Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson won the second Cup Series championship of his career at the Phoenix Raceway on Sunday. The victory was earned after a trying battle throughout the season, which involved a multitude of ups and downs. A key person who massively helped Larson in this journey is his crew chief, Cliff Daniels. But in what way did he exactly extend his hand?
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The role of a crew chief in a team is paramount and certainly isn’t limited to overseeing the pit crew members alone. They delegate roles to engineers and also serve as a kind of psychologist for their drivers. Daniels did the same and more for Larson. In the middle of 2025, the driver faced one of the biggest disappointments of his career by failing in the Double Duty at Indianapolis and Charlotte.
He admitted on multiple forums that his confidence had taken a hit and that he was struggling to get his performance back. During a recent appearance on the Stacking Pennies podcast, Daniels was asked what kind of techniques he used to revive the driver from this horrific mindset. His answer proved why he is at the center of the No. 5 team and is extremely vital to its success.
At first, he had considered just letting Larson be in the face of defeat. He hadn’t wanted to repeatedly knock on his door and be a disturbance. But he wanted to get across the message that they had to build through the struggle and get out of it. He even expressed the same to his car chief, Jesse Saunders, before coming up with a solution that worked wonders in the end.
He said, “I wanted to do a bit of a journey with the team of letting the team hear some of the very foundational things from another voice than mine. So I said, “Hey, we’re going to read three books together as a team. We’re going to read Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. We’re going to read The Art of War by Sun Tzu. And we’re going to read Acres of Diamonds by Russell Conwell.”
These books held principles that Daniels strongly believed in. He wanted Larson and the rest of the crew to learn those principles as well, albeit from a voice other than his. Being the team player he is, Larson immediately got involved with the books and discussed them with the chief every chance he got.
“That was just a fun thing for us to do as a team to get connected,” Daniels quipped. Self-confidence and motivation were key factors in Larson overcoming his personal struggles throughout the year to end up as the champion. Daniels’ part in this cannot be understated by any degree.
