NASCAR Drivers Who Will Make the Best Crew Chiefs
Crew chiefs are a special breed.
They combine a number of different skills that make them unique across all of sports. They know cars the way a doctor knows the human body.
Crew chiefs are head football coaches, tacticians and lead mechanics. So what are the ingredients, and where can you find them?
One place worth shopping is the ranks of current drivers. Do they have, as Bleacher Report’s Phil Carreau wrote, the five pillars of crew chiefiness: knowledge, leadership, pit strategy, communication and nerves of steel? This is reminiscent of Ron Swanson’s Pyramid of Greatness.
We can look to the drivers to see who can be the great crew chiefs of tomorrow. Like most star athletes, the best drivers may not necessarily be the best crew chiefs.
Here’s a list of some drivers who may rule the roost in the pit box.
Tony Stewart
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Tony Stewart heads up this list because he has proved his leadership. He drives for a team he owns, and though he has three Cup championships, on a good day he may only be the second-best driver on his team. Most days he’s the third best.
If we are to apply some of Swanson’s Pyramid of Greatness, he definitely adheres to "frankness": Cut the B.S.
More specifically, Stewart ceded the reins of best driver at Stewart-Hass Racing to Kevin Harvick (whom, we all can agree, would be a terrible crew chief).
Stewart has experience and knowledge, and he’s completely—maybe even genetically—devoted to racing.
Matt Kenseth
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Matt Kenseth always has a cool head. Unless he’s going after Brad Keselowski, Kenseth is about as even-keeled as they come.
That steady hand is what all great crew chiefs possess. When the race gets pressurized—when they’re crunching the likelihood of a caution when fuel is running low or need to decide to take two, four or zero tires—that’s when coolness takes over.
Kenseth is cool.
When constantly pressed about not winning a race in 2014—this after winning a Cup-high seven races in 2013—Kenseth simply answered the questions like it was the first time he’d heard them.
So when things ratchet up, Kenseth would be, as the late Stuart Scott once coined, “as cool as the other side of the pillow.”
Jimmie Johnson
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Jimmie Johnson is tricky. He may be too successful a driver to make the transition to crew chief.
Great on-the-field talents rarely do well on the sidelines. Six championships on his mantel speak to his undeniable talents on the track. The question would be whether he’s capable of coaching out the best in another driver.
Johnson is a clear-speaking communicator, and his experience under pressure at 200 miles per hour could translate into the stationary roost of the pit box, when things are flying around him instead of him flying around them.
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Brian Vickers
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Brian Vickers has the perfect blend of mid-level talent and street smarts that could make for a decent crew chief.
He’s a nice, solid driver, but no one would confuse him with the drivers who routinely drive in the top 10.
Vickers has a nice mix of experience and success, ability and work ethic, and talent and brains. He’s like a utility player who has moments of brightness but is never a transcendent talent.
He knows the next guy on this list—a driver who was one of the best in his time but has the experience to call the shots.
Michael Waltrip
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Michael Waltrip, who owns Vickers’ No. 55, has won four times in NASCAR, with two of those wins coming at the 2001 and 2003 Daytona 500s. His first 500 was known more for the death of Dale Earnhardt.
Waltrip is 51 years old and has an older brother in Darrell Waltrip who has a ton of experience, which gives Michael a deep well of knowledge to draw from.
He’s charismatic with a big personality. Sometimes, those high-energy guys don’t make for good coaches. They can be too nervous. Bobby Valentine comes to mind. And Mike Rice.
Waltrip won’t be throwing lug nuts at the nether regions of his pit crew. Could he sit in the high tower of the pit box? He’d make for an interesting in-race interview at the very least.
Terry Labonte
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If you’re nickname is “Iceman,” you get a chance to be a crew chief. That’s what it takes, and Terry Labonte has it.
As B/R’s Phil Carreau wrote, nerves of steel are an imperative:
"Every race can ultimately come down to one decision that a crew chief makes. It takes a lot of nerves to make some of the calls that they make. Each pit call can feel like a high-stakes gamble. But to succeed at the highest level you can't first be afraid of making the wrong call.
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Labonte won 22 races and two Cup titles 12 years apart. For a time, he was regarded as one of the best on the circuit, and his longevity speaks to his talents on the track.
That experience and, most notably, that nickname make Labonte a prime crew-chief candidate.
Mark Martin
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Mark Martin wants nothing to do with driving a car anymore. Nothing at all.
"For right now, driving a race car is a phase of my life that is behind me, and I don't miss that, either. I try not to let myself think about what it was like to look up at the scoreboard and see my car number on the top of it. That feeling will never be again. That's what's painful for me. Not driving a race car. That's not painful at all.
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Martin, a newly retired 56-year-old, is, by his own admission, “OCD.” He misses the camaraderie of the team but cares little for the speed. He’s in search of something meaningful. He could focus that energy on becoming a crew chief.
"So I'm bumping along here trying to find my niche and find where my passion and my obsessive nature could take me next,” he said on ESPN.com. “I haven't really found that yet. In some ways I wish I'd have started this adventure sooner, because then maybe I'd have figured it out by now."
It’s clear Martin doesn’t feel the tug of the race car, but the tractor beam of the race track may be too much to avoid. He has the knowledge and skill, so maybe a second career as a crew chief would be just the remedy for his obsessive nature.
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