DOVER, Del. – Behind every driver is often an even better crew chief.
While Matt Kenseth is a past NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion who’s just now enjoying the best year of his career, he isn’t the only one on the No. 20 Home Depot team at Joe Gibbs Racing doing so.
Crew chief Jason Ratcliff is in his second full year as the team’s leader but he’s made it look as if he’s been here winning races for a while. In truth, Ratcliff has been winning races, a lot of races, but with different drivers in a different series. He and a guy named Kyle Busch took the Nationwide Series by storm a few years ago, winning a combined 22 races in 2009 – along with the championship – and 2010.
Gibbs promoted Ratcliff to the top in 2012, working with Joey Logano in his final year at JGR before Kenseth joined the company prior to the start of this season. After only one career win with Logano, Ratcliff has guided Kenseth to seven wins and the point lead with seven races to go.
“I think everybody in this sport, regardless of what position they’re in, want to get to the Cup Series, they want to go Sunday racing. Especially if you can come up here – and there’s some challenges – if you feel you can come here and compete every week, which we’ve been able to do,” Ratcliff said on Friday in the team’s hauler after completing all of the on-track activities for the day. Before talking about his move to the NSCS, he was debriefing with Kenseth and the team after they qualified second for the AAA 400.
“I enjoyed my Saturday stuff, the Nationwide Series was great and we were successful on Saturday and that was fun. I was completely content doing that but I knew if the right opportunity came along, which it did, I’d want to come over here.”
Throughout his NNS career, Ratcliff called the shots for some of the best drivers in the series. He won with not only Busch but also Logano and Denny Hamlin. As well as Jamie McMurray back in 2002 and David Green in 2003. The list of drivers he’s worked with is even longer.
Now at the sport’s top level, Ratcliff is again among the best. But he also has one of the best in a car he prepares.
“It’s a big challenge to come over, the competition is just unbelievable. You have so many good teams and drivers that can come out here and win every week,” he said. “So anytime you come to the Sprint Cup Series and you’re successful it’s a big deal in auto racing, I think.”
Sunday Kenseth finished seventh, unable to win three-straight to open the Chase. But he and Ratcliff remain favorites for the title and the competition has taken note, including five-time champion Jimmie Johnson who won. For Johnson, he acknowledged how tough the 20 team is and what Kenseth brings to the table as a driver.
Which might have made Ratcliff a little nervous to work with him entering the season. But instead, it’s been the right combination for both he and the driver.
“Nah, more so excitement,” Ratcliff revealed about what his reaction was when Kenseth signed with the team. “I think you’re a little concerned about, ‘Hey, are we going to work?’ Because you can take a good group, a good race team and a great experienced driver and sometimes it clicks and sometimes it doesn’t.”
Which was something Ratcliff and the 20 team focused on making sure didn’t happen. Now with almost their first full season together complete, it’s gone the best anyone at JGR could have hoped for.
“I knew Matt would come over here and do well with this group,” he said. “So we were really excited before it happened and we’re really excited about it now that it’s happened.”
Jason has been very good all year and the 2 tire call was a damned if you do damned if you don’t deal. But, Matt has serious confidence problems when he thinks his car is inferior and 4 tires may have at least kept him confident and moving forward. I think they lost maybe a couple of positions on the track after all is said and done. Two tires has worked in the past, and usually does if you are leading the race, but everyone in America knew the race leader was taking only two tires. Back to the point of the article, Matt has never had a better crew chief than Jason. And that includes Robby Reiser. Ratcliff and Kenseth have about five good years ahead of them before Matt will be done, but they will never get a better opportunity than this year because they are teaching Kyle Busch too much about how to win at this level.
That’s very interesting that you would throw out that Ratcliff is better than Reiser or even Jimmy Fennig? He was with Matt before he left Roush. What I think you have to take into account though is the organizations. As Ratcliff said, you can put the best people in place and sometimes it doesn’t work. Ratcliff has great JGR people and Toyota equipment as his disposal. Roush is a great organization, as well, but they haven’t been tops lately and the drivers have been admitting they had work to do.
Anyway – that’s a great comment in terms of what it’ll do for Kyle Busch. At the beginning of this season I actually picked Denny Hamlin to win the championship because I felt having someone like Kenseth to learn from would be a great asset. I still believe that, but Hamlin is have a god awful season. Look out going forward though. And I believe the same for Kyle Busch. Once Hamlin and Busch are around Kenseth long enough and they can keep their organization, people and equipment developing, they all might be unstoppable.