MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Feb. 27, 2025) – There’s a new look for the No. 9 team at JR Motorsports this season. New faces, new team members and a new mission await first-time crew chief Cory Shea.
The No. 9 team, which will feature Ross Chastain behind the wheel this weekend at Circuit of the Americas, has nine scheduled events on the schedule with Shane Van Gisbergen joining as well.
Shea, the longtime JRM stalwart—who has held every position on the car except front-end mechanic—will have Danny Earnhardt Jr. as his car chief, with engineers Sam Hill and Steve Rasmussen alongside mechanics Ray Vaughn and Matt Colegrove for the nine-race schedule.
Shea grew up working on cars, as his father owned a service-station owner in his hometown of Tionesta, Pa. The 39-year-old has been a car chief for several seasons at JRM and was one of Dave Elenz’s top lieutenants on the No. 9 car, winning two consecutive championships with William Byron and Tyler Reddick in 2017 and 2018, respectively. Shea added to that last season, serving as the car chief for the championship winning No. 7 team with Justin Allgaier..
The elevation to crew chief was, obviously, a goal for Shea.
“I think that anyone who does this aspires to be a crew chief, but you don’t know if you’ll get the opportunity,” he said. “You always want to be more and better than you were.”
The opportunity that begins this weekend, Shea said, is one that many in his position aspire to.
“It’s a great opportunity,” he said. “When they say you’re going to have two Cup drivers, both very good at what they do, it’s really exciting because you know you’re going to run well as long as everything is done right here. It’s also a little nerve-wracking because you know you’re expected to run well.”
First Time Out: Heading to the challenging road course at COTA, Shea has a solid notebook to work from and a top NASCAR driver behind the wheel for his first time out.
“I don’t think it’s much more of a challenge for me,” Shea said of the weekend. “We have good notes from what we’ve run in the past, and it’s more challenging on the driver with the new layout, so I think for me, not being in a points battle, it alleviates a lot of the stress of how to pit and what to do.
“We’ve run well there in the past and everyone is pretty similar in terms of setup, so we’ll be close right off the truck and we’ve got options to go to. The biggest things are your brakes working, shifting correctly, all your mechanical stuff. There is a bigger chance of failure.”
Measuring Success: Shea has goals for the season, as does every team leader, and they are realistic given his drivers and team members. “Number one, just no failures, no problems, just good solid race cars,” he said. “Obviously, we have nine races so we want to have nine wins. Ideally, we want to just run up front and have competitive cars, lead some laps whether you win or not. With the drivers we have, they need to be in that top three, racing for the win regardless of how it ends.”
No First-Time Jitters: Shea isn’t worried about calling the shots from the pit box, given his experience.
“I’m not really worried about that,” he said. “I’ll be more focused on making sure I don’t miss anything. The basic idea of this is pretty simple, but all the small details is what I’ll worry about, and also the things you can’t know until you do it. Being a car chief for 10 or 15 years here at JRM, I could do it in my sleep. One day, it should be that way as a crew chief, but you don’t know how to do it until you do it.”
Top Rung of the Ladder: Having done every job from sweeping floors to car chief, Shea is vastly experienced in the art of building cars. In terms of race-craft, he learned a lot from Elenz and JRM Competition Director Mike Bumgarner during his tenure as the car chief for his teams.
“I learned a lot from Dave on the engineering side of it and understanding how what I did on the (setup) plate would match up to what we saw on the sim and on the real-world side of it,” Shea said. “Working close with him helped a lot. I only had one year with Bummy but I think the way he works is admirable in the amount of effort he puts in. He’s never afraid to help you hands-on because he’s done every part of it. Now that I am making the decisions and the calls, it will be more enjoyable, but more stressful as well.”