Fantasy NASCAR Racing

driver Ashton Lewis on his late model team while still in college.  Barker has since overcome his injuries to be a respected crew chief and one of NASCAR's most brilliant minds. Barker got his start as a crew chief in 2001 working for Bill Davis Racing and is paired with driver Scott Winner in 2001 and 2002 in the Xfinity Series.  2002 was a good year for the pair as Wimmer would win four times and finish third in the Xfinity points. The following season he would be hired by Doug Bawel for call the shots for Dave Blaney and Barker moved up to the Cup Series.  Baker would be replaced by Shane Wilson for 2004 and Barker was left looking for a job.  He was hired by Gene Haas at the start of 2005 and called the shots for driver Mike Bliss.  They would have two Top 10 finishes.  For most of 2006, Barker was the crew chief for the #66 Haas CNC Racing Chevrolet driven by Jeff Green but was replaced by Harold Holly for the final five races.  In 2006 he would lead Johnny Sauter for Haas but they could only manage to post one Top 5 finish.  Harold Holly kicked off 2008 as crew chief for Scott Riggs, but was quickly replaced by Barker.  The duo only had one Top 10 finish.  On October 1, 2008, Michael Waltrip Racing announced that Barker would be the crew chief of the #55 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota driven by two-time Daytona 500 champion Michael Waltrip for the 2009 Cup Series season.  In 2010 Barker moved to Germain Racing to head up the team for Casey Mears through 2016.  During those years Mears struggled driving for an underfunded team.  He was only able to post one Top 5 and he came home fourth at Daytona in July.  Ty Dillon replaced Mears in the #13 car in 2017; and the team still didn’t have any success.  In February 2018, Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) announced that it hired Barker to its ARCA Racing Series program with Riley Herbst.  In September 2021, 23XI Racing announced that Barker would take over as crew chief for the #23 Toyota driven by Bubba Wallace after Mike Wheeler was promoted to Director of Competition.  On Monday, October 4th, 2021, Barker earned his first win as a Cup crew chief (and 23XI Racing's first win) when Bubba Wallace won the rain-shortened YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.  Barker was back with Wallace in 2022 as 23XI Racing expanded to a two car operation with Kurt Busch coming over to be a team mate to Wallace.  Barker and Wallace kicked off the season with an exciting finish in the Daytona 500 as Wallace was just bested by rookie Austin Cindric for the win.  The next eleven races saw poor results as they had only one finish better than 15th.  They finally posted a top ten at Kansas.  In the 20th race of the season, they had a strong third place run at Loudon NH; followed by finishes of eighth, fifth and second.  Over a nine race span they had only one finish worse than 13th; topped off with a convincing win at Kansas.  With 16 different winners in the first 26 races of the regular season; the win came too late to put Wallace in the play-offs.  But the duo showed great improvements the second half of the season and looked have a good 2023 season.  That season, they paired for a season best third place finish at Texas.  They added a trio of fourths, coming at Las Vegas, Kansas and Charlotte.  They also finished fifth at Darlington.  For the year the had ten Top 10 runs and made the Chase via points.  They were eliminated after the Round of 12.  They finished tenth in points.  Barker has spent 18 season working in the Cup series.  His drivers have made 557 starts, and Bubba Wallace has won twice with him (2021, 2022).  He also worked in the Xfinity series with Scott Wimmer in 2004, saw him get four wins and finish third in the points.