10 finishes, no top-fives, and has led just two laps in 2015.

The No. 15 team has been MWR’s best this season, and that tells you all you need to know about the current status of the Cornelius, North Carolina-based group, co-owned by Michael Waltrip and Rob Kaufmann.

The group’s second entry, the No. 55, has been fighting to find its footing since the beginning of the season, with no apparent success. Primary driver Brian Vickers has been sidelined by yet another bout of blood clots — his return isn’t expected this season — and the team’s roster has featured three different drivers in his absence. David Ragan, the former Front Row Motorsports driver who took a short stint driving in relief of the injured Kyle Busch at Joe Gibbs Racing, is the most recent to settle into the seat, and only time will tell if stability provides any benefits.

On Tuesday, MWR announced a crew chief swap between its two teams, moving Billy Scott from the No. 55 to the 15 and Brian Pattie from the 15 to the 55.

Pattie’s been to Victory Lane — once with former Sprint Cup driver Juan Pablo Montoya and three times with Bowyer. Scott, the former lead engineer for the No. 55, was handed the reins of that team after the conclusion of the 2013 season. 

It’s a different approach, if not exactly a new one. Crew chief changes are one of the first lines of defense a team tries when results fail to meet expectations. 

Team chemistry is one of the few things that can’t be measured on a set-up plate or with a template. No one knew that pairing crew chief Cole Pearn with driver Martin Truex Jr. this year at Furniture Row Racing would produce substantial results. Yet Truex just ended a 69-race winless streak, sits second in the points standings and has led the most laps in the past four Sprint Cup Series races. 

But while Pearn has proven to be a big plus for Furniture Row, his addition isn’t the only reason behind the turnaround. The team is also putting fast race cars on the track each week. Competitive cars. 

MWR currently is not. 

Given that some drivers have been unable to find their comfort zone with the new rules package for 2015, perhaps that’s worth consideration as well. But no one, save for the unheralded Brett Moffitt, has managed to crack the top 10 in the team’s No. 55, suggesting that the problem goes deeper than the drivers’ ability to adapt to the new less-horsepower, lower downforce platform. 

"We’ve got to make our cars better," Bowyer said during a break in Wednesday’s open test at Darlington Raceway.

It’s a refrain the 36-year-old has made on more than one occasion this year.

Asked who was ultimately responsible for such matters, Bowyer took a side street if not the high road, choosing instead to confirm how much he’s looking forward to working with Scott. 

"Yeah, but we did change crew chiefs. … Billy’s a quiet guy but he’s a fun person. He’s a very, very smart person, very capable of doing this job," Bowyer said. 

Changing crew chiefs might solve some of the MWR’s ills. It remains to be seen whether it will cure the disease.