LAS VEGAS — Of the two Joe Gibbs Racing drivers getting new crew chiefs, one believes he was the problem as far as communication with his crew chief, while another says tense conversations had nothing to do with the change.
And it’s not who you think.
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Denny Hamlin believes he corrupted the communication with Darian Grubb by typically seeking out longtime engineer Mike Wheeler to talk about problems with the car. Kyle Busch, meanwhile, believes there was no issue in the communication between him and crew chief David Rogers, despite some heated exchanges on the radio.
Rogers will be the crew chief for Hamlin in 2015, while Grubb will work with JGR newcomer Carl Edwards. Adam Stevens, crew chief for Busch in the Nationwide Series this year, will be the crew chief for Busch's Cup team next season.
Busch and Rogers teamed for 13 wins in five years but now Rogers will work with Hamlin.
“I would have been just fine if Dave was still my crew chief,” Busch said Thursday. “We were really good at making speed and having our cars drive really well. … We just didn’t have a whole lot of great success this year, but Joe Gibbs Racing didn’t as a whole.”
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There were tense moments between Busch and Rogers at Pocono and Bristol this year, where they were biting at each other on the radio.
Was their relationship frayed?
“Not one bit,” Busch said. “Dave and I? You see it with Chad (Knaus) and Jimmie (Johnson). You get it with the best of them. Yeah, we had a few moments.”
Busch said Stevens knows any comments on the radio aren’t personal.
“The relationship I have with Adam and the relationship I’ve had with other crew chiefs, they know we’re out there we’re fighting our guts out,” Busch said.
“It’s frustrating when it’s not going your way. As hard as you’re working, you’re not going anywhere.”
Hamlin knows about frustration — he’s been frustrated the last two seasons and said change can be good. He noted that when Grubb replaced crew chief Mike Ford, Grubb and Hamlin combined for five wins in their first year together. But they only won twice over the next two seasons.
Rogers and Hamlin already communicated frequently.
“Kyle always runs Nationwide, so I’m typically one of the only drivers that goes to our meetings after Cup practices, so I download a lot with all the crew chiefs and talk things over,” Hamlin said.
“So me and Dave have a lot of dialogue in those conversations and so I think that is where I kind of say my communication is good with Dave. We also share a lot of text messages about what I think and what he thinks about track adjustments.”
Not only will he have a new crew chief, Hamlin will need a new engineer as Wheeler will be the crew chief for the No. 20 JGR car in the Xfinity Series. It will be a bit of a shock to lose his long-time engineer, but Hamlin said that also possibly caused issues.
“Because Darian was coming from a totally different team (in 2012), I’d never really worked with him before,” Hamlin said. “So I was almost kind of like shy to talk to the new guy coming in. On top of that, I had a person that’s been there for 10 years. … (Wheeler) was the guy and probably the reason me and Darian’s communication wasn’t always 100 percent is because Wheels was already the middle man that I went to first. A lot of that was my fault.”
The drivers approved the changes, although Busch said there was part of him that was interested in someone from the outside.
“There was definitely a wish list from my end, and there definitely was a, ‘Hey, you’re getting Adam Stevens’ on their end (at JGR),” Busch said. “I went and did some of my due diligence.
“I went and talked to a few of the guys that I had on my list and got their basis and their background on what they wanted to do and if they wanted a change and to work with me. I got a good response from that, but at the end of the day, it all just came down to bringing Adam up.”
Hamlin indicated he wanted Rogers, although he will miss Wheeler. He said the long-term plan is for Wheeler to be a Cup crew chief, and at JGR that means working in the Xfinity garage first.
“That part will hurt us not having him,” Hamlin said. “But I am super excited about driving Dave’s cars because I’ve driven them during tests before when Kyle wasn’t able to come here and there and always have been really, really fast in them.”
Edwards gets a championship-winning crew chief as Grubb won a Cup title in 2011 with Tony Stewart. That season, Stewart and Edwards tied for the championship with Stewart winning on a tiebreaker.
Grubb nearly pulled off another championship in 2014 but late cautions doomed Hamlin’s run for the title at Homestead.
“To be able to work with Darian, it’s really special for me,” Edwards said. “I saw first-hand how tough he is in 2011. He was flawless on the box and from where I was sitting, that was extremely impressive.
“The opportunity to work with him, especially to work with him coming off of this season, I know how bad he wants it. … He’s different than a lot of the crew chiefs I’ve worked with. He’s very calm. He’s like (former Roush crew chief) Bob Osborne. And that relationship was really good.”
JGR also announced the hiring of former Furniture Row Racing and Richard Childress Racing crew chief Todd Berrier, who will work under Senior Vice President Jimmy Makar as director of inspections in working with car setups and quality control.