Saturday Richmond Notebook

- Crew chief Chris Gayle already prepping for Sunday racing

- Two new members of the 500 club

- Harvick starts Richmond weekend with two new crewmen

September 10, 2016

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

CREW CHIEF CHRIS GAYLE ALREADY PREPPING FOR SUNDAY RACING

RICHMOND, Va. – The official announcement came this past week, but that doesn’t mean Chris Gayle hasn’t been working behind the scenes in the Toyota camp.

Gayle, who called the action from the pit box in Kyle Busch’s NASCAR XFINITY Series victory on Friday night at Richmond International Raceway, will move to Furniture Row Racing next season to guide the efforts of Sprint Cup rookie Erik Jones.

Though Jones won’t get a head start on his transition from XFINITY to Sprint Cup by running races at NASCAR’s highest level this year, Gayle already has been spending Sunday afternoons at the track, observing and learning.

And though Gayle has won eight XFINITY events with Busch at Joe Gibbs Racing this season, his is not exactly a household name. In fact, the only “Chris Gayle” with a current Wikipedia entry is a Jamaican cricketer.

But Furniture Row, which enjoys factory support from Toyota Racing Development and a technical partnership with JGR, expects Gayle to make a name for himself in short order as the crew chief for one of the sport’s rising stars.

And Gayle, 40, is using the rest of the season to get ready for the step up to Sprint Cup.

“On staying on Sundays and working, that’s kind of already started to happen,” Gayle said Friday nightafter the win at Richmond, site of Saturday night's Federated Auto Parts 400 (7:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN). “You guys probably didn’t know, but I’ve been around for the last couple weeks if you’ve been watching a little bit, so I’ve kind of been doing that for a little bit and we’ll continue to do that for the rest of the year.

“Maybe not Furniture Row per se, but it gives me kind of a unique perspective for all the Toyota teams to kind of see how everybody’s doing things different and kind of mold my team how I want to, based on the goods and the bads of what I learn over the next 10, 11 races.”

TWO NEW MEMBERS OF THE 500 CLUB

Coincidentally, both Greg Biffle and Jamie McMurray came to Richmond with 499 starts in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

Though Biffle, 46, is more than six years older than his Chip Ganassi Racing counterpart, who turned 40 in June, both drivers started their Sprint Cup careers in 2002, when Biffle ran seven races and McMurray six. 

McMurray, who won at Charlotte in his second start in relief of injured Sterling Marlin in 2002, has a string of 497 consecutive starts entering Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond (7:30 p.m. ETon NBCSN). Biffle competed in 35 of 36 races in 2003, failing to qualify for the third race of the season, at Las Vegas. Since then, he has run 490 events without a miss.

McMurray has seven career victories to his credit, the last one coming at Talladega in 2013. Biffle has won 19 times, taking the checkered flag most recently at Michigan that same year.

But Biffle and McMurray arrived at Richmond for the Chase cutoff race with vastly different agendas. Biffle’s only route to NASCAR’s 10-race playoff is to win the race. McMurray simply needs to maintain any part of his 22-point edge over Ryan Newman to qualify, provided a winless driver behind him in the Chase standings—like Biffle, for example—doesn’t win the race.

HARVICK STARTS RICHMOND WEEKEND WITH TWO NEW CREWMEN

Changing pit crew members for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup is nothing new to Kevin Harvick. Before winning the 2014 championship, Harvick’s team appropriated teammate/team owner Tony Stewart’s over-the-wall gang lock, stock and barrel.

This week, after losing 17 positions on pit road over the course of last Sunday’s race at Darlington, thanks to a disastrous performance by his crew, Harvick looked to Danica Patrick’s team for help. The front-tire combination of Eric Maycroft (changer) and Matt Holzbaur (carrier) moves from Patrick’s No. 10 Chevrolet to Harvick’s No. 4.

Changer Tim Sheets and carrier Todd Drakulich go from Harvick’s car to that of Patrick, who came to Richmond needing a first career victory to qualify for the Chase. Harvick and teammates Stewart and Kurt Busch already are locked into the playoff.