Testing SpeedwayMedia.com

Tag: Brian Wilson

  • Brian Wilson to call 100th Cup event as crew chief at Michigan

    Brian Wilson to call 100th Cup event as crew chief at Michigan

    A significant milestone mark is in the making for Brian Wilson, crew chief for Austin Cindric and the No. 2 Team Penske Ford Mustang Dark Horse team in the NASCAR Cup Series. By participating in this weekend’s FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway, Wilson will call his 100th event as a crew chief in NASCAR’s premier series.

    A second-generation race engineer from Detroit, Michigan, Wilson grew up competing in go-karts. While working on his mechanical engineering degree at North Carolina State University, he was also a part-time worker for 10-time ARCA champion Frank Kimmel’s racing team. After earning his degree, he worked as Kimmel’s full-time shock specialist.  

    In 2004, Wilson joined Team Penske and worked on the No. 77 Penske-Jasper Racing Dodge team that was competing in the NASCAR Cup Series division with Brendan Gaughan. Two years later, he became a shock specialist for Penske’s iconic No. 2 Dodge team driven by Kurt Busch, the 2004 Cup champion. By 2007, Wilson was a race engineer for the Penske organization. After spending the 2009 Cup season with Penske’s No. 12 Dodge team piloted by David Stremme, Wilson worked alongside crew chief Paul Wolfe and Brad Keselowski in the 2010 Xfinity Series season. During the season, Keselowski notched six victories and achieved the first NASCAR championship for team owner Roger Penske and the Penske organization.

    Wilson remained with Keselowski and Wolfe as the trio was assigned to Penske’s iconic No. 2 Dodge team in 2011. Their on-track success from the previous Xfinity season continued as Keselowski scored three victories, made the 2011 Cup Playoffs and finished in fifth place in the final standings. A year later, Keselowski achieved five victories and won the 2012 Cup championship, thus giving Roger Penske his first NASCAR Cup title.

    In 2016, Wilson made his debut as a crew chief, where he spent a majority of the season leading Penske’s No. 22 “all-star” program that was shared between Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney. At Charlotte Motor Speedway in October, Wilson notched his first career victory as a crew chief with Logano. He would return as a part-time crew chief for Penske’s No. 12 entry in 2017 with driving duties split between Sam Hornish Jr., Blaney and Logano, the latter of whom Wilson won with at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. From 2018 to 2021, Wilson would add 18 Xfinity victories to his resume and capture the 2020 series championship with Austin Cindric.

    During the 2017 season, Wilson made his inaugural appearance as a Cup Series crew chief at Auto Club Speedway, where he navigated Keselowski and the No. 2 Ford Fusion team to a runner-up result. He would return for three additional events throughout the season, all with the No. 2 team, as Keselowski finished in the top seven in all events.

    Five years later, Wilson was named a full-time Cup Series crew chief for the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford Mustang team that was set to be piloted by rookie Harrison Burton. Amid an early rollover wreck during the 64th running of the Daytona 500, Wilson and Burton would record a season-best third place at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course, two top-10 results and an average-finishing result of 22.8 before settling in 27th place in the final standings. Wilson would remain paired with Burton through the first 26-scheduled events of the 2023 season, where the duo notched two top-10 results before he reunited with Team Penske and paired with Cindric and the No. 2 Ford Mustang team as part of a Penske-Wood Brothers alliance swap as Jeremy Bullins returned atop the pit box of the No. 21 Wood Brothers team. For the final 10 races of the 2023 season, Wilson and Cindric notched two top-10 results before settling in 24th place in the final standings, seven spots ahead of Burton.

    Remaining paired with Cindric for the 2024 season, Wilson and Cindric only notched a single top-five result through 14 scheduled events. Then at World Wide Technology Raceway in June, Wilson notched his first career win in NASCAR’s premier series as a crew chief after Cindric capitalized on teammate Ryan Blaney running out of fuel on the final lap to score his second Cup career victory, snapping an 85-race winless drought and be guaranteed a spot into the 2024 Cup Playoffs. The duo have since recorded an additional top-10 result in the form of a seventh-place run at Indianapolis Motor Speedway over their next eight events following the Gateway victory.

    Through 99 previous Cup events, Wilson has achieved one victory, seven top-five results and 13 top-10 results while working with two different competitors as he strives to add a Cup Series championship to his resume.

    “It’s definitely been a journey, depends on how far back you want me to go,” Wilson, said during a Team Penske pre-race media coverage at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 19, said. “As a crew chief, it’s been great. I’ve learned a lot. Obviously, I’ve had a chance to work with both Austin [Cindric] and Harrison [Burton. Really enjoyed working with both of them. I’ve learned a lot. It’s a tough level of competition. I love it. You have to be on your toes every week, so I think that’s the biggest thing. Just figuring out what it takes to compete at this level. It was great to get a win [at Gateway].”

    Brian Wilson is scheduled to call his 100th Cup Series event as a crew chief at Michigan International Speedway for the FireKeepers Casino 400 on Sunday, August 18. The event’s broadcast time is slated to occur at 2:30 p.m. ET on USA Network.

  • Team Penske and Wood Brothers announce crew chief swap for Cindric and Burton, beginning in 2023 Cup Series Playoffs

    Team Penske and Wood Brothers announce crew chief swap for Cindric and Burton, beginning in 2023 Cup Series Playoffs

    With the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs days away from commencing, Team Penske and Wood Brothers Racing announced a crew chief swap for two of their combined Penske-affiliated entries for the remainder of this season and entering the 2024 season.

    Beginning with the Playoff opener next Sunday at Darlington Raceway, Jeremy Bullins, who was the crew chief for Team Penske’s No. 2 Ford Mustang entry piloted by Austin Cindric, will reunite with Wood Brothers Racing and lead the No. 21 team piloted by Harrison Burton. As a result, Brian Wilson, who was atop the pit box of Wood Brothers Racing’s No. 21 team for more than a season, will return to Team Penske and reunite with Cindric to lead the No. 2 team in NASCAR’s premier series.

    The move for Bullins, a native of Walnut Cove, North Carolina, to Wood Brothers Racing, reignites a dynamic pairing as Bullins spent the 2015-17 seasons with the championship-winning organization as a Cup crew chief with Ryan Blaney piloting the No. 21 entry. Through 88 events, Bullins led Blaney and the No. 21 team to a late victory at Pocono Raceway in June 2017, which marks the 99th and latest victory for Wood Brothers Racing, and they went on to make the Playoffs and finish in ninth place in the final standings. The driver-crew chief duo also achieved a combined two poles, eight top-five results, 25 top-10 results and 332 laps led before both departed Wood Brothers and moved to Team Penske in 2018.

    From 2018 through the first 26 events of the 2023 season, Bullins has achieved eight Cup victories while working with three different competitors (Blaney, Brad Keselowski and Austin Cindric). His latest triumph was winning the 2022 Daytona 500 with Cindric, who proceeded to finish 12th in the final standings and claim the Rookie-of-the-Year title. He also achieved a breakout season with Keselowski in 2020, with the duo achieving four victories and making the Championship 4 round before finishing in the runner-up spot in the final standings. In addition to his success in the Cup Series, Bullins has 21 victories as an Xfinity Series crew chief under his resume and played an instrumental role in leading Penske’s No. 22 entry to back-to-back Xfinity owner’s championships (2013 and 2014).

    This season, Bullins and Cindric have only achieved three top-10 results and an average-finishing result of 21.1 through 26 scheduled events. Their best on-track results of this season thus far were three sixth-place runs at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Circuit of the Americas in March along with the inaugural Chicago Street Course in July. Currently situated in 22nd place in the standings, they did not make the 2023 Cup Series Playoffs a year after making it.

    For Wilson, the transition to Team Penske’s No. 2 team reunites the Detroit, Michigan, native back with the three-time Cup Series championship-winning organization to which he first joined in 2004 and was a race engineer during Penske’s first Xfinity Series championship in 2010 and first Cup Series championship in 2012, both achieved by former Penske competitor Brad Keselowski.

    Photo by John Knittel for SpeedwayMedia.com.

    Wilson called over 160 Xfinity events as a crew chief and achieved 23 victories from 2016-21, 13 of which were made by Austin Cindric and with whom Wilson will also reunite. During this span, he led Team Penske’s No. 22 entry to three Xfinity owner’s championships (2017, 2020, and 2021) and guided Cindric to the 2020 Xfinity Series driver’s championship. He also called his first four Cup events as a crew chief for Keselowski and the No. 2 entry in 2017 before being named a full-time Cup crew chief for Harrison Burton and the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing team in 2022, who ended up 27th in the final standings.

    This season, Wilson and Burton have only achieved two top-10 results and an average-finishing result of 23.8 through 26 scheduled events. Their best on-track result of this season thus far was a sixth-place run at Darlington in May. Currently situated in 30th place in the standings, they too did not make the Playoffs for a second consecutive season.

    With Bullins now paired with Burton and Wilson reunited with Cindric, the new driver-crew chief duo sets their sights on concluding the 2023 season on a strong note, beginning in this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series Playoff opener at Darlington Raceway for the Cook Out Southern 500. The event is scheduled to occur on Sunday, September 3, at 6 p.m. ET on USA Network.

  • Brian Wilson joins Wood Brothers Racing as crew chief for Harrison Burton in 2022

    Brian Wilson joins Wood Brothers Racing as crew chief for Harrison Burton in 2022

    The legendary Wood Brothers Racing team took to social media to announce that Brian Wilson will be joining the organization to serve as crew chief for rookie Harrison Burton and the iconic No. 21 Ford Mustang team for the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season.

    Wilson, a native from Detroit, Michigan, and a graduate from North Carolina State University with a degree in mechanical engineering, is coming off his sixth season as a crew chief in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for Team Penske. He guided Austin Cindric and the No. 22 Ford Mustang team to five victories, a pole, 22 top-five results, 26 top-10 results, an average-finishing result of 8.2, a runner-up result in the driver’s standings with Cindric and an owner’s championship for the team in 2021, which marked Team Penske’s sixth Xfinity owner’s title.

    Having spent the previous three seasons as a full-time crew chief for Cindric, Wilson achieved his first championship as a crew chief during the 2020 Xfinity season with Cindric, who won six races and achieved 19 top-five results, 26 top-10 results and an average-finishing result of 8.6 throughout the season.

    In 163 appearances as an Xfinity crew chief that spans back to 2016 and all with Team Penske, Wilson achieved 23 career victories between four different competitors (Ryan Blaney, Austin Cindric, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano). He also achieved 14 poles, 89 top-five results and 126 top-10 results between six different competitors, including Sam Hornish Jr. and Paul Menard.

    The 2022 season will mark Wilson’s first as a full-time NASCAR Cup Series crew chief. He previously served as a Cup crew chief in four races in 2017 for Brad Keselowski and Penske’s No. 2 Ford Fusion team, where Keselowski finished in the top 10 in all races Wilson was atop the pit box and calling the shots. Wilson also served as a race engineer for Keselowski in the Cup circuit for five seasons prior to becoming an Xfinity crew chief in 2016.

    Wilson replaces Jonathan Hassler, a former Team Penske race engineer who became the crew chief for the Wood Brothers Racing team in June and in place of veteran Greg Erwin. Hassler is set to join Team Penske and serve as crew chief for Ryan Blaney and the No. 12 Ford Mustang team for the 2022 Cup season.

    The 2022 season will also mark the first full-time Cup campaign for driver Harrison Burton, who is set to pilot the No. 21 Ford as a Cup Series Rookie-of-the-Year contender. The second-generation competitor from Huntersville, North Carolina, spent the previous two seasons in the NASCAR Xfinity Series with Joe Gibbs Racing. During the two-year span, Burton achieved four career victories, 25 top-five results, 44 top-10 results, an average-finishing result of 11.4 and two Xfinity Playoff appearances, where he finished in eighth place in the final standings in both seasons.

    Burton replaces Matt DiBenedetto, who spent the previous two seasons driving for the Wood Brothers in the Cup circuit. In two seasons, DiBenedetto earned six top-five results, 20 top-10 results and a Cup Playoff appearance in 2020, where he finished in 13th place in the final standings. DiBenedetto, who finished 18th in the 2021 Cup final standings, has yet to announce his plans for the upcoming NASCAR season.

    Wilson is set to make his NASCAR Cup Series crew chief debut with the Wood Brothers Racing team in 2022, beginning at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the Busch Light Clash at The Coliseum. The event is scheduled to occur on February 6, 2022, at 8 p.m. ET on FS1.

  • Joey Logano Goes for a California Cruise in the Roseanne 300

    Joey Logano Goes for a California Cruise in the Roseanne 300

    Joey Logano led 139 of 150 laps in a dominating win in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in the Roseanne 300 at Auto Club Speedway. This is Logano’s 29th career victory in the Xfinity series, and third at Auto Club Speedway. He has never finished outside the top-10 and will start sixth for tomorrow’s NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series race.

    “Anytime you have new tires and everyone else doesn’t, it’s fun. It’s when you have the old tires and everyone else has got the new tires, that’s not fun,” Logano laughed when asked about the late race pit cycles.

    “I felt sure that we had a car quick enough. The worry more than anything was a crash happening in front of us.”

    Logano was only one of two Cup drivers starting this race, with Austin Dillon who finished fourth. It was asked during the press conference about carrying over any notes or on-track experience into tomorrow’s race.

    “You know there are some things that you can learn from this race, and you only come out here once a year. The cars are very different, Cup cars and Xfinity cars. There were a couple things to carry over, you know, running against the wall, which will help you for the first couple of laps. You have an advantage for the first five laps. You know where the track is a little better. The cars that were fast earlier in practice today are gonna be very fast tomorrow, and I don’t think the advantage you get from running this race is so large that you’re going to smoke everyone tomorrow because you had more laps, but it does allow you to feel more comfortable and feel the race track sooner.”

    JR Motorsports finish second and third with Justin Allgaier and Elliott Sadler, respectively. Elliott extends his point lead to four points over teammate Tyler Reddick.

    “We worked really hard today,” Allgaier joyfully stated after feeling a successful weekend. “Yesterday in practice, we had a really strong Hellman’s Chevrolet and unfortunately when the race started, not that it was bad by any means, but some of the balance things that we felt like we were good with practice, today with the conditions being a little different, we needed to work on it a little. Jason (Burdett) made a great call there to pit towards the end, put tires on and catch the 22 off sequence, which we were kinda hoping it would take a little longer to get up front to battle him.

    “The 22 was the class of the field today, I think they had everybody. Our west coast swing has been great, two seconds and a third. We’ve been chopping away at it. I wish we had a win, but all in all, whenever you get up to the front like that, it’s a good day.”

    Despite hitting the wall, Daniel Hemric fought throughout the day and finished in the fifth position.

    “I’m proud of our effort, not just today but over the past three or four weeks,” Hemric shared during a post-race conference session. “We kinda raced around the fifth to ninth place all day, and the racing to get by there is more intense. It seems like whenever you try to side draft somebody or someone side drafts you, here come three more with runs. Just proud to get to our best running position of the day there, and maintain and come home with the top five. And I hit the wall!”

    Most of the first stage was eventless until Matt Mills in the No. 15 spun in Turn 2. There weren’t enough laps to clean up the incident to go back green, so the end of the first stage finished under yellow.

    During the second stage, the No. 42 Chevrolet of John Hunter Nemechek blew his right front tire on the frontstretch in the closing laps. He didn’t collide with the wall, but the rubber caused substantial damage to the sheet metal. He would finish three laps down in the 29th position after starting in a hopeful third position.

    Christopher Bell, who started on the pole, took FOX’s Helmet Cam for a wild ride over the weekend, being involved in two separate incidents during the final stage. The first was a spin coming out of Turn 4 and sliding through the front stretch grass. Only a few laps later, Michael Annett pinched him coming out of Turn 4 as they ground against the outside wall along the front stretch.

    A few late-race cautions built some unique strategies into the closing laps of the race. Dylan Lupton, who went to a backup car after crashing in qualifying earlier in the day, lost a motor, which ended a long day for his No. 28 team. A few laps later, another caution was put out for debris found in Turn 2. At this time, Logano was one of only a few takers to come to pit road for fresh tires. He restarted in 16th, charged to the front, and took the lead within five laps. However, the final caution came out with around 10 laps remaining for more debris on the front stretch. At this time, almost everyone came to pit road, shuffling all the strategies, except for Ryan Sieg who inherited the lead for the final restart. Sieg was no competition against the fresh tires, as the field charged past him on the opening lap, allowing Logano to cruise to his third career win at the 2-mile oval.

    Positions 6-10 were Cole Custer, Tyler Reddick (highest finishing rookie), Matt Tifft, Ryan Preece and Ross Chastain. Kaz Grala crashed coming to the checkered flag and finished in the 14th position, but was checked and released from the infield care center shortly after the press conference was completed.

    Ironically, Logano is a big fan of the television show Roseanne.

    “I feel like I watched Roseanne a long time ago on like Nic at Nite,” Logano shared, as Brian Wilson, Logano’s crew chief, added, “He was watching the re-runs. I was watching the originals.”

    Joey continued talking about the trophy and winning the race.

    “You know, I was kinda hoping when we pulled in here and I saw the Roseanne 300 banner over the walkway, I was thinking of what the trophy was going to look like, so I hoped it would be a big picture of her face. It’s still cool.”

    Elliott Sadler leads the series points over teammates Tyler Reddick and Justin Allgaier. The NASCAR Xfinity Series races next in Texas on Saturday, April 7, and tickets can be purchased through the speedway website.

     

    [pdf-embedder url=”http://www.speedwaymedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Xfinity-Auto-Club-Speedway-Unofficial-Results-3-17-18.pdf” title=”Xfinity Auto Club Speedway Unofficial Results 3-17-18″]