“That’s a little hard for me to believe right now,” Dave Elenz said following the Hisense 250.
Elenz would make the right adjustments throughout Saturday afternoon and with the pit crew handing Harvick the lead off of the final round of pit stops, Harvick was able to hold off Joey Logano for the win. While it marks Harvick’s 45th career XFINITY Series victory, it marks the first as a crew chief for Elenz.
“It’s very special to be able to a part of JR Motorsports,” Elenz commented. “Working with Kevin this weekend has been very amazing. His knowledge here has helped me out a lot.”
Elenz moved over to JR Motorsports for 2015 after Ernie Cope moved over to JRM’s No. 9 team to work with Chase Elliott with Elliott’s crew chief Greg Ives moving up to Sprint Cup with Dale Earnhardt Jr. Elenz has spent the past couple of years as an engineer on Jimmie Johnson’s Sprint Cup Series team.
“I started as an engineer 12 years ago – race engineer and just continued to do it,” he commented. “I was fortunate enough to get associated with HMS and get into some winning positions and get over to JRM. It’s been a progression of learning the sport from different levels of teams and getting experience to where I was able to be a benefit to HMS and prove my capabilities there to then get an opportunity at JRM.”
Bringing the new crew chief in with the No. 88 team seemed perfect as the car sees a slew of Sprint Cup drivers behind the wheel, which will allow them to help teach Elenz what he needs to do in his new position.
“I have to think about what’s really going on because you don’t have a lot of tires to practice, you have a lot of history in the series and knowledge of the things and past experiences that you have, and the conversations that we’ve had this past weekend have been fun because he wants to hear what I have to say,” Harvick commented. “It’s fun to me to listen to him decipher everything and digest what you tell him and make some decisions. Today, they made great adjustments on the pit box.”
Harvick has won at Atlanta previously – this marking his third straight XFINITY victory. With knowing what he needs out of the car, he can inform Elenz what he needs.
“He’s pretty fast in whatever he drives here,” team co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. expressed post-race. “He’s got a real good understanding in how he needs to get around the bottom of the track. He runs that line very well around the bottom. He’s very patient with the throttle, and really understands what he needs his car to do and does a lot of great things and good things in practice so he can in turn drive the race track like he wants.”
The victory marks not only a celebration for Elenz, but a relief for Earnhardt Jr. in knowing that the changes made over the off-season are paying dividends.
“That will help him a lot with his confidence to go ahead and get such a good run under his belt, and feel like everything he is doing is the right thing,” Earnhardt commented. “That should help that team continue to build momentum for the rest of the year.
“So we had a busy off-season, made a lot of changes, got some new crew chiefs and people moved around – a lot of new employees. You always wonder how things will be different and whether you’re making the right changes, and how everybody will work out in the new role they will be in. As far as the 88 car, they seem to be doing really well.”
