{"id":84878,"date":"2022-04-19T16:36:22","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T23:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=84878"},"modified":"2022-04-19T16:36:22","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T23:36:22","slug":"paul-lees-funny-car-has-new-co-crew-chiefs-and-new-look","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/paul-lees-funny-car-has-new-co-crew-chiefs-and-new-look\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Lee’s Funny Car has New Co-Crew Chiefs and New Look"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Dustin Heim and Jason Bunker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stringing together respectable results year after year isn\u2019t easy. When success doesn\u2019t come, it\u2019s customary for drivers to change personnel, thinking that\u2019s the answer. Sometimes it works; other times it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

When Paul Lee, who drives a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car in the NHRA\u2019s Camping World Drag Racing Series, started having inconsistent results, he had to make some changes. Lee, who finished the 2021 season in good shape thanks to a new race car, decided to make personnel changes. It\u2019s standard operating procedure to try a new face, a new idea or even new parts when things aren\u2019t working out.<\/p>\n

Lee had been working with Jim Oberhofer since rejoining NHRA after suffering a \u201cwidow-maker\u201d heart attack that he likely should never have survived. He took off the 2017 season to recover but had to return to competition once he\u2019d been cleared by his physicians, who were pretty well shocked by the rapidity and fulness of his recovery. They obviously don\u2019t know racers. Before his heart attack, Lee\u2019s racing efforts had been part of Kalitta Motorsports, so the hiring of Oberhofer, who\u2019d been with that team for nearly his entire working life, was a natural.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Paul Lee Pomona burnout<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They\u2019d had some success since rejoining the tour in 2019, but the Countdown to the Championship was elusive after taking ninth in 2020 and the owner of McLeod Racing and FTI Performance wanted more. Failing to make the show in the first race of 2022 was the catalyst for Lee\u2019s change of the guard.<\/p>\n

Initially he hired Dustin Heim, 38, who had been assistant crew chief to Rahn Tobler in his final years working with Don Schumacher Racing and [now] 2021 Funny Car champion Ron Capps, who earned his first title in 2016 with Tobler and the late Eric \u201cHop Sing\u201d Lane. When Tobler \u201cretired\u201d before the start of the 2021 season, that left Heim in the nether reaches before Lee picked up the former crew man for Doug Herbert, Cruz Pedregon and Jack Beckman. Heim initially joined Lee\u2019s team as assistant to Oberhofer; after Pomona, that changed.<\/p>\n

Now Heim will be joined by co-crew chief Jason Bunker at Lee\u2019s Brownsburg, IN race shops. Like so many in the business, Bunker has been involved in drag racing since his teenage years, working in Pro Modified, Nostalgia Funny Car, Nitro Funny Car and Top Fuel Dragster. Lee believes the combination of Heim and Bunker have the passion and talent necessary to take Paul Lee Racing to the top and give the driver the wins he covets.<\/p>\n

Bunker will assist Heim at the controls of the team and with the tune-up for the car. \u201cI\u2019m certainly ready for a fresh start to the 2022 NHRA season,\u201d Lee said prior to this weekend\u2019s final race in Houston, the 35th annual NHRA SpringNationals. \u201cHaving Jason join Dustin as co-crew chiefs and replacing some key crew members with those two in charge, will give our team a new look and exciting new future. I\u2019m looking forward to Houston and giving our loyal fans and marketing partners something to cheer for. We plan to go race, and race hard. I can\u2019t wait to see our new team in action,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Because he\u2019s changed just about everything else, including the 2021-built chassis that was constructed by Tobler, along with his crew\u2019s management, Paul Lee felt it was appropriate to also put together a new scheme for his Charger\u2019s body. \u201cWe\u2019re not only starting fresh as a team, but starting fresh with an exciting new wrap, scheme and new starting line shirts as well,\u201d the owner\/driver stated. \u201cWe will include a \u2018Phoenix\u2019 on the hood of the car that represents a \u2018new beginning rising from the ashes with renewed youth\u2019 for our team. I can\u2019t wait for everyone in Houston to see the new car!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stringing together respectable results year after year isn\u2019t easy. When success doesn\u2019t come, it\u2019s customary for drivers to change personnel, thinking that\u2019s the answer. Sometimes it works; other times it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":84881,"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","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,3470,22],"tags":[5614,2,38,2809,41,4752,8998,1632],"class_list":["post-84878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-column","category-news","category-event-coverage","tag-anne-proffit","tag-drag-racing","tag-funny-car","tag-mcleod","tag-news","tag-paul-lee","tag-paul-lees-funny-car-has-new-co-crew-chiefs-and-new-look","tag-racing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/0001-scaled-e1650409778846.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-m50","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84878","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=84878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84882,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84878\/revisions\/84882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}