{"id":22981,"date":"2019-12-09T15:56:16","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T01:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/?p=22981"},"modified":"2019-12-09T20:56:18","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T01:56:18","slug":"cole-pearn-makes-surprise-exit-from-nascar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/2019\/12\/09\/cole-pearn-makes-surprise-exit-from-nascar\/","title":{"rendered":"Cole Pearn makes surprise exit from NASCAR"},"content":{"rendered":"

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HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. \u2013 Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) announced Monday that crew chief Cole Pearn has decided to leave the organization to pursue opportunities outside of the sport.<\/p>\n

Pearn, who joined JGR following the 2018 season, led Martin Truex Jr. and the No. 19 team to a runner-up finish in the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series standings following a series-best seven wins, 15 top-five finishes and 24 top-10s. During the 2019 Playoffs alone, the Pearn-led No. 19 team claimed three wins, a pair of runner-up finishes and only finished outside the top seven once in 10 races.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was an incredibly difficult decision,\u201d Pearn said. \u201cAt the end of the day, I really want to spend time with my family and actually see my kids grow up. Being on the road, you are away from home so much and miss a lot of time with your family. I don\u2019t want to miss that time anymore. I want to be there for all the things that my kids are going to experience while they are still young. I love racing and there isn\u2019t a better place to be than Joe Gibbs Racing, but I don\u2019t want to look back in 20 years and think about everything I missed with my wife and kids while I was gone. They are what is most important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/span>2020 NASCAR schedule<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the past five seasons, Pearn and Truex have enjoyed one of the most successful stretches in NASCAR history where they won the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series championship and qualified for the Championship 4 on four different occasions. The duo\u2019s 23 wins since the start of 2016 are the best among all driver-crew chief combos over that time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot say enough good things about Cole and what he has meant for my career,\u201d Truex said. \u201cI appreciate his hard work and dedication to our race team over the past six years going back to when he was my engineer at Furniture Row. Our friendship is what matters most to me and I\u2019m happy that he\u2019s doing what\u2019s best for him and his family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crew chief for the No. 19 Toyota Camry will be announced at a later date.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. \u2013 Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) announced Monday that crew chief Cole Pearn has decided to leave the organization to pursue opportunities outside of the sport. Pearn, who joined JGR following the 2018 season, led Martin Truex Jr. and the No. 19 team to a runner-up finish in the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series standings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,786,788],"tags":[1173,789,319,408,708],"coauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22981","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cup-series","8":"category-nascar-topstory","9":"category-news","10":"tag-cole-pearn","11":"tag-front","12":"tag-joe-gibbs-racing","13":"tag-martin-truex-jr","14":"tag-nascar"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22981"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=22981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}