Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Crew Chief Bob Osborne has had the right ingredients at Atlanta

While it's already snowing in the South near Atlanta this weekend will be the first true test for teams with the new aero package on an intermediate speedway.  If any crew chief has had their hands on the right winning combination at the fast paced track it his Trevor Bayne's new crew chief Bob Osborne.

Osborne won 3 races with former driver Carl Edwards at the track, sweeping the track in 2005 and once again in 2008.  Osborne was on top of the pit box for 13 starts for Roush Fenway Racing from 2004-2012, with 3 wins, 8 top-fives, and 9 top-ten finishes, leading 331 laps, his average start with two drivers at the track is 11.4 and average finish is 13.9.

NASCAR will debut it's new engine package as well as the new aero package that teams will be using on the rest of the tracks on the schedule with the exception of Daytona and Talladega.  The one thing that could play into the hands of Bayne and Osborne is, the driver has ran the NASCAR Xfinity Series schedule the last few years full-time and the combination is suppose to be very close to what the Sprint Cup Series teams will be moving to this season.

Last fall at Texas, it looked like Bayne had the fastest car on the track at Texas Motor Speedway until a tire blew out that sent him into the wall.  There is a concern about the tire combination that Goodyear will be bringing to the track as well.  With Atlanta being an older surface, it is one of the venues that seems to put a problem in the equation with crew chief's as they have to keep their driver in place on tire wear.


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