Jeff Burton to blame for Busch-Edwards? Stewart hires Hokie

Tony Stewart announced that Virginia Tech graduate Darian Grubb will be his crew chief next season. Grubb is the lead engineer for the teams of Casey Mears and Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Hendrick Motorsports. He had spent one season as Mears' crew chief and made his crew chief debut in 2006 at the Daytona 500 when Chad Knaus was suspended for the first of four races. Jimmie Johnson won that race with Grubb as crew chief.

The move is a good one for Stewart Haas Racing. Grubb has been with Hendrick the past six years. Hendrick and Stewart Haas are aligned through engine and chassis work and this will only keep those close ties close (Grubb has served as a technical liaison with Haas for more than a year). This could be good for Hendrick Motorsports. The key is to get a satellite organization as strong as possible to help your program. That could be the next move for big teams. Think about it. There's strength in numbers (or you're only as strong as your weakest link).

Hendrick Motorsports is aligned with Haas CNC but Haas has done nothing. Joe Gibbs Racing is aligned with Hall of Fame Racing and that team isn't in the top 35 in car owner points. Roush Fenway Racing is with Yates Racing, which has had modest success, placing its two cars 24th and 26th in car owner points. You really can't consider DEI a satellite team to RCR but more a partner. That might be the best partnership but performace is average for DEI. It will be worth watching to see how Stewart Haas performs and how that might help Hendrick.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Jeff Burton was asked if he's to blame for the Carl Edwards-Kyle Busch feud. The point being that in the past  it was OK to bump people out of the way to win races but at the 2007 spring race at Bristol (the first COT event), Jeff Burton DIDN'T bump Kyle Busch out of the way and finsihed second to Busch. So did Burton's kindness make it cool to be nice again and did Busch and Edwards break that code?

"My mother would be so proud,'' Burton said to laughter. "Listen, the rules I live by is that I give the other driver. He makes the rules. If you listen to Car's explanation of what happened at Bristol is that Kyle had made the rules and that Carl was doing, under that situation. If I was in Carl's situation and Kyle had made the rules the previous race then I would have done the same thing Carl did. But in my situation at Bristol, Kyle had never done that. Kyle had always raced me, and to this point, even at Waktins Glen, we had a disagreement on the race track in the Nationwide race but I went back and made it even. It's over. Kyle and I sat down and talked about it and now the slate's clean. My view of Bristol was that Carl believes that Kyle made the rule and Carl says hey Kyle knocked me out of the way somewhere so that's what I was doing to him. So now Carl has made the rule for Kyle. The snowball gets bigger.''

COMMENTS ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here; comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its websites. Users must follow agreed-upon rules: Be civil, be clean, be on topic; don't attack private individuals, other users or classes of people. Read the full rules here.
- Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the report violation link below it.