Fantasy NASCAR Racing

It would again come at Watkins Glen and this time he would get the win.  Nemechek ran 14 races and would also win one race: (Talladega). 2001 was much like the 2000 season.  Fellows once again won at Watkins Glen while Nemechek won on two occasions.  The following season Pattie worked with Nemechek and split time between the Xfinity Series and the Cup Series.  They ran 14 races in the Xfinity series and visited victory circle once.  In the Cup series Nemechek ran 15 times and had a best finish of second on two occasions.  In 2003, Pattie started working for NEMCO Motorsports as the team manager.  In 2005, Chip Ganassi Racing recruited Pattie as the crew chief for the Reed Sorenson at the Xfinity Series.  Sorenson won twice that year and had 11 Top 5 finishes.  They finished fourth in points.  2006 the pair remained together but had a severe drop off in performance as they only had five Top 5 finishes.  In 2007, Ganassi had Pattie work with eight different drivers, seeing Reed Sorenson drive the most (11 races).  They only had two Top 10 finishes.  Scott Pruett would post one Top 5 finish that year while David Stremme would finish in the Top 5 twice.  That would be the highlights for the season.  In May 2008, he started working as Juan Montoya's crew chief.  He led Montoya for four seasons and during that span posted one win; and 16 Top 5 finishes.  In December 2011, he was named as the crew chief for Clint Bowyer at Michael Waltrip Racing; and remained there through 2015.  2012 saw Bowyer win on three occasions post 10 Top 5’s; 23 Top 10’s and finish second in the points chase.  His third win of the season would come at Charlotte on October 13th.  Bowyer would not win again until March 26, 2018.  Pattie and Bowyer remained together through the middle of the 2015 season, before going to work for owner Bob Jenkins and driver David Ragan.  In 2016, Pattie was hired by Jack Roush to work with Greg Biffle; the pair posted only one Top 5 finish; and Biffle was released.  He was replaced by Ricky Stenhouse.  The duo excelled at the restrictor plate tracks of Daytona and Talladega; winning a race at both tracks.  2018 was the third season he had been employed as a crew chief by Roush Fenway Racing. This was the second year to lead driver Ricky Stenhouse. Although they got two wins in 2017, the rest of the season was a disappointment.  2018 saw a worse season as they wasn't able to get any wins; and had one less top five and four less top tens than the previous year. They did not make the play offs and finished 18th in points.  If 2018 was a step backwards for the combo of Brian Pattie and Ricky Stenhouse; 2019 was just as bad if not worse.  For the entire season Stenhouse had just one Top 5 finish and three top 10's.  He missed making the Chase and finished 23rd in points.  Jack Roush had seen enough and announced that at seasons end Stenhouse would be released and was free to look for other diving opportunities.  Chris Buescher was hired by Roush to fill Stenhouse's seat in 2020.  Stenhouse was hired by JTG Daugherty to drive the #47 car and Pattie was also hired to be his crew chief.  The results wasn't much better at JTG than they were with Roush.  Stenhouse only managed three Top 5 and four Top 10 finishes and finished 24th in the points.  Pattie and Stenhouse had a worse season in 2021 than in 2020.  He only posted one Top 5 finish and two Top 10’s.  The two will be back in 2022, with hopes that the NextGen car will help level the field somewhat and they can be more competitive.  But, things looked much like they did in 2021.  The small, single-car team was still at a disadvantage against the larger teams; even though the NextGen car leveled the playing field somewhat.  They started out in a crash at Daytona; then had a good finish at Fontana coming home tenth.  The next eight races they only had a best finish of 21st.  When they rolled into Dover, Pattie called a great race, and Stenhouse had a great run as they come home in second place.  It was their only top five run of the year.  After that they finished eighth at Darlington and Kansas; and added a seventh at Charlotte in the 600.  That would be the last top ten run for them on the year. Without a win; and so many poor runs; they did not qualify to race for the championship.  They finished outside the top 20 is season points.  Pattie would move to Kyle Busch Motorsports to lead the efforts of the #15 with starts split between Jack Wood and Kyle Busch.  Mike Kelley will be called upon to see if he can lead Stenhouse to better results.  Kyle Busch made five starts in the trucks in 2023.  He won twice, Las Vegas and Pocono.  The duo also had two second place finishes, and a worst run of seventh.  Cup regular William Byron also made three starts.  They had finished of third, fourth and eleventh.  Jack Wood made the majority of starts in the truck (13).  The youngster only had two top ten finishes, with the seven finishes inside the top 20.  Matt Mills also made two starts.  Busch sold Kyle Busch Motorsports to Spire Motorsports at the end of 2023.  Busch will remain on as an advisor for 2024; and make five starts.  Plans are to again have Pattie lead the team with the same drivers.