Tim Brewer Reassigned at the No 41 Team

Brewer out as crew chief of Hedrick team By Shawn A. Akers

STATESVILLE, N.C. (Feb. 16, 1999) Veteran crew chief Tim Brewer has been "reassigned" as a consultant for Larry Hedrick's No. 41 Kodiak Chevrolet team, and team manager Mike Hill will take over as interim crew chief while a replacement is sought, Hedrick said Tuesday afternoon.

The decision was made Monday, following a week in which the No. 41 Monte Carlo and driver David Green failed to make it into the field for last Sunday's Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.

"We've revamped some of the roles of the team, and Tim's was one of them," Hedrick said. "Mike will be the acting crew chief, but we don't want to have him in that position for too long. We're currently looking for another crew chief, but we're not going to be in a big hurry to hire one if we can't find one that we want working for our team.

"Mike (Hill) is a tremendous crew chief in his own right, and if we didn't have someone as qualified as him around, we'd probably be in a panic right now. We're going to take our time and look for a young, aggressive, hard-working, want-to-win type of lion. Maybe that person is a number two guy to somebody, or maybe that person will come from another series."

Hedrick said he took not making the field for the Daytona 500 very hard, and he definitely doesn't want to make that a habit in 1999.

"It's not as bad as losing a parent or a relative or anything like that, but I can't think of many things that would make me feel any lower than what happened last week," Hedrick said. "It really hurts. We acknowledge that we're not as competitive as we should be at tracks like Daytona and Talladega, but we're working hard on trying to improve that as we speak."

On the bright side, Hedrick's NASCAR Busch Series Grand National Division team will make its debut this weekend when it attempts to qualify for the ALLTEL 200 at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham. Green will be behind the wheel of that No. 41 Chevrolet sponsored by AFG Industries.

"If there's a bright lining in all of this, it's coming back home and going to Rockingham, where we expect to be very competitive in both the Busch race and the Winston Cup event," Hedrick said. "The main thing we've got to do, I guess, is put the disappointment of Daytona behind us and just try to learn from it. We have to focus on Rockingham now, and that's what's ahead for us."

Source: NASCAR Online