“Awkward and Weird”: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Not a Big Fan of JGR’s Big Gamble Ahead of Playoffs

Ahead of the playoff opener at Darlington, Joe Gibbs Racing announced that the pit crew lineups for Christopher Bell and Ty Gibbs were going to be switched. Bell, who finished third in the championship last year, will now be bolstered by one of the best pit crews in the Cup Series this year. But will it be easy, to change the team just when you enter the playoffs? Dale Earnhardt Jr. certainly does not think so.

The Hall of Famer spoke on his podcast about the update from the JGR team, explaining how changing your pit crew lineup after 26 races could be unsettling if you are a driver.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. lays out the difficulty to work with a new team midway through the season

Junior admitted that although he has never been in a situation where his entire team disappeared and a whole new group came in for a considerable time, he does feel for the driver in these situations.

“It can be awkward and weird, and it’s nothing that you did..”

“Christopher Bell, he’s like, okay they’re making a change. Maybe he likes his guys, maybe he’s like ‘I like my guys, I don’t want this other crew’. But you know, it’s not his choice and he has to start building this new relationship with this #54 team that was with Ty Gibbs all year and he’s got 10 races and playoff pressure and all those things. So if they have a bad pit stop, drop the jack, whatever …”

And what is the only way to overcome any such difficulty and smoothen the transition?

According to Jr., the only way is for the drivers to personally talk to the team and say, “‘Hey man, I had a great crew, you guys are coming off the #20 car, I believe in you, I know that it looks like they sent my guys over there because they’re better and they’re doing a better job this year and we need that car to do a better job in the playoffs, but why don’t we spend these next 10 races proving that you’re as good’…”

What will happen if Bell actually wins the Championship?

Tyler Reddick’s pit crew has been at the top of the game in 2023, winning the pit crew competition at the All-Star race. For the season, the team is ranked only behind William Byron and Ross Chastain’s teams with an average time of 11.254 seconds on four-tire pit stops.

An interesting point raised on the podcast was if Bell won the Cup Series at the end, which pit team would celebrate, Bell’s original team for the 26 races or Gibbs’ team that took him through the playoffs?

Earnhardt said, “I don’t know how that works. That’s the situation you put yourself in when you’re making the change.”

Only after the next 10 races can we know if this JGR gamble was worth it or not, and if other teams will try a similar strategy in the future.