Crew chief Jeremy Bullins and the No. 2 Penske team, with driver Brad Keselowski, are ready to get back to racing starting Sunday at Darlington Raceway.
After a two month break due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bullins and everyone at Team Penske have been busy since the shops re-opened to get prepared for a busy stretch of racing with four races in 11 days.
“A pretty tall task to get things up and going,” Bullins told MRN. “Fortunately before the break we had some cars ready to go so that gets us going for the first few weeks here. Everybody’s working really hard to make sure we have enough stuff to cover these midweek events and everything else we got going on.”
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Cars that were prepared included ones for Atlanta Motor Speedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway – the first two races that got postponed back in March – which have been a big help for the teams.
“Homestead and Darlington you run the same tire, you typically run the same type of car,” Bullins said. “Atlanta’s the same way, so for the most part I think the first two Darlington races I’m guessing ninety percent of the garage probably is using their Atlanta and Homestead cars that they had ready. That helps a lot. You just got to get your (car) wraps straight and change your setup stuff for the things that you do different for those tracks, change the gears and those kind of things.”
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While the break gave him time to work on his Late Model and stuff around the house, Bullins remained focused to make sure he had a plan for when the team could return to the shop. During the break, Bullins continued to have his usual weekly meetings with his engineers, this time it was just virtually.
“The biggest thing we did is we tried to react to the rumors of where we might go and make sure we were prepared for that,” Bullins said. “We tried to make sure that we were still planning ahead and thinking about things we could do different and better when we got the opportunity to get back in the shop. Planning ahead and I think that’s going to pay dividends for us in the next couple of weeks because we had a lot of things laid out of what we wanted to do.”
With a limit on the number of crew members you can have at the track, there will be even more communication done through computers and radios.
“We’ve got a great IT department that will have us connected to be able to talk to the guys at the shop. My engineers back at the shop will be able to chat back and forth with them. We’ll get through it. It’s just going to be a lot different than what we’re used to.”
One of the challenges when teams get to Darlington will be no practice or qualifying before taking the green flag. Teams will have to lean on their simulation tools to get as close as they can for when the car is unloaded off the hauler.
“I think the biggest challenge is getting your travels right.” Bullins said. “Every week that’s the first thing teams work on is you go make few laps.
“Whoever hits at it the best will certainly be the best in the first segment. There’s no doubt about it.”
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One thing Bullins has going for him is a veteran championship-winning driver in Keselowski behind the wheel. Keselowski has finished in the top 10 in four of the last five races at “The Track too Tough to Tame,” including a win in 2018.
“The track is going to have no rubber on it,” Bullins said. “It’s going to take a lot of rubber in a hurry. So the first couple sets tires are going to wear out really quickly. It’s good to have somebody like Brad that has a lot of experience and knows how hard to push it without tearing his tires up and that’s going to be key to the first couple stints of the race is just making sure that you run long enough to get to a pit stop for sure.”
Darlington will mark Bullins’ fifth race as the crew chief for Keselowski in the NASCAR Cup Series. The duo enjoyed their share of success in the past in the Xfinity Series and put together a solid start in 2020 before racing was halted.
“I felt like we had a shot to win Daytona,” Bullins said. “We were fast there all week, every race we were in, we led a lot of laps. Vegas didn’t quite go our way. We weren’t really sure where we needed to be car wise with him and things like that. I thought by the time we got the Fontana we were in the hunt and getting a lot closer. Phoenix was a great weekend for us, we had a lot of fun there. I felt like we were close enough to contend for win if things played out right.
“I felt the communication part of it’s been pretty smooth and pretty easy. Hopefully we can just continue to build on some of that past history.”
