The “car chiefs” — those normally responsible for car preparation but not race strategy — will replace the suspended Chad Knaus and Steve Letarte as crew chiefs in the Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon pits, respectively, for Sunday’s Nextel Cup race at Loudon, N.H. Knaus and Letarte were suspended for six weeks for technical violations in last weekend’s race.
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Jeff Meendering will run Gordon’s operation and Ron Malec will be Johnson’s interim leader.
Last year, while Knaus served a four-race suspension for a violation during qualifying for the Daytona 500, Johnson won two races, including the 500 and a 400-miler at Las Vegas, with engineer Darian Grubb as interim crew chief. The loss of Letarte may be more severe for Gordon. In two of Gordon’s four victories this year, at Phoenix and Pocono, Letarte’s split-second judgment calls in the pits were crucial.
Chance for Montoya
Formula One emigre Juan Pablo Montoya’s victory on the Sonoma road course last Sunday “is sure to bring a lot of attention the next few races,” he said.
That could be good and bad. It may just bring more focus on how much more he has to learn on oval tracks. New Hampshire International Speedway is a tight, 1-mile, almost paperclip-shaped track that’s difficult for even the best oval-track racers.
If Montoya, whose best oval-track finish this year was fifth at Atlanta, does well at Loudon, then he can be rated a full-time contender in Nextel Cup.
Time to get serious
Sunday’s race kicks off what NASCAR likes to call its “Race to the Chase” — that is, this is the first of the last 10 races of “regular season” before the Chase to the Nextel Cup playoffs begins.
Gordon still has a healthy 171-point lead, despite his 100-point penalty this week for cheating, over Denny Hamlin in the standings. Johnson’s penalty dropped him from third to fifth, but he’s still in excellent position to make the Chase.
Johnson and Ford driver Matt Kenseth, who’s now third in the standings, stand to become the only two drivers to make the playoffs all four years since they began in 2004.
Four-time season champion Gordon missed the Chase in ’05 and two-time champion Tony Stewart missed last year.
Losses mount
The latest defector from Dale Earnhardt Inc. is Tony Eury Sr., the crew chief’s father and Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s uncle.
The elder Eury will serve as competition director of JR Motorsports, the Busch team Earnhardt Jr. owns.
Eury Sr. was Earnhardt’s crew chief when he won Busch series titles in 1998-99.
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