NASCAR: Kyle Busch gets new Sprint Cup crew chief - Dave Rogers

Joe Gibbs Racing announced, effective with next week’s race at Texas Motorspeedway, that Dave Rogers would become Kyle Busch’s crew chief in the #18 Toyota.

Kyle Busch has 12 wins since joining JGR in 2008, and four this year – including at Bristol only two months ago. On the other hand there is talk that he is not communicating with the crew to the same degree as before.

Thus crew chief, Steve Addington, was replaced without any word of a reassignment. It’s possible he could move to another race team.

Rogers is currently in his fourth season as crew chief on the No. 20 NASCAR Nationwide Series entry for JGR. He led the team to JGR’s first Nationwide Series Owner’s Championship in 2008 amassing nine victories, six poles, 16 top-five finishes and 26 top-10 finishes despite utilizing four different drivers over the course of the season. The team has captured another five wins thus far this season under Rogers’ leadership. He first joined JGR in 1998 and spent six seasons from 1999 to 2004 working under Greg Zipadelli with the No. 20 team, including the team’s 2002 Championship season.

“We evaluate all of our teams on an ongoing basis and believe this is a change that will make the 18 team stronger as we prepare for next season,” said J.D. Gibbs, president of JGR said in a statement. “We think highly of Steve and the job he has done and we look forward to him remaining a part of the JGR family.

“Dave has proven himself a talented crew chief and we think he will work well with Kyle. We hope that by making the move following this weekend’s race at Talladega they can use the final three weeks of this season to begin working on communication and setups for the 2010 season.”