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A sleepless night and determination laid the foundation for what the best new manager/crew head combination became three races in the NASCAR Cup season.
It started when Dave Rogers, competition director at 23xi Racing, woke up at 02:00 one night last year and thought about work.
“I tried to find who the next (cup) crew is out of the Truck series,” he said.
This appears to be a strange thought for an executive of a team that would win last year’s regular seed title of the cup and put a car in the championship race, but Rogers already knew the Xfinity Crew heads. He was not so familiar with those in the truck range.
In a preview of the championship, the 1-Mile Oval will host the top two national circles.
Rogers’ work led him to what he was looking for, but it cost a little.
“I’m sustained,” Rogers said. “It’s just my nature.”
And the result, the mating of Bubba Wallace and the crew chief Charles Denike, have already been worthwhile.
Consider:
- Wallace is sixth place – the highest among drivers with a new crew this year – in the standings;
- Wallace’s 94 points are more than 20 above his average through the first three races of a season since being at 23xi races;
- He won his Daytona -qualifying race;
- He qualified for the first time on the front row this weekend in a coupling course in Circuit of the Americas;
- He won a stage in Cota this weekend.
“I really believe,” said Denny Hamlin, co-owner of 23xi, of Denike, “he’s going to be a game changer for 23xi. He is special. All I can say is that I glad we found him. ‘
Bubba Wallace started fast
The message is clear: Wallace needs to go better early in the season.
“That’s the emphasis,” Hamlin said.
“No doubt about it. They had 10-to-12 races in his career, where he was a top five manager and team. … they haven’t compiled it for a full season yet. ‘
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Wallace made the playoffs only once in his cup career. He did this in 2023-the last place in the final season final.
He has never won a cup race in the usual season. Both his series victories came in the playoffs in years that he had not chased a championship.
So the points were the key to Wallace, but he couldn’t score enough for most years to extend his season. Often the problems can be detected to start slowly.
Wallace was an average of 4.6 fewer points per race in the first 12 rallies of a season compared to its total in the last 14 races in the ordinary season over the past three years.
If he matched his productivity from the back to the front last year, he would have secured a play -off.
“This sport is so difficult,” Wallace said. “If you are at the cup level, the victories do not come regularly, and you must be ready to hit if they do. That’s what we look forward to. “
An unexpected SMS
How can one crew heads study from another series?
“I just started watching tape and listening to sound,” Rogers said. “It was like,” Wow, this Christian Eckes man is coming together pretty well. What’s going on here? Looked up at the (Team) lattice, which is the head of crew. I learned that it was Charles Denike, and I just started investigating the progress the team made, and (it was like), “Wow, it’s interesting.”
“He took a team and really helped to build it up. If you think of 23xi, that’s what we do now. “
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What Rogers’ research showed was that Denike has been a crew head in the truck series since 2020. Denike started with GMS races and moved to Mcanally-Hilgemann Racing during the 2022 season.
He was paired with Eckes, a 22-year-old man in 2023. Eckes won four races that season and placed fifth in the points. They stayed together last year and the duo won four races, the championship in the regular season, and Eckes put third in points.
Rogers also saw that Denike was nine years in the US Army as an engineering officer, so “he is working on processes”. The more Rogers found out about Denike, the more he likes it.
“I just have to meet this guy,” Rogers said.
Therefore, he sent Denike one day to see about any interest in the meeting to discuss with a cup team.
The reception was unexpected.
“I didn’t think he was really interested in cup racing,” Rogers said.
The right person for the job
Although Mcanally-Hilgemann Racing had yet to win a truck race when Denike joined the team in 2022, he saw what it could become.
“My goal on the Truck Series crew head level has tried to be transformational with the program,” Denike said. ‘There was a lot of potential in the program, but it needed some important steps to move it forward.
“The last step was when Christian arrived and we could put it all together. Throughout 2023 and 2024, you try to showcase what you believe that you can do and continue to build on it. “
Denike’s focus was on it when he received a text message from a number he did not recognize.
“But then you see the first sentence or two,” Remember Denike, “and you say,” Maybe I should read it. ”
Daytona Beach, FL – February 13: Bubba Wallace (#23xi Racing McDonald s Toyota) celebrates after being on February 13, 2025 at Daytona International SpeedWay in Daytona Beach, FL. (Photo by Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Bubba Wallace (left of the trophy) and crew chief Charles Denike (right of the trophy) celebrate Wallace’s qualifying race victory in Daytona in February. (Photo: Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Denike did not want to leave his job and was not focused on the Cup series, but he agreed to talk to Rogers.
It wasn’t until Richmond in August that Rogers felt that things had changed with Denike’s interest – and it happened after a casual meeting.
Rogers and Denike happened to pass by after the Richmond truck race, which put Eckes on the pole and finished second. On their way from Pit Road to Mcanally-Hilgemann Hauler, they spoke.
“I was a little torn about what to do,” Denike said to practice the 23xi races.
Rogers recommended that Denike talk to Billy Scott, head of crew of Tyler Reddick at 23xi Racing, and Mike Wheeler, a former cup crew head who now oversees the operations at 23xi Racing.
“That would say, I would say, was the catalyst to continue,” Denike said.
He and Rogers continued to talk about the position.
“After I got deep into the conversation, I was convinced that he was the man for this,” Rogers said.
Challenges the main
A few weeks before the end of a season in which Wallace earns the best in the top five and top-10 finishes and the average finish position, 23xi Racing announced that Wallace would have a new crew head for 2025.
Bootie Barker has been Wallace’s crew of crew since the late 2021 season. They were together for 110 races. But Barker would move to a competition leadership position.
“I was on the fence with a change because I was so comfortable with bootie,” Wallace said earlier this season. “It’s hard to step away from something you are comfortable with and something that looks like it works pretty well. But I just took a step back and put all the confidence and faith in the team to make the necessary calls and the right call. “
The day of the collision at Bowman Gray Stadium last month sent Wallace Barker: “Hey man, I know it’s a tempover change, but I wouldn’t be where I am without all the help and all the guidance you gave, and I appreciate you.”
But with Wallace with Denike, someone has not worked Wallace before, presented challenges, especially for a manager who had to be better – immediately.
And to pull a crew head out of the truck range was not a general move in the cup. It worked for two-time Daytona 500 winner William Byron, who has been with former truck crew head Rudy Fugle since 2021, but they worked in the Truck series in 2016.
Rogers was not worried about the Wallace-denike chemistry.
“You look at the structure of how we work on 23xi,” Rogers said. ‘These are not three independent race teams. It is one racing team that works together and the system offers a learning curve (for a new crew). Many of the things a crew head has to learn in the cup series, he has two other partners who help him. So we think that we can shorten the learning curve for him.
‘(Plus) just his leadership, from the army … I think he’s going to be an extraordinary leader, and I think it’s going to meet Bubba just where he is now. Bubba, I think he’s going to take advantage of a strong leader. “
The results show that he already has it.
