Stewart Cooper has been named the the new crew chief of the No. 45 Dodge driven by Kyle Petty. Cooper joins the team after serving as crew chief for the No. 38 Nationwide team.
"Stewart is that new breed of crew chief that couples a mechanical engineering education with a lot of practical at track experience," Petty said. "With the success he has had as a crew chief in the Nationwide Series, I know Robbie (Loomis) has been trying to get him in the organization for some time. The 45 team is a talented race team and we’ll benefit from having a guy like Stewart at the helm."
Billy Wilburn, former crew chief for the No. 45, will now head up the test team for Petty.
"Billy’s experience will help validate new ideas at the track and give our crew chiefs more options for the races," Petty said. "To really learn this new car you need to be on-track as much as possible and we have devoted more resources to track testing this year. It is great to have somebody of Billy’s experience level to lead this team.”
