Fantasy NASCAR Racing

would leave to go to work for car ownerRaymond Beadle for the 1983 season with Tim Richmond behind the wheel.  He would be there for two season; winning once each year.  Brewer would find himself back at Junior Johnson Racing back in 1985 and would remain there through 1992.  He started working as head of Neil Bonnett's team.  Bonnett was driving a second car for Johnson and was Darrell Waltrip's team mate.  Bonnett won twice in 1985 and finished fourth in the points.  The following season the pair would win once; but slip to 14th in the points.  Terry Labonte was brought on board after Bonnett left the team siting he felt like he was "playing second fiddle" to Waltrip's team.  Labonte and Brewer paired together for three seasons posting four wins and 28 Top 5 finishes.  In 1990 Labonte departed and went to drive the Skoal car for Leo Jackson.  Geoff Bodine was brought in to fill his seat.  He won three times that season and added another win with Brewer in 1991. 1992 saw a 'dream' combination come together in 1992.  Johnson hired Bill Elliott to drive his machine.  Johnson already had several championships as a car owner; and Elliott was already "Awesome Bill from Dawsonville".  With Brewer sitting atop the pit box the season started strong with Elliott winning for of the first five races. He built up a huge points lead before the wheels started to fall off.  With six races left in the season Elliott had a 154 point lead.  At Dover, late in the race, Brewer wanted to change two tires on their final pit stop.  Johnson over ruled him and called for four tires.  As Johnson said later, " We were leading the race a lap ahead or something.  Tim wanted to change two tires, and I wanted to change four. When I put four tires on it, it didn't run as good as it did when it had the four wore-out tires. I don't know what happened to the car, but we were coming out of the turn when [race winner Ricky Rudd] got the flag.  Three more laps, we would have caught him.  It was my fault.  But the damage had been done.  The next race at Martinsville, the team experienced a blown engine (30th).  At North Wilkesboro, Elliott was eight laps down at the checkered flag (28th).  At Charlotte, a track bar mount broke (31st) leaving Elliott a scant 39 points ahead of Davey Allison.  They seemed to rebound at Rockingham finishing fourth; but a 31st place finish the next to last race at Phoenix left Elliott 40 points behind Allison.  But a multi-car crash with about 75 laps to go took out Allison; leaving Elliott and Alan Kulwicki to battle for the Championship.  Elliott won the race; but Kulwicki edged out Elliott to take the Championship.  Kulwicki would lead 103 laps to Elliott's 102; that one lap swung the five bonus points from Elliott to Kulwicki giving him the Championship. Johnson stated later that his decision at Dover could have cost the team the Championship.  Losing out on the series crown was bad enough, but according to Johnson, trouble had erupted in the pits earlier that cold afternoon. "Four of the Budweiser people from Atlanta had come down there, thinking we were going to win the race," Johnson said.  "Tim was over there, getting them out of our pits when Bill didn't run that other lap (so he led the most laps).  It's what I fired him over ... not looking after his business."  Johnson and Brewer remain deeply divided to this day over that incident and won't even talk about it publicly.  This season wins with Elliott would be his last as a crew chief.  So for 1993 Brewer went to Bill Davis Racing to work with Bobby Labonte.  They only manager to post six Top 10 finishes.  1994 saw Brewer virtually without a job as he would head up the effort of Robby Gordon for one race and one race for Geoff Brabham.  1995 would see Michael Kranefuss hire Brewer for a full season to lead John Andretti.  They had a seasons best fourth place finish and only had five top 10 finishes.  Brewer was let go after 17 races with Andretti in 1996.  He would kick off the following season working with Sterling Marlin.  They would finish fifth in the Daytona 500; but a series of poor finishes afterwards led to Brewer being replaced Robert Larkins. Geoff Bodine would hire Brewer to lead his tea that he was owner / driver of for the rest of the year.  They posted one Top 5 and three Top 10's in ten races.  From 1999-2004 he was only on the pit box for a total of 32 races.  He led drivers like Jimmy Spencer, Johnny Sauter and Mike Wallace.  He only was able to get one Top 10 as it came with Wallace at Daytona in 2001.  His last start was at Bristol; working for car owner Larry McClure with Spencer at the wheel.  The team would finish 31st.  In 2005 Brewer did have three starts in the Xfinity Series.  His last came for driver Paul Wolfe (future crew chief for Brad Keselowski).  In his career he had 706 Cup Series starts and won 53 times.  Major wins include: Southern 500 (1978 and 1982,) and Cup Series Championship in 1978 and 1981.