Posted on by Holly Cain

Team already eying advantages in possible new playoff format

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — With their leader, Jack Roush, on a rare Disney vacation, the Roush Fenway Racing team took the stage Wednesday for its turn in the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour, upbeat about the upcoming season and ready to embrace change for itself and the sport.

Without a championship for the past nine years, the team is preparing to get on track and redirect its results. As with most drivers during the four days of media interview sessions, this group also had strong opinions about recent changes to qualifying and about possible major restructuring of the championship format.

Roush President Steve Newmark said that although team executives have been trying for decades to get the renowned workaholic Roush to take some time off, it took an ambush Disney vacation from his grandkids to finally sway Roush to follow through.

"We thought about having him Skype with us with his Mickey Mouse ears on," Newmark joked.

Instead, Newmark handled the statistical analysis Roush typically rendered, telling the media his team won three races, qualified two of its three cars (Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle) for the Chase and won Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors with its third driver, Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

"Although I think we recognize that for some teams those would be good statistics and might be a banner year and would be considered a successful year, but, in fact, for us, those are not the statistics by which we measure our performance," Newmark said. "Instead, I’ll tell you the very simple numbers by which we measure our performance, and those are nine, 13, and 19.  That’s where we came in in the Cup standings last year, and I can tell you that if you went to Roush Fenway, walked the halls, and talked to any employee regardless of where they are on the organization chart that they would tell you that that result is actually not acceptable."

Besides the snow blanketing the Southeast and causing a big of havoc on Wednesday in downtown Charlotte, the biggest buzz during the third day of the annual four-day Media Tour centered on possible changes to the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and how NASCAR crowns its champion.

No official details or announcements have been issued. However, it’s expected to be discussed in NASCAR Chairman Brian France’s annual State of the Sport address to media on Thursday.

A lot of scenarios have been floated, but the prevalent thinking is that a new system would put a significant emphasis on winning races and provide for an elimination-type format during the 10-race Chase.

The Roush Fenway drivers acknowledged they had heard several possibilities, and for the veteran Edwards, it is as much a situation of getting used to "change" itself as it is favoring one format over another.

"I think we just have to make sure whatever structure we use doesn’t have an unintended consequence or diminish the champion’s achievement," said Edwards, who led the 2013 standings at the end of the regular season, but finished 13th in the Chase.

"You don’t want to win 35 races and then have a blown tire in the final race and not win the championship, that would seem kind of an odd juxtaposition as to how we crown champions.

"The only thing that makes this hard is we’re not starting from a clean slate," Edwards explained. "What we’re doing is saying that from 1955 or whenever the points system started we’ve gone for basically 50 years with a system and built the sport around that.

"I admire NASCAR for having the guts to say, ‘Hey we’re going to make this better.’ But that’s the shift that’s hard. The change. Not whether it’s right or wrong, but that it’s a change.

"You guys know, I want the cars to drive just like they did in 1980. I’m that guy, no downforce, I’m an old school guy. But I have to admit if this goes the way NASCAR sees it going, it could be extremely exciting. It could be amazing."

The longer Edwards spoke to reporters, the more he seemed to reconcile the idea of a Homestead winner-take-all scenario that is among those being floated.

Roush Fords have won seven of 15 Homestead races — including wins by Biffle three times and Edwards twice.

"I don’t think any team has a better record at Homestead," Edwards said smiling. "I guess I should be really fighting for that. I think if every season was determined by who won Homestead, we’d have some championships right now. That’s something we know as a team, there’s an advantage for us."

While Edwards said he understands why NASCAR wants to re-emphasize victory, he also stressed that technical modifications to the car will increase the on-track product and feels that’s an easy starting position — something NASCAR has already indicated will be an evolving element.

"No one strives for consistency," Edwards said. "You race your guts out and if you can’t win you have to be smart and get the best finish you can. It’s only going to benefit the sport to make winning much more important. That’s a motivator.

"You can’t take the top-15 drivers and make them race any harder for wins. So any format we race under, I can’t try harder. Everybody’s already doing that. What we have to focus on as a sport is making sure the cars can race well.

"That’s the key. To me, that means taking downforce away, making tires softer, taking away aerodynamics. Then no matter what format we have we’ll have guys racing each other door-to-door, nose-to-tail bumping into one another."

But above all, "Whatever it is that we do, I hope we stick with it for a long time because I think that gives it credibility inherently to not have something changing all the time," Edwards said.

"That’s sports though. At the end of the day, no professional sport seems to be set up to crown the best person over the whole year. It’s an elimination process that culminates in a champion. There’s probably a good reason for that.

"You’ve got to perform when the pressure it on. And this will change things a lot. It changes the way you race."

"And," Edwards said emphatically, "I still haven’t sat down with NASCAR. I’ve got to be clear, the whole reason we’re all here and I have a job is that NASCAR’s done a really good job since 1948 of making this sport entertaining to a whole lot of people."

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Posted on by Staff Report

Nationwide Series veteran will drive No. 35 for Front Row Motorsports at season-opener

Editor’s note: Photo via Charlotte Motor Speedway/HHP

Eric McClure will drive the No. 35 Ford Fusion for Front Row Motorsports at the Daytona 500 and attempt to qualify for the Great American Race, the team announced Wednesday.

The No. 35 car will carry the primary sponsorship of Hefty/Reynolds Wrap for the one-race slate.

"This is an exciting time for me and certainly for our sponsoring brands as well," McClure said in a team release. "In our sport, and for my family, there is nothing greater than the Daytona 500 and this opportunity will enhance our program in a unique way.

"Front Row and I have a history together; they have always represented their partners and ours in a professional manner. They are very strong on the superspeedways and I enjoy this type of racing more than any other. Racing in the Daytona 500 has always been a dream of mine and I look forward to getting to Daytona, working with the team, and trying to achieve this goal."

McClure has run three NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races in his career. This will be his first Cup event at Daytona, and his first attempt at a Cup race since 2006.

McClure, 35, is a veteran of 226 races in the NASCAR Nationwide Series and posted his first career top-10 finish in last year’s season-opening Nationwide Series race at Daytona.

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Posted on by Zack Albert

Despite continuity with Cup drivers and crew chiefs, organization shakes up its pit crews

RELATED: Team Penske preview | Driver profiles: Brad Keselowski | Joey Logano

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Team Penske made one thing clear in their preview of the 2014 NASCAR season: Keeping the organization intact was a priority. It’s the reason the word "continuity" was used eight times Wednesday afternoon by the team’s drivers and officials during their 18-minute presentation on the Sprint Media Tour.
 
While the most prominent faces remain the same — in keeping with the continuity theme — it’s the behind-the-scenes areas where the team has taken a more aggressive approach, all in the name of bettering finishes of eighth and 14th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings last year. The changes include a shuffling of pit-crew personnel for both full-time teams, an expanded role for star-in-the-making Ryan Blaney, and the offseason addition of a former college wrestling coach who has Joey Logano — involved in a handful of physical altercations last season — ready to take the mat.
 
"I’ve got some new wrestling moves," Logano joked. "So I’m ready if something happens this year like last year."

Grappling aside, the team retains the core of Logano, working with crew chief Todd Gordon in the No. 22 Ford, and 2012 Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski and crew chief Paul Wolfe on the team’s flagship No. 2 — marking the first carryover of driver-crew chief pairings in 10 years, according to team president Tim Cindric. It’s a stark contrast to the previous offseason, when team owner Roger Penske brought in a new driver in Logano, a new manufacturer in Ford and had to adapt to the new sixth-generation stock car for NASCAR’s premier series.
 
With those key components locked up into 2014 and beyond, this offseason meant a top-to-bottom look at assessing its shortcomings. A big part of that focus centered on improvement in over-the-wall execution, including changing almost half of the crew members between the two Sprint Cup teams, according to Cindric.
 
"The pit crew stuff brought in a whole new approach and almost essentially gutted the culture of our pit department in the last month," Keselowski said. "It’s been a rapid turnaround. I feel like we’re going to go from being an average pit crew to the best on pit road, and that’s our goal. Hopefully, that’ll happen in a year’s time, but maybe it’ll take a bit longer, but we know the effort is there and the approach is there."
 
A pivotal piece to the pit-crew puzzle was the offseason hiring of Jim Beichner, the wrestling coach for 18 successful seasons at the University at Buffalo. The addition of Beichner as a true athletics director has brought structure to the team’s fitness regimen, and Logano said he’s already seen a shift in attitude among his crew.
 
For Penske, it was a new approach, but a necessary step.
 
"I think when you start with continuity, you talk about drivers, you talk about crew chiefs, you talk about team managers … so when we look up and down the management side and the key players, they’re there," Penske said. "Then you look down further in the organization and you say, ‘where were we strong and where were we weak?’ I think many times, the media said that our pit crew didn’t execute the way they should. So we read our press clippings, quite honestly, and it said we need to be better.

"So we said, let’s not say we just hire someone, what we really did was go out to get someone who’s an athletic director, someone that worked with young people, built teams, won championships and brought Jim Beichner on, and I think that’s going to make a difference."
 
The team’s young core of Keselowski, 29, and Logano, 23, gets younger with expanded driving duties for the 20-year-old Blaney. Last season’s Sunoco Rookie of the Year in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series is scheduled to make his Sprint Cup debut with two races (Kansas in May, Talladega in October), race a 15-event schedule for Penske in the NASCAR Nationwide Series and a full truck season for Keselowski’s team.
 
It’s just another facet to the significant, behind-the-scenes changes underneath the high-profile continuity.
 
"We’re committed to making this work," Wolfe said, "so you can’t be afraid to make change if that’s one of your weaknesses and that’s what we feel like we did this offseason."

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Posted on by Nascar

Both drivers inducted posthumously into the NASCAR Hall of Fame

MORE: Five inducted | Petty, Ingram took unexpected routes | Jarrett’s father-son bond deepens

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Tim Flock, one of three brothers that competed in NASCAR’s first "Strictly Stock" race in 1949, and who went on to become a two-time series champion, was paid the sanctioning body’s highest honor Wednesday night when he was inducted in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
 
Glenn "Fireball" Roberts, a winner of 33 races and called "the first superstar our sport had" by Hall of Fame member Ned Jarrett, joined Flock in the 2014 class.
 
Also inducted were 1999 Cup champ Dale Jarrett, two-time NASCAR Busch (now Nationwide) Series champ Jack Ingram and legendary engine builder Maurice Petty.

Junior Johnson, an inaugural inductee and championship-winning car owner, raced against both Flock and Roberts.
 
"Fireball wasn’t afraid of anything," Johnson said. "He drove the car like he was always in control and knew what he was doing. But he was all-out; he would want to lead every lap.
 
"Tim was the guy who was more of a finesse driver. He waited until he had to do something to win and then here he would come.”
 
But above all, Johnson said, “Both of them were just great people.
 
"You’d never meet any two people any better than Tim and Fireball."
 
Flock, who won titles in 1952 and 1955, won 39 times in 187 starts during what was a relatively short, 13-year career. His 18-win season in ’55 while paired with team owner Carl Kiekhaefer was the benchmark for single-season victories until Richard Petty eclipsed the mark a dozen years later, winning 27 times.
 
Flock scored his first victory in his seventh start, approximately a year after making his debut and it also came at Charlotte Speedway, a three-quarter mile dirt track.
 
In 1998, Flock was named one of NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers.
 
Brothers Fonty and Bob, along with sister Ethel, also competed in NASCAR.
 
Roberts had the name, and the talent, to draw attention to the fledgling series in the sport’s early days. Although he didn’t run for the series championship, Roberts often dominated those in which he did compete.
 
In ’56, he posted 22 top-10 finished in 33 starts; in ’58 he won six times in only 10 starts. He won some of the sport’s premier events – the Daytona 500 and Southern 500 among them – as well as those held on less well-known venues.
 
"Tim was better, I think, than Fireball on dirt, but Fireball won a lot of dirt races, too," Johnson said. "Fireball, he was a good as anybody.
 
"I raced against both of them a lot; I won my share and they won their share. It was a lot of who had the best car that day, and who had the luck too."
 
Roberts died in 1964, a few weeks after being involved in a fiery crash at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
 
His grandson, Matt McDaniel, spoke on behalf of the Roberts family during the induction ceremony.
 
"He was considered a Renaissance man," McDaniel said, with his crew cut, cleanly-shaved face (and) well-dressed appearance.
 
"He attended college where he studied mechanical and aeronautical engineering, leading to a love of flying airplanes. …
 
"Our grandfather never won a championship, not because he didn’t have the talent or a car capable of winning. He never ran a full season in the NASCAR Grand National Division. He did, however, finish in the top five in points three times with a career-best runner-up performance during his rookie year of 1950."
 
Like Flock, Roberts was also named one of NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers in 1998.

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Social campaign a nod to fallen son of team owner

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The rise of social media’s popularity, particularly the Twitter networking platform, has played well with Jimmie Johnson‘s run of championships.

As his charge to the title has played out during the course of recent seasons, Johnson’s use of hashtags, a combination of the # symbol followed by keywords or topics, has been very much in evidence.

There was #5time following his fifth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship in 2010. That was followed by #6pack, which appeared during his drive to a sixth title this past season.

During Tuesday’s Hendrick Motorsports portion of the Sprint Media Tour, presented by Charlotte Motor Speedway, Johnson explained the origins of his latest hashtag — #se7en.

"Out of memory of Ricky Hendrick, I went with #se7en," Johnson said. The numeral and the peculiar way it was written "was something that was really important to (Ricky). … He would spell it out that way and had it in a variety of ways."

Hendrick, son of team owner Rick Hendrick, was one of 10 people killed in a plane crash in October of 2004. He had made 22 starts in what is now the NASCAR Nationwide Series before stepping out of the car and turning his attention to ownership in the series.

"When we were at the Hendrick Christmas party in December, his favorite band O.A.R. was playing and the whole moment kind of came to a head," Johnson said. "(We were) up front at the stage, singing away. Mr. Hendrick, Linda (Hendrick) … the whole family and everybody’s there reliving Ricky moments, just talking about him and watching his favorite band play.

"I left there thinking ‘This is it, it’s got to be se7en, the way he used it and wrote it.’ So that’s going to be the hashtag."

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Catch up with what drivers and Hall of Fame inductees are buzzing about 

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Catch up with what your favorite drivers and teams have been buzzing about

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Posted on by Brad Norman

Seasons of learning the ropes a thing of the past for 29-year-old

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Aric Almirola has been the face of Richard Petty Motorsports’ flagship No. 43 Ford for the past two years as the organization tried to rebound from poor financial footing since Richard Petty and other investors purchased the company’s racing assets in late 2010.

With low funds and dwindling sponsorship, part of the Petty plan was using the Florida native to woo sponsors. Almirola — charming, clean-cut and reliable — has since helped the program gain value. Chief sponsor Smithfield recently extended its agreement with the No. 43 through 2016 and increased its investment by 50 percent. On Wednesday during the Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway, the team announced that U.S. Air Force will continue its backing of the No. 43 for two races — the Memorial Day weekend event at Charlotte and the Fourth of July weekend race at Daytona.

Funds have increased, new revenue streams are flowing and Almirola himself was rewarded with a new contract that runs through 2016 after working on a pair of one-year deals since 2012.

The next step for the 29-year-old driver: Become the face of RPM for his on-track success.

"I’m more confident going into this year than I ever have been in a race car, period," Almirola said during RPM’s session at the Sprint Media Tour. "Throughout most of my career I’ve had a lot of growing pains and … I always felt like it was more important for me to learn than it was for me to go out and be aggressive and try to race for wins. I needed to run all the laps and be consistent and learn as much as I can.

"That time’s over for me. I’m showing up to the race track every week for one thing, to put the 43 back in Victory Lane. That’s all I care about this year."

Almirola has a pair of top-fives and 10 top-10s in two full-time seasons with RPM. The driver rattled off four consecutive top-10s early in the 2013 season, the longest such streak of his career. He was 12th in the points standings through 13 races — the midway point of the regular season — but had slipped to 18th when the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup field was set following the regular-season finale at Richmond.

"We started off last year really well and we faltered through the summer," Almirola said. "We’re not going to falter this year."

Part of that confidence stems from the increased backing of several sponsors — namely Smithfield — that has enabled the organization to launch its own Research & Development department. It’s a first for RPM, which previously had a partnership with Roush Fenway Racing for chassis and Roush Yates for engines.

Now there are more bodies in the building. There are more new faces, too — employees who bring ideas from other shops and breathe fresh life into old or longstanding beliefs.

"We have an R&D team, and guys are putting their brains together to make our program better," Almirola said. "We’ve never really had that. We had kind of taken what we got across the street from Roush and went and raced it. We’ve got some new people, and I’ve got a new crew chief this year in Trent Owens and I feel really lucky to have him because he’s gonna help us a lot."

Owens has called seven NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races in his career as a national series crew chief, which began in 2006. He has been atop the pit box for 247 NASCAR Nationwide Series races and was the full-time crew chief for Kyle Larson in the series last year.

Owens is expected to bring some stability to a program that has used five different crew chiefs over the past two seasons. Almirola’s full-time crew chief last year, Todd Parrott, is no longer with the company after testing positive for a banned substance last year (Parrott has since completed the NASCAR Road to Recovery program).

"We’ve both been open with each other, and we know we’re going to make mistakes," Owens said. "But we also know if we work together, we can do some great things. I think right now there’s good chemistry within the team, and I don’t see why there’s any reason where we can not only improve the track performance, but contend for some wins."

Winning has been the goal for Petty since his 2010 purchase. Ambrose has won twice in that span, both at Watkins Glen, but the iconic No. 43 hasn’t been to Victory Lane since 1999.

With the spotlight on him Wednesday, the all-time leader in NASCAR wins — who addressed the media a few hundred yards away from the NASCAR Hall of Fame, of which he is a member — detailed why he thinks Almirola is the man to do it.

"When we signed Aric on, we knew he had the talent, he was just never in a concrete place where he could put 100 percent of his effort into it," Petty said. "And now that he’s got that experience and that racing (the past two years), it’ll start showing up.

"We’re probably in the best shape we’ve been in the last three or four years. … We’ve got some new sponsorship coming on, and some of the people that stayed on have really stepped up. I guess we’ll have to have a little talk with the drivers and get them to step up a little, too."

The last line was delivered as Petty gave a sideways glance to his drivers, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, his face wearing that fantastic Petty grin. Sure, it was a comment delivered in a tongue-in-cheek manner, but the message still boomed loud and clear over the microphone.

It’s time to win.

"When Richard … got into the business, (he) didn’t want to run in the back of the pack," team CEO Brian Moffitt said. "One of the traditions of the Pettys is to run up front and win races. That’s what we’re in this for."

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Stewart, Harvick and Busch all have new crew chiefs for 2014

RELATED: Harvick eyes elusive championship

At Stewart-Haas Racing, the driver lineup can be so incandescent, it threatens to blind you to everything else. There’s Tony Stewart with his half-smile and half-scowl, ready to make a comeback from his broken right leg. There’s Kurt Busch, once again among the elite after two seasons in exile. There’s Kevin Harvick, primed for perhaps his best run at a title. There’s Danica Patrick, keeping those souvenir rigs on the move. That roster shines so brightly, you need sunglasses just to read it on paper.

And yet, the backbone of what could be a three-headed attack on the Sprint Cup Series championship — not to mention a four-pronged assault on the Daytona 500 — might very well be found somewhere else. Everyone’s wondering how this new mix of drivers at SHR is going to fare. Few have realized that this new mix of crew chiefs at SHR is going just fine, thank you, to the point where the cars at the organization’s different race programs are already closer together than they were last year.

"Our cars have all migrated to much, much similar, almost identical race cars, which we never had," said Vice President of Competition Greg Zipadelli. "They’ve just been all over the world with all kinds of different things. Getting us to work together as team will hopefully allow us to make changes, and identify problems and situations a little easier. These guys have done a really good job of working together. You couldn’t ask for much more than that at this time."

A team that seemed behind on its car development entering last season may find that exact same area to be a strength in 2014, thanks in large part to three new crew chiefs at an SHR organization that’s been overhauled well beyond the drivers’ seats. Late last year, Rodney Childers moved over from Michael Waltrip Racing’s No. 55 team to oversee the No. 4 program of Harvick. After MWR shut down its No. 56 team due to a sponsor’s departure, Chad Johnston was freed to replace Steve Addington on Stewart’s No. 14 car. And Daniel Knost, formerly a race engineer for Ryan Newman, was promoted to crew chief for Busch’s No. 41.

The three new signal-callers join Tony Gibson, who remains in charge of Danica Patrick’s No. 10 team, and comprise a group that’s just as integral to SHR’s success as its new faces behind the wheel. Thanks in part to a long previous working relationship between Johnston and Childers, and a similarity in mindsets between the MWR expatriates and Knost, the group has quickly found common ground despite a rapid expansion process to accommodate the team’s fourth car.

Even with all the upheaval, Zipadelli says the cars at SHR are "way better" than they were at this time a year ago. That’s no small detail, given that Stewart, Newman and Patrick all stumbled early last season in the aftermath of a promising Daytona 500.

"It’s worked out good for all of us, really," said Childers, who juggled multiple drivers at MWR, and won at New Hampshire last season with Brian Vickers. "I think we all have a lot of trust in each other. I think the crew chiefs that are there now, we all think alike. Daniel and Chad have engineering backgrounds, and I was basically taught to crew chief as an engineer, even though I don’t have a degree. We all use (simulation) the same way; we all use that stuff to build our cars and do things the right way. There’s not any guessing games about anything. Either this shows us this is the right way, or we’re not doing it. So I think having everybody on that same level and thinking the same has just helped the whole organization."

The assimilation of the new crew chiefs has been a smooth one, surely helped by the fact that Childers and Johnston have worked together since they both joined Ray Evernham’s team in 2006. They found something of a kindred soul in Knost, who believes rule changes, attitudes, and the speed of Harvick’s car at the December test at Charlotte helped the three new signal-callers all find quickly common ground amid their new surroundings.

"A lot of the games and tricks you used to play with on a car, you don’t necessarily have to do that anymore," Knost said. "People are looking for ideas right now, so I think that sparks dialogue. And then you go to the Charlotte test and the 4 car was really good there, so all of the sudden there’s kind of a stake in the sand, and we all say, ‘We need to huddle around that flag.’ As we get more comfortable with what our drivers want and how we’re going to work with them, I think you’ll see some diversion. I think that’s healthy. I think that encourages a rapid growth rate if everyone is encouraged to develop in the dimension they consider most important. But every time someone wins or sits on the pole, it kind of re-centers the group as to what’s critical."

The push for more unified car development is clearly coming from the former MWR crew chiefs. "We’ve been together for a while, so we want similar things done to our race cars," Johnston said of he and Childers. "It makes the other two more likely to jump on board when it’s majority-type rule. So we’re bringing fresh ideas in to be able to take them and test them and prove them. At the end of the day, if you can get four guys giving you all of their ideas, you’re going to get better four times as fast, and that’s what our goal is."

Indeed, after the speed Harvick showed in the Dec. 11 test at Charlotte, Johnston told Childers, "Make ’em all like the 4." The move was understandable, given that Childers started at SHR in late fall of last year, and had a real head start on 2014. The affable former go-karting champion also has a very clear way of how he wants things done, right down to the appearance of his cars, taking his cue from Jimmie Johnson‘s six-time championship crew chief Chad Knaus.

"I think the biggest thing is, the place really needed some excitement, and it needed some change, and there’s been a lot of change. You had ideas that were there, and how (some) people wanted to do it. You had probably me pushing the most on, ‘We’re going to do it this way, and we’re going to make this stuff look this way, and we’re going to do things nice and neat and make them look good for our sponsors.’ Just everybody has been working together really, really well," Childers said.

"Probably the biggest thing for me and the most fun for me is, it’s my team. I can do it the way I want to do it. I can build cars the way I want to, I can have equipment look the way I want to, and I can assemble the deal like Chad Knaus can. When you’re a competitor in the garage, you always look at that 48 team. You want to be them. You want to do it like them. I feel like up until this point, that’s what we’ve done so far. Now we’ve just got to back it up and win races."

To Zipadelli, the three new crew chiefs fit well with Gibson. "They all complement each other," the competition director said. They also fit their new drivers. Johnston is quiet, Zipadelli added, but very firm in what he wants, and that’s helpful to Stewart — who, due to his ownership role, isn’t as involved on the car side as some other drivers. Knost, who has been with the SHR organization since its Haas-CNC days, believes he’s in a good position to interpret Busch’s sometimes fiery countenance over the radio.

"I would say the biggest thing is understanding where he’s coming from, and that’s the position of really wanting to be the best," Knost said. "So for me, externally, I try to be very even. Internally, I’m probably not so different than he is. So I can identify with that."

And it seems clear the three new crew chiefs at SHR can identify with one another, perhaps the strongest signal yet that the team’s race cars will be improved from 2014. "It’s not necessarily three guys with three totally separate sets of ideas," Johnston said. "Rodney and I have similar ideas and similar ways of thinking, so I think that helps. And they’ve been more than willing to open their minds to our way of thinking and do what we think we need to do to get better."

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with Robin Pemberton
Posted on by Staff Report

Six-time Sprint Cup Series champion wins Richard Petty Driver of the Year Award for 2013

Six-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson can add one more title to his already impressive resume before the 2014 season officially gets underway.
 
For the sixth time, members of the National Motorsports Press Association have honored Johnson, selecting him as the winner of the Richard Petty Driver of the Year Award for 2013.
 
The announcement was made Jan. 26 during the NMPA’s annual convention in Concord, N.C.

Johnson, driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet, edged 2003 Cup champion Matt Kenseth in voting by the NMPA membership. He received 50 percent of the votes cast; Kenseth received 48 percent while Tony Stewart was named on two percent of the ballots.
 
Johnson also earned driver of the year honors in 2004, ’06, ’07, ’09 and ’10. He is the only six-time recipient of the award.
 
The award is named in honor of Richard Petty, a seven-time champion in NASCAR’s premier series.
 
Johnson’s six victories in 2013 pushed his career win total to 66, second highest among active drivers. He ended the season with 16 top-five and 24 top-10 finishes, eventually outpointing Kenseth by 19 for the Cup championship.
 
Although he’s now one step closer to the record mark of seven Cup titles won by Petty and Dale Earnhardt, Johnson said he isn’t driven by the race to match two of the sport’s legends.
 
"I’ve worked so hard and long to get to this point; I’m finally on top of my game," he said during the 2013 NASCAR awards ceremonies in Las Vegas. "I’ve worked a lifetime to get here.
 
"There’s more motivation staying on top for those reasons than chasing stats and the historical things that are out there in front of me now; it’s really something that comes from within."
 
In his first season with Joe Gibbs Racing, Kenseth led the Cup series in victories with seven in 2013, a career best for the Wisconsin native.
 
Stewart won once in 2013, but saw his season cut short after only 21 races when the three-time Cup champion suffered a broken leg during a sprint car race in August.

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