‘I’m living the dream’
A Q&A with Smithfield native and NASCAR crew chief Cliff Daniels, who has enjoyed a front-row seat for driver Kyle Larson’s redemption and success.
When Smithfield native Cliff Daniels was winning Legends races at Larry King Law’s Langley Speedway as a teen, he dreamed of driving in NASCAR’s Cup Series. That didn’t work out, but Daniels, 33, has found his place in stock car racing’s premier series with its biggest teams and some of its elite drivers.
Shortly after earning his engineering degree at UNC Charlotte, he was working as a race engineer for legend Tony Stewart and then at Hendrick Motorsports for Jimmie Johnson — helping the latter win his record-tying seventh Cup title in 2016. He was promoted at Hendrick to crew chief for Johnson’s final season-plus and is now the crew chief for Kyle Larson.
That position keeps him in the national spotlight upon Larson’s return to the Cup Series after he was released in 2020 by Ganassi Racing for using a racial slur during a virtual race. Things have gone well so far as Larson enters the
Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway this afternoon with four top-fives and six top-10s in eight Cup races this season, including a win at Las Vegas — Daniels’ first as a crew chief.
“(Richmond is) a track where we’ve gotten a win in the past (2017) and it’s a track where I’ve had some solid runs, then some average finishes as well,” Larson said this week.
Daniels spoke recently to the Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press about his job and about Larson’s redemptive return.
You’ve gone from one high-profile situation with Jimmie Johnson to another with Kyle Larson the past two years. How much are you enjoying this phase of your career?
It’s really cool and really special. I couldn’t be more thankful. As a kid growing up, I always dreamed of being in the Cup Series. It started out I wanted to be a driver, and as my career path changed, I wanted to be a crew chief someday in the
Cup Series.
I never could’ve dreamed that it could be with a guy like Jimmie Johnson and now with Kyle Larson. I’m living the dream and couldn’t be more thankful.
After going more than a year as Jimmie Johnson’s crew chief and not getting wins, did you doubt yourself as a crew chief?
Absolutely. In any competitive environment, when your job is to win and compete at a high level and you don’t get the results you’ve been working for, self-doubt can definitely creep in. It can get tough at times to have confidence in making the right decision at the moment and having the foundation to rely on that confidence.
I relied on my faith, and at Hendrick Motorsports I have a great family home. With all of the positives we have at the company now, the support (Rick Hendrick) gives us and our teammates in the company, it provides a lot of encouragement to keep going to battle. I’m so thankful it all paid off.
What was your reaction when Hendrick brought Kyle Larson to the team and you learned you were going to be crew chief?
When I learned he was coming to our company and our team, I was really excited. I followed his story really closely last year with what happened with the mistake of what he said. He grew as a person and did the right things along the way to rectify the situation and to show that to the world.
When he came on board, with what I just said and his incredible record on dirt tracks and all races he ran last year, I knew he was going to be coming to our company and this team with a lot of his own confidence, ability, drive and hunger. I felt if we gave him the right pieces, we were going to find success.
We didn’t know (a win) would necessarily happen this fast, but we knew if we put the pieces in place, we could be a contender. That’s the goal.
Cup drivers are confident people, but after what he went through, what did you sense from Larson attitude-wise?
He was very grateful to Rick Hendrick and to the team. He wanted to show the world the person he really is — a great person and one of the most talented race car drivers out there now. It made him really excited to get started with the season.
How much did it ease your mind to get the win, and what has that done as you move forward with this team?
It removed the doubt about if and when (a win) was ever going to happen. We have a lot of positives right now, and the objective is being thorough in how we build our notebook with Kyle, so that we know what we’ve got, what works and what doesn’t, so that when the playoffs come, we’re ready to compete for a championship at the end of the year.
What was the key to your win in Las Vegas?
The key was trusting our preparation and having that in place. Races depend on how good you are when you leave the shop. We spent a lot of time studying the type of stuff we were going to have in the car, then how to go execute the race, the restarts and how you get three-wide, what lane to choose and making sure we were good on pit road.
The race car had decent speed and Kyle was comfortable in it, then it was a game of making sure we did all the right things to execute.