{"id":82432,"date":"2021-11-14T12:32:03","date_gmt":"2021-11-14T20:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=82432"},"modified":"2021-11-14T12:32:03","modified_gmt":"2021-11-14T20:32:03","slug":"tony-stewart-racing-inks-top-fuel-funny-car-crew-chiefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/tony-stewart-racing-inks-top-fuel-funny-car-crew-chiefs\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Stewart Racing Inks Top Fuel, Funny Car Crew Chiefs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The details of Tony Stewart\u2019s new, two-car NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series program are starting to come together. Stewart, the three-time NASCAR Cup Series titleholder, co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing in the Cup Series and 1997 INDYCAR champion, is making his first foray into straight-line racing with an estimable team. Fiancee Leah Pruett is driving his new Top Fuel entry and three-time Funny Car champion will wheel the Funny Car when Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) encamps next February 17-20 for the season-starting Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals presented by Protect the Harvest.<\/p>\n

\"Dickie<\/a>This team will be starting from scratch. Well, nearly. The complete Funny Car team and its equipment will move from Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) to TSR\u2019s workshops just a few blocks away in Brownsburg, IN Crew chief Dickie Venables is joining Hagan in making this career switch, as the Texan gathers his loyal crew and joins Stewart\u2019s new enterprise. First, of course, they were attempting to earn back-to-back Funny Car titles in NHRA\u2019s Auto Club Finals at Pomona. \u201cWe\u2019d like nothing more than to do well this weekend and be able to take the championship,\u201d Venables said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot to take care of, but I\u2019m looking forward to what\u2019s coming shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been doing this a lot of years,\u201d he confessed,\u201d and I honestly haven\u2019t looked forward to a program as much as I\u2019m looking forward to this one. Being able to bring all my guys over will help us get started on the right foot and really grow this program. That\u2019s what intrigues me about this opportunity most of all. I enjoy being able to build things from scratch. I enjoy being able to work with people and teach them to work in certain roles.\u201d In addition to Venables, who has worked two stints at DSR, co-crew chief Michael Knudsen and car chief Alex Conaway will continue with Venables at TSR.<\/p>\n

This two-car team will be starting from scratch with regard to equipment. At this time they don\u2019t have much, other than the location of their Brownsburg workshops. As the 2021season draws to a close, they have no chassis, no bodies, no haulers to accommodate the two cars, so this will be an opportunity for the team to make choices in their equipment. It is expected that both the Top Fuel and Funny Car rolling equipment will contain much from Don Schumacher Manufacturing, as both teams are familiar with DSM products and their manufacturing.<\/p>\n

\"Neal<\/a>Leah Pruett will see a familiar face in her crew chief\u2019s quarters, as Neal Strausbaugh is taking on those duties after working with Pruett\u2019s team for several years at DSR, as assistant crew chief with Todd Okuhara, who is remaining at DSR to lead Tony Schumacher\u2019s return to Top Fuel competition. In fact, Strausbaugh and Venables have a combined 25 years experience with DSR and its successes. Strausbaugh will have co-crew chief Mike Domagala and car chief Ryan McGilvry by his side, but will have to build a new crew. Stewart confirmed his Top Fuel team will be \u201cstarting from scratch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strausbaugh\u2019s history in NHRA includes stints as assistant or co-crew chief in both nitro categories. He initially worked with Cory McClenathan in Top Fuel (2008), Tony Schumacher (2009-2016), Jack Beckman\u2019s Funny Car in 2017-2018 and with Pruett from 2019 to the present time. \u201cBeing part of TSR is a dream situation,\u201d said Hillsboro, IL native Strausbaugh. \u201cThere are a lot of great people who are a part of this team and it starts at the top with Tony. It\u2019s built by racers, for racers and we have all the resources we need to be successful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Tony Stewart, who started his long and successful career in open-wheel competition – and continues to race on both USAC and other open-wheel sanctions – knows the value of great personnel. \u201cJoe Gibbs taught me, a long time ago, that you win with people, and Neal and Dickie are the right guys to help build this team and get it ready for next year. For the past year-and-a-half, I\u2019ve gotten to know Neal and Dickie and have seen, first-hand, how they work and interact with everyone on the crew. Both have a strong work ethic and know what they\u2019re doing,\u201d Stewart continued, \u201cbut they also know each other and their drivers really well. That kind of familiarity and continuity is massively important, as we build this program from the ground up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tony Stewart Racing has signed Neal Strausbaugh and Dickie Venables to the team as crew chiefs.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":66227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3470,5029,3399],"tags":[8731,3920,38,3517,1883,8730],"class_list":["post-82432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","category-nhra","tag-crew-chiefs","tag-dickie-venables","tag-funny-car","tag-neal-strausbaugh","tag-tony-stewart-racing","tag-top-nitro"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Tony-Stewart-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-lry","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82432"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82437,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82432\/revisions\/82437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}