Parrott prepared to be Newman’s crew chief,
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Richard Childress Racing had the foresight to send an interim crew chief to a test session this week with Ryan Newman, a move that may pay dividends this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway.
RCR lost its bid to overturn penalties levied against Newman’s team for allegedly manipulating tires at a race last month at California. Although an appeals panel reduced some of the sanctions, the six-week suspensions for crew chief Luke Lambert and two other team members were upheld.
Unsure if the organization would take its case to NASCAR’s chief appellate officer, which it did Friday, team owner Richard Childress sent Todd Parrott to Bristol to head the crew for Newman. Parrott attended a three-day test earlier in the week at Kentucky Speedway with the No. 31 team and got a jumpstart on working with Newman and the crew.
The decison to take the case to Bryan Moss, the final appeals officer, means Lambert and the other two crew members can work this weekend, but RCR did not immediately clarify whether Lambert would be the crew chief Sunday.
Parrott, who is RCR’s director of competition for the second-tier Xfinity Series, gathered the crew in the team truck for a pep talk in case the Thursday appeal was unsuccessful.
“I sat them down up in the lounge of the truck and I said, ‘I’m not sure what is going to happen, but if it does happen and I do get the call to go to Bristol and work with you guys, is there anything you need from me? What do you want? What do you like?’” Parrott said Friday at Bristol.
Parrott guided Dale Jarrett to the 1999 title and has 31 Cup wins on his resume. But it’s not an easy situation to be dropped in as an interim crew chief, especially for a team with some momentum following its runner-up finish in last November’s championship race.
“I have a lot of years in the Cup garage,” said Parrott, who was a Cup crew chief from 1996 until last season. “Hopefully, it shows the depth of RCR, while Luke is going through his deal here with the suspension.”
The team was penalized after tires taken from it following the race at Auto Club Speedway came back from an independent lab as having been intentionally manipulated to allow air to leak out of them during a run.
There had been speculation throughout the garage that teams were poking tiny holes in their tires in a move called “bleeding tires,” and NASCAR seized tires after races at Phoenix and California. Of the four teams who had tires confiscated after California, only Newman’s tires came back as having been manipulated. Kevin Harvick’s and Joey Logano’s tires were taken at Phoenix and both passed inspection.
RCR has maintained its innocence and Childress was grateful that the appeal committee reduced the points deducted from driver and owner from 75 to 50 and cut Lambert’s fine from $125,000 to $75,000.
Newman has so far not been made available to comment on the penalties.
Parrott, who is prepared to split his time between the Cup and Xfinity garages this weekend, said he came to Bristol to win in both series. Ty Dillon is currently leading the Xfinity Series points for RCR, and Parrott said he will not “lose sight of that” while guiding Newman.
“Ryan is an awesome talent in this sport and one heck of a race car driver,” he said. “I’m not out to get Luke Lambert’s job or any of these guys’. I’m just here to fill in and do the job they have asked me to do.”