Stewart Haas-Racing swaps Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart's pit crews
Kevin Harvick will have a new pit crew for the Chase.
Stewart-Haas Racing announced Tuesday that the team would change the pit crews on the No. 4 and No. 14 teams. Harvick's No. 4 car will have the pit crew of Tony Stewart's No. 14 team, while Harvick's crew will go to Stewart's team for the final 10 races of 2014.
With three wins, Harvick easily qualified for the Chase. Stewart, who went winless and missed three races after he struck and killed Kevin Ward at a dirt track in upstate New York, did not. (The investigation into the crash is still ongoing.)
“We made this change in the best interests of the entire organization,” said SHR vice president of competition Greg Zipadelli said in a statement. “Our primary goal is to win races and championships, and this pit crew swap provides championship experience to the No. 4 team and continued race-winning experience to the No. 14 team.”
While Harvick had the three wins, he could have had more. His team made missteps on pit road throughout the first 26 races that cost him valuable track position. After Saturday night's race at Richmond, Harvick was blunt when assessing his chances for a title.
“Our cars are really fast," Harvick said. I feel like we’ve overcome a lot of problems. We’ve gone 26 weeks and haven’t fixed pit road. We have to fix pit road in order to win a championship.”
With this move, Stewart-Haas hopes it has the fix.
While rare, pit crew swaps late in the season aren't unprecedented and this one has little of the drama that the most memorable one does.
At Texas in 2010, Hendrick Motorsports swapped the crews of Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson mid-race after Johnson's crew was underperforming. At the time, Denny Hamlin crew chief Mike Ford called the move a "desperation" one, but Johnson came back to beat Hamlin for the 2010 title.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
