SHR: Danica Patrick and Kurt Busch team swaps 'right thing' for long-term growth

   Many fans of NASCAR driver Danica Patrick were caught off guard by Stewart-Haas Racing's decision this week to swap the road crews and crew chiefs on Patrick and Kurt Busch's teams, especially since Patrick seemed to be making some progress this season. 

   Greg Zipadelli, SHR's competitor director,was asked Friday why the organization would want to upset an arrangement that seemed to be making progress. Here is his response:

   "I think long term it’s the right thing. There might be a step backwards while they get to learn each other and they grow, but long term, a full year, two years from now I think their personalities between Daniel (Knost) and Danica will work together much better. I think at the same time the same thing will happen on the No. 41 car. That is a team that we have to get going immediately. There isn’t a lot of time for growth," Zipadelli said.

   "We know Kurt is kind of in the prime of his career. We know that he can go out and win races and every race track we go to. We have got to give him that and we have to give Danica the ability to continue to grow and build a relationship with somebody, because she plans on being here a while. We just look at that and it’s kind of the best of both worlds right now. We have both people in house.  One thing we don’t like to do is bring people in from the outside and try them. We like to try to promote and give the people at Stewart-Haas the opportunity. That is kind of why we elected to do what we did.”