Richard Petty
Motorsports announced Tuesday Drew Blickensderfer has been assigned as the crew
chief of the No. 9 Sprint Cup Series team and driver Marcos Ambrose. Blickensderfer replaces Mike Ford who has left the organization.
The
Mount Zion, Ill., native comes to RPM most recently from
Richard Childress Racing where he was the crew chief for Jeff Burton. Prior to
his time there, Blickensderfer spent the majority of his career with teams
associated with Ford Racing and Roush-Fenway Racing. He is a former Daytona 500
champion and has multiple Cup and Nationwide Series wins with drivers
Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth.
"Drew has a lot of
experience with Ford Racing and also how our current operation works," said team
owner Richard Petty. "His knowledge can immediately improve the performance of
the No. 9 race team. Marcos has proved to win races and compete in the top-five.
The addition of Drew will hopefully provide those results on a more consistent
basis."
Ambrose has one win,
eight top-10 and three top-five finishes this season. In addition, Ambrose has
won two poles this year.
"We have had success
this season and now we're just looking for more consistency as we prepare for
next season," said Ambrose. "Drew brings a strong resume to our team and can
help us find the results that we want each week. I'm looking forward to working
with him."
The points race may be tight in the Sprint Cup Series and the pressure may be building for Brad Keselowski, who will go two-to-toe with five-time champion Jimmie Johnson to earn his first series championship.
That doesn't appear to change Keselowski's approach heading into this weekend's race at Texas Motor Speedway.
Keselowski's thoughts going into this weekend:
“When you have a team
like we have on the Miller Lite Dodge, it’s easy to stay calm in the face of
adversity. We all have each other’s back. We like our role is in this Chase.
While we aren’t being overlooked by any means, there are many who think that we
are still too young of a team to seriously challenge the 48 team. We like it
that way," he said.
"In reality, we are a very good race team that is primed to take this
fight right down to the last lap at Homestead-Miami Speedway next month. I’m
very confident in our abilities at Texas this weekend. The mile-and-a-half
tracks have been really good to us this year. We had an awesome car in April at
Texas – probably the best car I’ve ever had there – but fuel issues kept us from
challenging for the win. This weekend, I’m expecting to challenge for the
win.”
