in a bit of a surprise move, Veteran crew chief Todd Parrott has been appointed crew chief of Roush Fenway’s #17 Sprint Cup Crown Royal Ford team with driver Matt Kenseth. Parrott will take over the role effective immediately. Drew Blickensderfer, who has served as crew chief on the #17 since the start of the 2009 season [winning the Daytona 500 and race afterwards in Calif], will assume a role in Roush Fenway’s research and development department. Parrott, who won a Sprint Cup championship with Dale Jarrett in 1999, is the third winningest active crew chief in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series with 29 career wins.(RFR)(2-17-2010)
UPDATE: Matt Kenseth says it became obvious that something had to change when his crew members were becoming too much like him. “You guys say I don’t show emotion sometimes. I kind of felt like the whole group was sort of like that,” Kenseth said Friday, explaining an unexpected crew chief change made after only one race. “I just felt like it needed something to throw a spark in the thing.” Back in California where Kenseth got his last victory a year ago, Todd Parrott replaces Drew Blickensderfer atop the #17 Ford pit box this weekend. After Blickensderfer became his crew chief last year, Kenseth won at Daytona and California. That momentum didn’t carry over because Kenseth hasn’t won since, and missed the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship for the first time. But instead of making a change during the offseason, Kenseth made the move after an eighth-place finish at Daytona last weekend, when he managed a top-10 finish after running in the middle of the pack most of Sunday’s race. “We were just missing something on the team,” Kenseth said. “I didn’t feel the way we operated at Daytona that we could win races and win championships.” Kenseth took the blame for the timing of the switch, explaining that team owner Jack Roush asked him at the end of last season if any changes needed to be made. At the time, Kenseth felt like everything was OK and that Blickensderfer deserved the benefit of a full season and full offseason. “It’s really hard to explain the timing of the change. It doesn’t make any sense,” Kenseth said. “Instead of dragging it out, it was just something that needed to be done. … Get a head start on this thing instead of waiting until we’re halfway into the season and it’s too late to dig ourselves out.” Roush described himself as “really conflicted” about the switch but said that it became clear when he met with general manager Robbie Reiser and Kenseth this week that the change was necessary. Roush said there was “zero sponsor pressure” for a switch. The team owner also, without elaborating, used the term “interim” concerning the role for Parrott, who was the crew chief when Dale Jarrett won the 1999 Cup championship.(Associated Press)(2-19-2010)
