Michael Waltrip Racing swaps Bowyer and Ragan crew chiefs
Michael Waltrip Racing is trading crew chiefs in an attempt to up the performance of its two cars.
Effective immediately, Brian Pattie will become David Ragan’s crew chief for the No. 55. Billy Scott, previously the No. 55 crew chief, will be the crew chief for Clint Bowyer’s No. 15.
“Our goal is to best position the 15 and 55 teams for a berth in the Chase for the Sprint Cup,” MWR co-owner Rob Kauffman said in a statement. “MWR has an enormous amount of bright, motivated and quality people working to solve the endless challenges inherent to racing. We have won poles and races, we have made the Chase and competed for a championship with this core group of personnel. We just felt it was time to shake things up a bit to try and spark fresh ideas and more consistent results. There are 12 races left before the 2015 Chase field is set and we plan to be a part of it.”
The team also said it was swapping engineers between the two cars. The pit crews will not be changing.
MWR needs to pick up the performance if it wants its plans to become reality. Bowyer is currently 17th in the standings, 20 points behind Ryan Newman for the final Chase berth based on points.
Ragan is 24th in the standings while driving for Front Row Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and MWR this season. He hasn’t had very good results since arriving at MWR before the Kansas race. In four races, his highest finish is 13th. It’s the only time he’s finished in the top 20 in four races with the team.
MWR has not won a race since Brian Vickers won at New Hampshire in 2013 while driving for the team on a part-time basis. Martin Truex Jr., a former member of the team who was let go after NAPA left the team after the 2013 season, won at Pocono on Sunday with his new team, Furniture Row Racing.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
