Darian Grubb is a busy man these days.
He’s in the middle of finishing out the season as crew chief for Kasey Kahne on Hendrick Motorsports’s No. 5 Chevrolet. But he’s also preparing to crew chief for William Byron next season on the No. 24 Chevrolet. Grubb was announced as Byron’s crew chief earlier this week.
Grubb, who won the 2011 Cup championship with Tony Stewart, talked with NASCAR America’s Dave Burns about what it is like preparing to work with a rookie for the first time.
“A lot of it is going to be learning what he doesn’t know about the history of the races and how they work and what’s going on with the strategy and scenarios,” Grubb said. “He’s a pretty big student of the sport. He’s a pretty bright individual and I think he’s already got most of it down pat.”
Byron has three wins this season in the Xfinity Series and he won a rookie record seven times last year in the Camping World Truck Series.
Grubb still has three races left in his interim crew chief role with Kahne. Grubb took over the position from Keith Rodden after the playoff opener at Chicagoland.
Grubb said his time working with Kahne was a way for him to find out if he still wanted to be a crew chief full-time. Grubb had been serving as director of competition systems for Hendrick since August.
“I was always behind the scenes being able to say ‘you shouldn’t have made this call or you shouldn’t have made that call,'” Grubb said. “It’s a little bit interesting for me to try and learn see what’s going on different.”
Watch the above video for the full interview.
