Fantasy NASCAR Racing

again in 2005.  That season, Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) was undergoing an expansion from a two-car team with the #18 and #20 cars to a third team with the #11 car with Jason Leffler.  It was looking for race engineers, where he landed with the #20 car driven by former JGR driver Tony Stewart and crew chief Greg Zipadelli.  After serving as race engineer with Zipadelli and Stewart from 2005 to 2008 – a stint that included 18 wins and a Cup championship in 2005, Stewart left the team after the 2008 season to become a team owner at Stewart-Haas Racing.  This gave Stevens the opportunity to work with rookie driver Joey Logano as his team engineer, with Zipadelli remaining as crew chief for the 2009 and 2010 seasons.  Another big break would come for Stevens at the end of the 2010 season as the JGR Xfinity Series shop underwent an expansion from two to three cars.  Stevens was named crew chief in January 2011 for JGR’s new #20 Xfinity team, for which Logano was the primary driver with a few others taking turns behind the wheel throughout like Denny Hamlin, Michael McDowell and others.  While Stevens and Logano got off to a slow start in 2011, recording just one win, they reeled off nine wins the following year in 2012.  But change was on the horizon at JGR once again the following year.  Matt Kenseth joined in 2013 to drive the #20 Toyota while Logano departed to the #22 team at Penske Racing, setting up another crew chief change for the JGR Xfinity program.  Busch had raced for his own Kyle Busch Motorsports team in a select number of Xfinity races in 2012 but decided to move his #54 ride back to JGR starting in 2013.  With the move, JGR decided to pair Stevens with Busch.  It paid dividends right away as the pair won 12 times in 2013.  They added seven additional wins the following season.  In 2015 Stevens was paired with Busch in the Cup series.  Busch would get injured in the season opening Xfinity race at Daytona and miss the seasons first nine Cup races.  When able to return to competition, Busch came back with a vengeance.  They won five times in the final 25 races; including the Brickyard 400;  When he won the season ending race at Homestead, Busch and Stevens would claim their first Cup Championship.  The pair produced four more wins in 2016 and 17 Top 5’s.  They once again made it to the final race at Homestead to compete for the Championship; but a late race gamble by Chad Knaus saw Jimmie Johnson win the race and Busch finished third in the points.  They continued their great performances in 2017 while on the strength of five wins; Busch again found himself in the hunt for the Championship at Homestead.  Martin Truex proved to strong for Busch as Truex would win the race beating Busch by 6/10 of a second, to win the race and the Championship.  Stevens remained with Kyle Busch for the 2018 season. The duo were part of "the big three" race teams who won 20 of the seasons 36 events. Busch won eight times in 2018; including the Coke 600 in May. They easily made it through each round of the play offs, but Busch would only finish fourth at Homestead in the hunt for the Championship.  In 2019, Stevens lead a strong charge out of the gate as Busch showed much success early.  They finished second in the Daytona, and followed by a sixth at Atlanta and a third at Las Vegas. Then they had two wins at Phoenix and Fontana.  Three weeks later they were in victory lane again at Bristol.  In all they kicked off the season with a worst finish of tenth in the seasons first 11 races. They won again at Phoenix in the season's 14th race; but then the well run dry.  They would struggle the rest of the season.  They didn't run poorly; but they wasn't up front contending for the win.  If fact; they only managed one more win; and only had nine Top 5 and 14 Top 10 finishes the rest of the season.  That's a respectable season for most guys; but not very "Kyle Busch" like.  He did have enough good finishes to with the regular season points race and grabbed 15 bonus points to carry into the Chase.  They made the Chase; and thanks to his bonus points he squeaked through the first round of the Chase playoffs after a 37th place finish on the Roval at Charlotte.  Things improved the next two rounds as the team seemed to pick up their game and be more competitive.  Stevens led Busch to the Championship race at Miami.  Busch ran well; but thanks to a pit crew mistake by Martin Truex Busch got the lead. Truex lost a lap and spent much of the latter part of the race trying to recover the lap he lost.  Truex got back on the lead lap and was, in fact leading with 55 laps to go.  But Stevens had dialed in a set up for a long run into Busch's car and as the race ran green the final 100 laps; Busch pulled away to claim the win and the Championship.  Stevens and Busch struggled all of 2020.  The season started with a blown motor at Daytona; but they recovered with a second place finish at Fontana and a third at Phoenix.  Then the coronavirus hit and NASCAR shut down for two months. When they resumed racing; gone was practice and qualifying.  Races were cut down to one days shows to limit contact between team members and help limit the spread of the virus.  Teams rolled in; went through pre-race tech; cars went to the grid; and they raced.  It soon became obvious that this team got better the more track time they got pre-race.  Busch had been on of the best drivers for the last several years; and in practice Stevens had been able to wave his magic wand and keep finding speed in the car.  But with the new process; they seemed to be at a disadvantage.  They would have a bad run, then a couple good runs; then another bad run.  The season went on all year like that.  Busch managed to point his way into the Chase; but was eliminated after round two.  Busch was determined to get a win in 2020.  He had a win in every season since he started racing at the Cup level and had wins 16 seasons in a row.  He has high hopes of reaching Richard Pettys record of 18 straight seasons.  He finally got his 2020 win just three races from the season conclusion.  Gibbs is going to shuffle the crew chief line up in 2021 and moved Stevens to work with Christopher Bell.  He moved Ben Beshore up from the Xfinity Series where he worked with Harrison Burton.  Stevens has been paired with Busch since 2015 and in that span the duo has won 2 Cup series Championships along with 28 Cup wins.  In 2021 Bell won at the Daytona Road Course.  He also finished second at Road America and Loudon NH.  For the season he had seven Top 5 and 16 Top 10’s.  In the Chase, Bell almost won at the Roval at Charlotte; which would have advanced him to round three of the Chase.  Stevens was again paired with Bell in 2022.  They got of to a slow start with a crash at Daytona and a blown motor at Fontana.  After a top ten at Las Vegas; they once again had two finishes of 23rd or worse.  Bell finished third at COTA and followed that with a sixth at Richmond.  Starting at Bristol they had six out of seven top ten finishes, and at Loudon broke through and got a win that put them into the Chase.  When the Chase started Bell and Steven were ready.  They had no finish worse than fifth in the first round.  Problems at Texas and Talladega left them in a must-win situation at the Roval.  They pulled off the win to advance.  Bell was caught up in the incident when Bubba Wallace intentionally wrecked Kyle Larson; leaving Bell 34th.  Going into Martinsville, he was again in a must-win situation to advance to the Championship four.  Again, they pulled off the win to have a shot to win the title.  Bell ran well at Phoenix, but no one had anything for Joey Logano, who claimed the Championship.  Bell finished in tenth in the race; third in series points. The duo was together again in 2023, but this season proved to be much like 2022.  Their first win came at Bristol on the dirt, and locked them into the Chase.  In the Chase they had a bad run at Darlington in the Round of 16, but managed to advance when they added a eighth and third the next two weeks.  Good runs in the Round of 12 saw them advance again, and when they won at Homestead, it locked them into the Championship race for the Chase.  At Phoenix, Bell ran good the first stage, but on lap 110 a brake rotor exploded and went through his tire; causing him to crash hard.  He was out and finished last.  For the year the pair had two wins, ten top five and 19 top ten finishes.  For his career, Stevens has led his drivers in 317 Cup starts.  They have 34 wins and two championships.  From 2011-2015 he spent time in the Xfinity series seeing his drivers make 124 starts. He has 31 wins and 73 top fives.