Starting with this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series All-Star Race at Texas, Wood Brothers Racing has decided to make some personnel changes on top of the pit box of the No. 21 Ford Mustang, driven by Matt DiBenedetto.
Greg Erwin, the team’s crew chief for the last three years, has been let go. His replacement will be Team Penske engineer Jonathan Hassler.
Hassler is familiar to the top of the No. 21 pit box, as the engineer served as the temporary crew chief for the team earlier this year at Martinsville Speedway after Erwin was forced to miss the weekend for COVID-19 protocols.
He again served as a crew chief for the No. 2 car driven by Brad Keselowski at Dover International Speedway.
In the first 16 races of the year, DiBenedetto has earned three top-10 finishes, holds an average finish of 18.1 and sits 17th in the playoff standings, 60 points below the cut line.
DiBenedetto is in his last year driving for the team. The Californian will be replaced by Team Penske development driver and 2020 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Austin Cindric at the beginning of the 2022 season.
This weekend’s All-Star Race will be live on Fox Sports 1 on June 13, with coverage beginning at 6 p.m. ET. for the All-Star Open, a race the No. 21 team will have to use to qualify for the evening’s main event.
ICYMI: Jonathan Hassler joined @DGodfatherMoody to talk about taking over as the crew chief of the @woodbrothers21 No. 21 Ford. pic.twitter.com/8ZMqHkgo3s
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) June 8, 2021
Dalton Hopkins began writing for Frontstretch in April 2021. Currently, he is the lead writer for the weekly Thinkin' Out Loudcolumn, co-host of the Happy Hour podcast, and one of our lead reporters. Beforehand, he wrote for IMSA shortly after graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2019. Simultaneously, he also serves as a Captain in the US Army.
Follow Dalton on Twitter @PitLaneCPT