In 2026, Ross Chastain can have a brand new crew chief atop the pit field for the No. 1 Chevrolet. This comes after 5 seasons with Phil Surgen, who led Chastain to every of his six wins as a NASCAR Cup Sequence driver.
The duo almost received the 2022 Cup Sequence championship collectively, ending that season as the primary runner-up in factors. Their remaining race win collectively was the 2025 Coca-Cola 600, prevailing in NASCAR’s longest race in a historic last-to-first driver after the group was up a lot of the evening earlier than getting ready a backup automobile as a result of a apply crash.
In a latest podcast look with host Jon Cain and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Surgen known as that victory the ‘most gratifying’ second from his time as a crew chief. He’s an alumni of WPI, graduating in 2004.
Ross Chastain, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet after 2025 Coca-Cola 600 win
Picture by: Logan Riely / Getty Pictures
However what’s the former crew chief as much as lately? Trackhouse stored him in-house after the change, and has since been appointed the skilled engineer to the position of Director of Expertise.
“We sort of set this in movement a few yr in the past,” stated Surgen when requested about his new position on the WPI podcast. “Personally, I had a want to journey much less. , as a crew chief, I used to be touring 38 weekends a yr and with a younger household, I simply felt the necessity to spend extra time at house with the household. So, now I’ve transitioned to director of expertise. On the day-to-day, I will be taking care of a bunch of efficiency engineers, which is sort of made up of race engineers, and a few software program engineer varieties. The purpose of the efficiency group is to assist the groups, the race engineers particularly, and assist elevate the efficiency of the corporate.
“Because the director of expertise, it will be just a little bit totally different not being on the monitor, and that’ll be one thing I will need to adapt to. But it surely exists in each factor of the corporate. Every thing we do right here could be very calculated, and really pointed at bettering the efficiency of the vehicles, bettering the efficiency of the drivers, and the pit crews. Making higher strategic calls, and being in a task the place I will help facilitate a few of the folks and the software improvement to make sooner race vehicles is what motivates me.”
AI and NASCAR
Phil Surgen, 2022 at COTA
Picture by: Icon Sportswire through Getty Pictures
Expertise is ever-advancing in NASCAR and the motorsports world on the whole, and it is one thing groups like Trackhouse are working laborious to remain forward of the curve on.
“Expertise in NASCAR is growing as quick as it’s on the planet, so any new applied sciences that exist on the planet, the NASCAR trade is on prime of, making an attempt to use and using instantly. Within the 20 years I have been doing this, issues have modified dramatically. And in plenty of instances, they do not look something like they used to right now.”
Amongst these developments in expertise is the continued development of Synthetic Intelligence and its many makes use of within the trendy world. That is not one thing Trackhouse is ignoring, both, and because the Director of Expertise, Surgen shall be on the forefront of carried out it.
“We have been fairly closely invested in databasing data to combine with AI brokers for, I do not know, a yr and a half now,” defined Surgen. “We now have a couple of programmers which might be solely devoted to that undertaking. We’re on the level the place we bought the infrastructure constructed, we bought a few of the UI, a few of the brokers constructed, and we’re beginning to have the ability to get helpful data, helpful optimization out of the techniques. Man, once I take into consideration the facility that’ll exist in these techniques in about, I do not know, a yr or two — It is gonna be unbelievable.”
“Proper now, we have laid the inspiration and the home is generally constructed, however we bought to trim the home out and put the shingles on the roof. It is gonna play a reasonably main position in NASCAR racing. I believe we’re possibly just a little forward of the curve in comparison with different groups, and we’re simply beginning to, to reap the advantage of that, however there’s much more accessible for us within the close to, close to future.”
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