Before the preseason-opening Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium, Chris Gabehart was asked about the emotions of stepping off the pit box for the first time in a long time, changing roles at Joe Gibbs Racing after spending the last six seasons as crew chief of Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota.
“I mean, we’ll see,” Gabehart said. “I haven’t actually done it yet.” His answer partly stemmed from the timing (one day before the 200-lap Madhouse exhibition) and partly from that weekend’s logistics (Bowman Gray’s small size and the lack of a traditional pit-box setup).
“What I can tell you is, for the first time in literally 32 years of racing, both as a driver and so on, I’m now not focused on a single door number. I’m focused on multiples,” Gabehart said. “So that part is different. But what that actually looks like? I don’t know. We’ll see how it’s going to evolve.”
Joe Gibbs Racing enters that evolving chapter with a new crew chief lineup and a new competition director for its four-car fleet in Gabehart, whose job begins in earnest this week in preparation for Sunday’s Daytona 500 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The change shakes up an organization that went winless in the second half of the NASCAR Cup Series season last year, missing out on the Championship 4 round of the playoffs for the first time since the elimination-format era began in 2014.
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An offseason evaluation prompted the switch, with Gabehart replacing Wally Brown at JGR’s competition department helm. Chris Gayle shifted over after two seasons with the No. 54 team and driver Ty Gibbs to replace Gabehart and pair with Hamlin, while Tyler Allen was called up from Gibbs’ deep Xfinity Series roster to work with Gibbs. The team’s other two crew chiefs remain in place: Adam Stevens and driver Christopher Bell stay connected on the No. 20 team, and James Small remains atop the No. 19 pit box to pair with newcomer Chase Briscoe, who replaces veteran Martin Truex Jr.
Hamlin — 44, and now the Cup Series’ oldest driver after Truex’s transition to semi-retirement — expressed his initial “shock” at the move during the annual NASCAR Awards banquet, but also praised Gabehart’s leadership and management style as a potential boon to all four teams. Those changes, though, came in fairly short order after the Nov. 10 finale at Phoenix Raceway, setting the stage for his reaction when the announcement was made 12 days later.
“So things moved pretty quickly in a lot of different aspects,” Gabehart says, “and you know, Denny’s life is quite busy his self, so finding time to absorb details on any week for him is a lot because there’s a lot going on, right? He does a good job of it, but there’s a lot going on. So in this case, it was tough. Things moved pretty quick. I honestly made the decision probably the Tuesday night of the week after Phoenix, I had finally done enough talking and making sure that I was comfortable enough with what the role would be and what I felt like my reach could be, and then once they decided there was something to talk about, then it was a matter of time to tell Denny, and I think he was pretty shocked.
“I think we’re all still … I understand the perception of this, but I have every intention of making it pretty clear that this wasn’t just a passive move. I mean, I plan to make a big difference. So it may feel awkward up front here, but I hope in several months’ time, everybody has a good understanding of why it happened.”
Gabehart is new on the job but sees his role as a conduit between what happens at the track and back at the shop, taking direct responsibility of those operations, then optimizing their performance. Gayle called the move “like having a fifth crew chief,” noting how Gabehart’s recent experience in that role will aid the flow of communication among the four teams.
Gayle has worked with Hamlin in the past, pairing up with him for a handful of Xfinity Series races, including a victory in 2015 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. As far as the surprise factor goes, Gayle says it’s a natural reaction, but adds that the shift is not as drastic as it might seem.
“I think that the shock thing is he just didn’t really … in his mind, he didn’t see it coming, right? But the driver on the outside, versus all the things that are going on inside the team, they’re not always aware of everything that’s going on until late,” Gayle said. “I can understand he has a huge rapport and success with Gabehart, so any change in his mind late in his career is trepidation about, well, how’s this going to be, right? I just assured him that I’m as motivated as ever. There were lots of times that the 54 car may have had as good a car as the 11 car. We might not have finished there, but to be quite honest with you, it’s not like we’re losing any of the information and processes with how things are done. No one’s leaving. Gabehart’s shifting to this role and going to try to lean on all four teams a little better, but nothing’s really changing, other than the voice he’s going to hear from the box.”
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Gayle goes from working with the 22-year-old Gibbs to a driver who is a generation older. He and Hamlin are both later in their careers, and both share the same goals of getting back to the championship stage. The two are still in a sorting-out period, but one preseason race in, Hamlin says so far, so good.
“Yeah, we’re learning each other. Certainly it’s a process,” Hamlin said after a third-place result at Bowman Gray. “We’re not going to just figure each other out right off the bat. I’m trying to do things as I did before, and he’s trying to understand that. I also am trying to give him the full free rein to kind of do things however he sees fit as well. He got to this position for a reason. You’ve got to always trust your leadership to make the right calls. My job is to drive the car and give them the feedback, nothing more. I’m not the crew chief. I’m not the strategist. Nothing like that. My job is to do it today and go there tomorrow and tell them a direction that we need to work on. That’s really important. I feel like it’s getting off to a good start.”
A quick start this season could propel JGR to its first win since Christopher Bell’s triumph last June at New Hampshire. Hamlin won three times last season, but not since Dover in late April.
Gabehart may not have exactly discovered the full-fledged feeling of what it’s like to step off the No. 11 pit box, but the question remains: Where does he plan to sit on a given race weekend? He says that some of his trackside belongings will be in the No. 54 team’s hauler this season, while the rest may stay with the No. 11 group.
His race-day vantage point, though?
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“That’s the fun part for me, honestly, is I don’t know,” Gabehart says. “I say that a little tongue in cheek. I definitely have plans, but you have to remember every lap of my NASCAR professional career, from the time I was an engineer in trucks to my last race I called as a crew chief of the 11 has been on top of a pit box. That viewpoint is very limited, and the focal point is very specific. So I’m excited to and have plans to explore all parts of what we do on a weekend from a different perspective. As a matter of fact, I think that’s acutely my job, and in doing that, be able to take that perspective and bring it back to the shop on Monday and start building speed for the following weekend. That’s the intent.”