{"id":23032,"date":"2019-12-19T17:46:54","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T22:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/?p=23032"},"modified":"2019-12-19T17:46:54","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T22:46:54","slug":"james-small-takes-over-as-crew-chief-for-truex-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/2019\/12\/19\/james-small-takes-over-as-crew-chief-for-truex-jr\/","title":{"rendered":"James Small takes over as crew chief for Truex Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-23033\" src=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/files\/2019\/12\/jamessmall.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"392\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/files\/2019\/12\/jamessmall.jpg 720w, https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/files\/2019\/12\/jamessmall-300x163.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/files\/2019\/12\/jamessmall-594x323.jpg 594w, https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/files\/2019\/12\/jamessmall-696x379.jpg 696w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/>A new year brings a new crew chief for Martin Truex and the No. 19 Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing.<\/p>\n<p>James Small steps into the role previously occupied by Cole Pearn.<\/p>\n<p>Pearn made the surprising announcement that he was stepping away from NASCAR recently which has paved the way for the former lead engineer to assume his role.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is an incredible opportunity,\u201d Small said. \u201cHaving the confidence of Coach, Martin and everyone at JGR means a lot to me. I moved to the United States six years ago to work in NASCAR and I wanted to work my way up to become a crew chief. I\u2019m ready for this and I am excited about working with Martin and the foundation we have in place on the 19 team with the group of guys we have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is Small&#8217;s first time serving as a crew chief but Truex Jr. is not concerned.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know James well and feel very comfortable with him,\u201d Truex said. \u201cI feel like we approach racing very similar. He and Cole (Pearn) have a lot of similarities. It\u2019s a natural fit and I\u2019m really excited about it. I think he\u2019ll do a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Taking over Small&#8217;s old role will be Jeff Curtis. He previously was a part of Furniture Row Racing during Truex&#8217;s championship winning season. Blake Harris will remain as the car chief of the No. 19 car.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new year brings a new crew chief for Martin Truex and the No. 19 Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing. James Small steps into the role previously occupied by Cole Pearn. Pearn made the surprising announcement that he was stepping away from NASCAR recently which has paved the way for the former lead engineer to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,786,788],"tags":[789,1179,319,708],"coauthors":[675],"class_list":{"0":"post-23032","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-front","11":"tag-james-small","12":"tag-joe-gibbs-racing","13":"tag-nascar"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23032","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=23032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23032"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=23032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}