Denny Hamlin thought Chris Gabehart would be his crew chief for the rest of his NASCAR career. So naturally, he was shocked to learn that was not the case when informed by Joe Gibbs Racing leadership — which now includes Gabehart — late last month.
Gabehart has been promoted to JGR competition director, which means he will oversee all of the organization’s cars instead of just Hamlin’s. One of the most successful driver/crew chief pairings of the last decade, Gabehart and Hamlin won 22 times in six seasons together — and should have won many more — while collecting five straight finishes of fifth or better in the season point standings.
Yet at age 43, Gabehart’s days atop the pit box appear to be behind him. He will be tasked with improving JGR’s performance after the four-car team failed to win a Cup Series race in the last half of 2024.
That leaves the 44-year-old Hamlin with a new crew chief in Chris Gayle, a development few could have foreseen. When asked in The Athletic’s anonymous survey, more than half of Hamlin’s playoff competitors this year said they would choose Gabehart as their preferred crew chief, underscoring what a big loss this will be for the future Hall of Fame driver.
So how does this rank in terms of the most surprising driver/crew chief breakups of NASCAR’s Chase/Playoffs Era (2004-now)? We’ve collected 10 and listed them in order below.
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10. Jimmie Johnson/Chad Knaus (2018)
Team: Hendrick Motorsports
What happened: By the middle of 2018, an internal decision was made that Johnson and Knaus would part ways when the season ended. That concluded a 17-year partnership that saw them win a record-tying seven championships and 81 races together.
Why it was surprising: It actually wasn’t all that surprising, given they hadn’t won in more than a year when the decision was made and had bickered for much of their relationship (nearly breaking up after 2005, saved only by Rick Hendrick’s famous “milk and cookies” meeting). The surprise element was that it finally got to the point where they would no longer continue together after so much success.
Impact: Knaus won just one more race in two seasons with William Byron before stepping into Hendrick’s vice president of competition role. Johnson never won again, racing two more full-time seasons with crew chiefs Kevin Meendering and Cliff Daniels (now Kyle Larson’s crew chief) and missing the playoffs in both.
9. Joey Logano/Todd Gordon (2020)
Team: Team Penske
What happened: The calendar had barely turned to 2020 when Penske reshuffled its crew chief lineup, which included breaking up the championship-winning duo of Logano and Gordon one season after their first title.
Why it was surprising: Logano and Gordon won two races in 2019 and had very similar numbers to their title run in 2018, minus a Championship 4 appearance (they finished fifth in the standings). But Penske was looking to bolster the organization as a whole, so it put Gordon with Ryan Blaney and paired Paul Wolfe with Logano.
Impact: Gordon retired from being a crew chief after two seasons with Blaney, in which they won four races. He is now a broadcaster for MRN Radio and SiriusXM. Meanwhile, the Logano/Wolfe pairing that emerged has won two championships in the last three years, and Wolfe this year became the winningest active crew chief in NASCAR (42 victories).
8. Brad Keselowski/Paul Wolfe (2020)
Team: Team Penske
What happened: As part of the same move as the Logano/Gordon breakup, Keselowski’s longtime pairing with Wolfe was suddenly over after 10 seasons together (including one in the Xfinity Series) — a period that saw 29 of Keselowski’s 36 career Cup wins and his only championship. Keselowski was instead teamed with Jeremy Bullins, while Wolfe moved to Logano.
Why it was surprising: Keselowski and Wolfe were coming off a three-win season and hadn’t experienced any drop-off in performance compared to recent years. And at the time, they were the longest active driver/crew chief combination.
Impact: As mentioned above, Wolfe has gone on to plenty of success with Logano. Keselowski won four races with Bullins in 2020 and had his final victory with Penske in 2021 before moving to become a driver/owner with RFK Racing. After three seasons with Matt McCall there that produced just one win, Keselowski hired Bullins last month to try and recreate their 2020 success.
7. Kyle Busch/Adam Stevens (2020)
Team: Joe Gibbs Racing
What happened: As Busch told Graham Bensinger’s “In Depth” show in 2021, the driver asked Stevens to make some changes to the team following the 2020 season, but Stevens disagreed and instead said they should part ways. Busch told Bensinger he was shocked and felt Stevens quit on him.
Why it was surprising: Despite his occasional prickliness, Busch understands what he wants out of a race car and is one of the best at articulating how he feels inside the cockpit. Stevens was one of the best at taking Busch’s feedback and translating it into speed, helping them combine for two Cup Series championships and 28 wins in six seasons together.
Impact: Stevens has won nine races in four seasons with Christopher Bell and the duo nearly made their third straight Championship 4 appearance this year. Busch won three more times at JGR with Ben Beshore before losing his sponsorship and his ride, forcing him to leave for Richard Childress Racing in 2023. Busch won three times in his first season at RCR but this year suffered through the first winless season of his career (after a record 19 straight winning campaigns) and tied his career worst with a 20th-place points finish.
6. Tony Stewart/Darian Grubb (2011)
Team: Stewart-Haas Racing
What happened: Immediately after winning the 2011 Cup Series championship, Grubb revealed he had been fired by Stewart and informed of the news halfway through the Chase. Their championship, which happened by winning five of the final 10 races, did not change Stewart’s mind.
Why it was surprising: Pretty obvious, but a championship-winning crew chief typically is not fired. But working with Stewart could be volatile, and the team wasn’t running well until it got hot in the playoffs, shifting blame onto Grubb’s shoulders.
Impact: Stewart won only five more races in the final five seasons of his Hall of Fame career. Grubb won five races the next season with Hamlin at JGR and later had one year as crew chief for Carl Edwards (two wins in 2015) and William Byron (a winless 2018 in the driver’s rookie year). Grubb then became Hendrick Motorsports’ technical director before returning to the spotlight with Trackhouse Racing — which resulted in Grubb’s stunning victory with Shane van Gisbergen at the inaugural Chicago Street Course Race.
5. Martin Truex Jr./Cole Pearn (2019)
Team: Joe Gibbs Racing
What happened: Two years removed from winning the Cup championship and just five years into his crew chief career, Pearn walked away from NASCAR to focus on his family. He won 24 times in just 179 career races as crew chief and finished first, second and second in the championship during his final three seasons.
Why it was surprising: While the timing may have been a surprise, it also wasn’t a shock; Pearn had made it well known he missed Colorado after moving from Furniture Row Racing to North Carolina-based JGR, and it never felt like he would be a NASCAR lifer based on his passions outside of racing.
Impact: After winning seven races with Pearn in 2019, Truex won just eight more times in the final five seasons of his career while paired with former Pearn engineer James Small. Truex made the Championship 4 just once more after four appearances in five years with Pearn. Now the owner of Golden Alpine Holidays ski lodges in British Columbia as his full-time job, Pearn still helps JGR remotely on the side.
4. Carl Edwards/Bob Osborne (2012)
Team: Roush Fenway Racing
What happened: Just a half-season after Osborne nearly led Edwards to the 2011 Cup Series championship (only to lose on a tiebreaker to Stewart), the crew chief suddenly stepped aside in July 2012 due to health reasons.
Why it was surprising: The midseason element was particularly jarring, especially since it was so close to a near-championship run months earlier, and health matters are never predictable.
Impact: Edwards went winless in 2012 and missed the Chase (playoffs). Though he won two times the next season with crew chief Jimmy Fennig, Edwards never found the speed he had with Osborne in 2011 and left for JGR after the 2014 season. Edwards won five more races and infamously nearly won the 2016 Cup championship before abruptly retiring in early 2017 at age 37. Osborne later returned for two more years as a crew chief and won the fog-shortened Pocono race with Chris Buescher in 2016.
3. Denny Hamlin/Chris Gabehart (2024)
Team: Joe Gibbs Racing
What happened: With JGR not performing as well as it should overall, team executives approached Gabehart to see if he’d be willing to step down from the pit box and take a promotion to competition director. Hamlin was instead paired with former Ty Gibbs crew chief Chris Gayle.
Why it was surprising: Hamlin and Gabehart seemed like they would work together for the rest of the driver’s career and have been one of the best at consistently bringing fast cars to the racetrack.
Impact: Unknown, but with Hamlin now 44 years old and with a new crew chief, he’ll have an uphill battle to be as consistently fast this season while trying to build chemistry.
2. Dale Earnhardt Jr./The Eurys (2005)
Team: Dale Earnhardt Inc.
What happened: After a 2004 season in which Earnhardt was in contention to win the Cup championship and won six races, DEI suddenly moved most of his No. 8 team over to Michael Waltrip and paired Earnhardt with crew chief Pete Rondeau. Tony Eury Sr., Earnhardt’s uncle, became competition director at DEI, and Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt’s cousin, ended up as Waltrip’s crew chief.
Why it was surprising: If Earnhardt hadn’t been docked points for cursing in victory lane at Talladega following a 2004 win, he would have had a shot at the championship during the inaugural season of the Chase. But he was so angry with Eury Jr. by the end of that season, the driver was fine with saying goodbye to the successful family combination (albeit in a decision that was ultimately temporary).
Impact: The move failed. Rondeau lasted just 11 races with Earnhardt and the driver later said the breakup “derailed” him for several years. Earnhardt and Eury Jr. eventually reunited later in the 2005 season, but DEI never recovered from that ill-fated team swap before Earnhardt left for Hendrick Motorsports. “The dumbest, stupidest frickin’ thing,” Earnhardt said in 2018.
1. Dale Earnhardt Jr./Steve Letarte (2014)
Team: Hendrick Motorsports
What happened: One month before the 2014 season began, NBC announced Letarte would be joining its broadcast booth for the 2015 season for the network’s return to NASCAR broadcasting.
Why it was surprising: Letarte was just 34 and seemed to still have many successful years ahead of him. He had also turned Earnhardt Jr.’s career around after the popular driver’s horrid 2009 and 2010 seasons, when he finished 25th and 21st in the point standings. Letarte and Earnhardt immediately finished seventh the next season and famously snapped a 143-race winless streak at Michigan in 2012. Earnhardt then finished fifth in the standings in 2013 and the duo won four races in their final year together.
Impact: Earnhardt won three more times with Greg Ives the year after Letarte left, but he never won again after that. Concussions caused him to miss half the season in 2016, and the Hall of Famer made 2017 his final year in Cup.
(Top photo of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Eury Sr. celebrating a win at Talladega in October 2004: Jonathan Ferrey / Getty Images)
