In 2020, Michael Annett drove the No. 1 Pilot Flying J Chevrolet to a personal-best 22 top-10 finishes in the No. 1 Pilot Flying J Chevrolet, made the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs and finished ninth in series points.
The success the 34-year-old Iowan had during a pandemic-plagued season was built on the strength of a stellar 2019 campaign which saw him earn his first NXS victory in the season opener at Daytona International Speedway, which punched his ticket to the playoffs immediately.
Entering 2021, there are a few changes to the team, most notably at crew chief.
Mike Bumgarner, a 20-plus year veteran of the sport and for the past several years the man in charge of car production for JR Motorsports, will be atop the pit box for Annett this season, taking over for Travis Mack.
The 45-year-old Bumgarner transitions from his spot as director of race operations back to crew chief, which was where he began his career with the team in 2013. The Huntersville, N.C. native has 64 starts to his name in the series, the most recent of which came in 2018 when Bumgarner guided team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. to a fourth-place finish at Richmond Raceway. In 2016, he filled in as crew chief for Elliott Sadler in the first championship race of the playoff era at Homestead-Miami Speedway. In that race, Bumgarner had Sadler in position to win it all on the final restart.
It will be a change from what he’s done in the recent past, but Bumgarner is looking forward to it.
“It’s a change,” he said. “I went back and forth on whether I wanted to travel, but I missed the racing side of it. If you’re a racer, once you have that in your blood, you miss going to Victory Lane, you miss everything about except maybe rain delays.”
Bumgarner is like a lot of people bitten by the racing bug, and it’s a team thing at the heart of it.
“It’s the camaraderie of all the guys, riding the planes, riding in the cars, everything that goes along with it,” he said. “I’ve always said about racing, it’s not necessarily the racing side of it, it’s all the people I’ve been able to meet along the way. That goes with a lot of the officials and guys on other teams. That’s been one of the greatest things, meeting the people over more than 20 years.”
In taking over for Annett and the No. 1 team, Bumgarner brings a ton of experience on the mechanical side as well as a knack for strategy, which he admits will have be honed on the job beginning at Daytona.
Part of that is taking what Annett and Mack built over the past two seasons and moving it forward, he said.
“I feel pretty confident,” Bumgarner said. “Michael has done a lot of work to put himself in a very good position. Obviously performance on the track has showed over the last eight, 10, 12 months and even into 2019. I’m just trying to build on everything this No. 1 team has had going on. I’m really hoping to be able to win some races. That’s definitely our goal, and our Xfinity Series is going to be very tough with a long list of drivers. Points are going to be at a premium every week and that group of cars from sixth to 14th in points is going to be a huge battle all year as the races go on. It’s going to be a year unlike others we’ve had, in that there have been things in years past that are guaranteed; this year, they’re not going to be guaranteed. Points are going to be at a premium every week, so we need positive finishes and to cut down on any DNFs or failures on our side.”
Part of the strategy Annett employed in 2020 was to maximize each weekend, whatever the circumstances. Bumgarner is fully on board with that.
“I think Travis and I have the same opinion on that,” he said. “Based on the history of this team, the way the points fall, it’s about getting the most out of every weekend, even when the car is not right. Is there an opportunity to do something different? They were able to make that work a few times last year, and if we find ourselves in the same position, we plan on doing the same thing. That’s what maximizing the weekend is. If you’re a 10th-, 11th- , 12th-place car, how do you make that a sixth- or seventh-place finish or even better?”
There’s been very little turnover in the team’s roster, another advantage Bumgarner expects to exploit. Car chief Jonathan Davis returns, as do engineers Kevin Walter and Eric Long. Mechanic Richie Snyder is back, and Will Hastings takes over at the other mechanic spot. Jeff Miles, JRM’s transportation chief, is the truck driver and Jason Jarrett returns as spotter.
“I’m fortunate that there’s not a lot of turnover,” Bumgarner said. “I told them that I was going to ask a lot of questions and that I’m only as good as the people around me. I value their opinions, and I want them to be as big a part of the team as I am, as Michael is.
“They’ve been going to the track the past couple of years with Michael, and they understand when he says this or that. I can go on the computer, but they’ll remember something he said from a particular race, from practice, what he likes or doesn’t. I value everything they have to say. It’s a good group of guys, with a lot of experience.”
Davis, Walter and Long are key to Bumgarner getting acclimated to being at the track every week.
“It’s going to take me a while to get my head wrapped around some of this stuff, even the rules,” he said. “You have to be able to make quick decisions. I rely on Kevin for that, and Eric, and our shock manager, Steve Rasmussen. Being at the race track is going to open my eyes up to more things even than the guys are doing here. I’ve been focused for so long on just building cars, finding components and car schedules and things like that. Now it’s the racing side of it. When our crew chiefs come back and start talking about certain things, it opens my eyes to some of the things they’re seeing. Hopefully, that translates to the cars we’re sending in the following weeks.”
As for his driver, Bumgarner respects what Annett brings to the operation.
“Michael knows where to be and where not to be,” he said. “He’s not going to put himself in a bad position. If you look at the DNFs or wrecks he’s had in the past, it’s the result of another driver being in a bad place. He takes care of his equipment, he knows how to pace himself and be there at the end. It takes a lot of discipline to do that.”
With no major rule changes to adjust to and having an experienced group that is used to working together, Bumgarner’s return as a full-time crew chief will be aided by one simple fact: the first race will take place at the same track where the team broke through for its first victory.
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
