Been told that Jimmy Elledge has been released as crew chief from the #42 Juan Pablo Montoya Dodge at Chip Ganassi Racing. Brian Pattie will assume the crew chief role for Lowe’s Motor Speedway and beyond. No plans on Elledge’s plans.(5-20-2008) UPDATE: Juan Pablo Montoya heads into this weekend’s Coca-Cola 600 with his third crew chief in less than a month after Jimmy Elledge was released by Chip Ganassi Racing on Tuesday. And the racer isn’t happy about it. Elledge came aboard in late April when Ganassi moved Donnie Wingo, who had guided Montoya’s transition from Formula One into NASCAR, to Reed Sorenson’s team. Montoya got Elledge and was pleased with the direction his #42 Dodge was headed. But in what Montoya described as a “management decision,” Elledge was let go and Brian Pattie was moved from one of the Nationwide Series crews to run Montoya’s team. “I wasn’t really part of it, so, I am pretty frustrated,” Montoya said. “They told me ‘We are thinking of getting rid of Jimmy’ and I said ‘Don’t do it.’ Next thing I knew, they did. That’s what happened. You are going to have to ask somebody else about it, because I wasn’t involved in this.” Although he didn’t think he needed to lose Wingo when that move was made, Montoya said he understood it because he believed Wingo could help Sorenson save his struggling season. And even though the results weren’t there yet with Elledge — they were second in their debut race at Talladega, but struggled in the three after that — Montoya liked the direction Elledge was taking the team. “We were taking a very different route, and I was willing to see where it led,” he said. Montoya said he’s spoken several times with Ganassi in the 24 hours since Elledge was let go, and expressed his frustration with the situation. “We talked, and I told him how I felt and that’s it really,” Montoya said. Montoya said he’s got faith in Pattie, “He’s a really smart guy,” he said, but worries that all the changes over the past month are unsettling to the entire race team. He expects more movement behind the scenes.(ESPN.com)(5-22-2008)
