Winning Busch Clash Crew Chief is Happy

02/14/96

Reuters reported that Todd Parrot, crew chief for the winning driver at last weekend's Busch Clash is pretty happy about the success of the venture. The Robert Yates Team won the Clash in car No. 88 with Dale Jarrett behind the wheel. This season marks the first time Yates has run two full time cars, and the Clash was the No. 88 Ford's first race. It was Parrott's first win as a crew chief.

Todd Parrott is the son of Buddy Parrott who has long been a successful crew chief for NASCAR top stock cars. Todd remarked that his father had just recently told him that his first win as a crew chief was also with a No. 88 car in Daytona. The senior Parrott's win with No. 88 was in 1978 for DiGard Racing; Darrell Waltrip drove, and Robert Yates was part of the team.

Todd's only other trip down Victory Lane was in 1984 when he worked as a crewman for Richard Petty. It was Richard Petty's 200th win, Todd's dad was crew chief and Robert Yates had built the engine in Petty's Pontiac. Todd has been a NASCAR crewman for 17 years.

Dale Jarrett, winning driver of the No. 88 car praised Todd Parrott and his managing skills. Todd became crew chief when Ernie Irvan returned to driving for Yates after a near-fatal crash in Yates Racing's no. 28 car. After Irvan's crash, Jarrett had been driving No. 28 as Irvan's replacement. Irvan came back from the crash in No. 88 driving it three times last fall. This season Irvan took the No. 28 car back over, and Jarrett moved to No. 88, when Yates decided to run both cars. Not only are the driver, car and crew chief new, but almost the whole crew is new too.

Parrott is predicting good things for Dale Jarrett, the No. 28 car and the rest of the crew. He thinks they will be fighting to win the Daytona 500, and he may well be right. In qualifications last week Jarrett's teammate Ernie Irvan locked down the second starting position nudging out Jarrett by .036 seconds.

Paul Dever -- The Auto Channel