Matt Kenseth took responsibility for his first crew chief change of the year in February, and on Friday, team owner Jack Roush said the call for a second switch was his. Roush surprised veteran Jimmy Fennig by taking him out of the research and development department and putting him in charge of Kenseth’s #17 Sprint Cup Series team. Todd Parrott was reassigned back to his old job, overseeing Roush Fenway Racing’s superspeedway program. “Matt and I shared a concern that we weren’t getting the optimum number of changes in the garage (during practice) based on the plan and the preparation and the execution of the pre-race activities,” Roush said at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon. “That was not the case in the first few races when Todd was at the helm, but, for whatever reason – I don’t know if Matt stopped talking to him or I stopped talking to him or what happened, but for whatever reason – we kind of had a breakdown in team communication and the effectiveness we had of getting ready for the race.” Fennig is the fifth crew chief since 2007. Robbie Reiser became general manger of Roush Fenway’s Sprint Cup operations at the end of that season. Although it has been suggested that the only answer for Kenseth is to be reunited with Reiser, Reiser is too valuable to the organization as a whole, Kenseth said. “He probably would have came and filled in for the rest of the year if he could try to do both, but there just are not enough hours in a day,” Kenseth said. “It does seem like I’m pretty hard on crew chiefs lately, that’s for sure, but we’ve just had some opportunities within the organization. . . . We just had some opportunities to mix things up a little bit and see if we can get the team heading in the direction we think it needs to be headed in.”(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)(6-27-2010)
