Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
JR Motorsports has announced that its race operations manager Mike Bumgarner will serve as crew chief for Elliott Sadler and the No. 1 OneMain Financial Chevrolet in Saturday’s XFINITY Series race at Homestead – Miami Speedway.
Bumgarner is a 22 year veteran of the sport and has spent much of his career at Hendrick Motorsports, where he worked on cars for Terry Labonte, Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch. In 2007, he was crew chief on Busch’s No. 5 Chevrolet, which won four races and three pole awards. Bumgarner began working at JRM in 2013 as crew chief for Kasey Kahne and Brad Sweet before being promoted to oversee all race operations for the organization.
“We let Kevin ultimately make this decision because it’s his team,” said general manager Kelley Earnhardt Miller. “Kevin chose Mike to sit in the crew chief’s seat and for good reason – he is experienced atop the pit box and very dependable. We have a great deal of confidence in Mike to give Elliott his best opportunity to win on Saturday.”
Sadler, who is one of the four remaining drivers left in the XFINITY Series Championship 4, has enjoyed a career year in 2016 by racing up three victories to go along with 13 top 5’s, and 28 top 10’s. He will compete against his JRM teammate Justin Allgaier and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Erik Jones and Daniel Suarez for the championship.
Sadler’s crew chief Kevin Meendering was suspended for this race following last weekend’s race at Phoenix after NASCAR discovered two loose lug nuts during post race inspection.
