Cole Pearn will leave Joe Gibbs Racing to follow other opportunities outside of NASCAR, the team announced Monday (Dec. 9).
Pearn led Martin Truex Jr. to second place in the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series standings as the crew chief of the No. 19. He also coached the team to seven wins, 15 top fives and 24 top 10s.
“This was an incredibly difficult decision,” Pearn said a team release. “At the end of the day, I really want to spend time with my family and actually see my kids grow up. Being on the road, you are away from home so much and miss a lot of time with your family. I don’t want to miss that time anymore. I want to be there for all the things that my kids are going to experience while they are still young.
“I love racing and there isn’t a better place to be than Joe Gibbs Racing, but I don’t want to look back in 20 years and think about everything I missed with my wife and kids while I was gone. They are what is most important to me.”
Pearn and Truex won the 2017 Cup championship while with Furniture Row Racing and entered in the Championship 4 four times. Since 2016, the pair’s 23 wins lead all the driver-crew chief pairings in that period.
“I cannot say enough good things about Cole and what he has meant for my career,” Truex said. “I appreciate his hard work and dedication to our race team over the past six years going back to when he was my engineer at Furniture Row. Our friendship is what matters most to me and I’m happy that he’s doing what’s best for him and his family.”
The No. 19’s crew chief has yet to be announced.
Joy joined Frontstretch in 2019 as a NASCAR DraftKings writer, expanding to news and iRacing coverage in 2020. She's currently an assistant editor and involved with photos, social media and news editing. A California native, Joy was raised watching motorsports and started watching NASCAR extensively in 2001. She earned her B.A. degree in Liberal Studies at California State University Bakersfield in 2010.