Those changes, in the form of more crew chief shuffling, came to fruition Wednesday.
Following this weekend’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway, Todd Berrier will take over as crew chief of the No. 31 driven by Jeff Burton to allow Burton’s current crew chief, Scott Miller, to concentrate fully on his duties as competition director that he took over in a personnel shuffle earlier this year. Berrier most recently had been crew chief for the No. 07 driven by Casey Mears.
Doug Randolph, who had served as crew chief on the No. 29 Nationwide Series teams since going to RCR early this year, will take over as crew chief of the No. 07. Starting with this Saturday’s race at Memphis (Tenn.) Motorsports Park, Dan Deeringhoff will return as crew chief of the Nationwide Series team.
Deeringhoff led Clint Bowyer to the Nationwide championship last season and began this year as crew chief of the No. 29 team before he was moved to RCR’s driver development program.
“I said previously that RCR would continue to adjust our team lineups in order to have the right personnel in place and this is the next step in that process,” said Childress. “Todd, Doug and Dan are all proven winners, so the goal of these moves is to put them in the best situations to continue that success. I’m confident that making these changes now will be a benefit to the teams for the rest of this season as well as in preparing for 2010.”
Berrier, who has 19 victories in NASCAR’s three national series, is switching teams for the second time this season. He began the year calling the shots for Kevin Harvick and moved to the No. 07 in a crew chief swap.
Randolph has been a crew chief in either the Cup or Nationwide series since 2000. He was crew chief for Bobby Labonte at Petty Enterprises before that team merged with Gillett-Evernham Motorsports. Since joining RCR in May, he has directed the Nationwide team to two victories.
Childress is winless on the Cup level since Burton prevailed a year ago at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Bowyer won for the last time at Richmond in May of last year, and Harvick hasn’t won a points race since the 2007 Daytona 500.
RCR enjoyed one of its better outings of the season last Saturday at LMS as Bowyer finished sixth with Mears seventh, Burton 14th and Harvick 18th.
gsmith@hpe.com |888-3519


