JR Motorsports has the goal of qualifying for the Daytona 500 in February and competing in its first Cup Series race. This will be a difficult task, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. brought in someone who can help level the playing field.
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He turned to Greg Ives, his former crew chief at Hendrick Motorsports who mastered the art of qualifying at Daytona International Speedway.
"I saw how many times he's qualified a car on the front row at Daytona," Earnhardt said in response to a question from FanBuzz. "I'm like, do you have any magic left, Greg? Let's go to the track and see what we can do.
"...It won't be easy. There will be some very tough competition. I was confident that Greg understood, better than anybody, the things that we would all need to gather into place to go there with the best opportunity we could."
Hendrick Motorsports cars have traditionally qualified well at Daytona, but Ives, in particular, took the production to another level while working with multiple drivers.
The results of his "magic" are clear when examining the numbers at the Florida track. Ives and Earnhardt Jr. competed in six races at Daytona together. They won the pole twice, qualified second once, and qualified third twice. Their worst starting position was 16th in the 2016 summer race.
Once Earnhardt Jr. retired, Ives began working with Alex Bowman. This duo competed in 10 Daytona races before Ives stepped off the pit box for another role at Hendrick Motorsports.
Bowman won the pole for his first Daytona 500 with Ives. He won the pole again in 2021. Bowman started second in four other races. His worst starting position at Daytona with Ives as crew chief was 15th in the 2021 summer race.
Qualifying magic is important heading to JR Motorsports' first Cup race, but it also doesn't hurt that Earnhardt Jr. and Ives still have a strong relationship after they each stepped away from full-time racing.
The veteran crew chief has long been a wealth of information for JR Motorsports, both during his time as a championship-winning Xfinity crew chief for Chase Elliott and after his move to the Cup Series.
As Earnhardt Jr. explained, any time that his Xfinity Series team struggled, it could reach out to Ives and ask him to take a "40,000-foot view" of the operation. This often led to breakthroughs on the track and helped JR Motorsports continue contending for wins and titles.
Of course, the Hall of Fame driver is not the only one who has a strong relationship with Ives. Justin Allgaier, the man who will drive the No. 40 Traveller Whiskey Chevrolet, is a big fan of the crew chief.
As Allgaier explained, he has a comfort with Ives that could make a big difference when they head to Daytona.
"Greg has gotten to work really closely with all of our crew chiefs and all of our drivers, and he's got a really good understanding - I mean, he was a championship crew chief at JR Motorsports," Allgaier said.
"He understands the business really, really well, and I think that gives some comfort when you look at trying to assemble people for this organization and for what we're trying to accomplish."
As JR Motorsports has shown, it has the pieces in place for Daytona. The team has the Chevrolet Camaro, Allgaier behind the wheel, Chris Stapleton's whiskey as a sponsor, and Ives atop the pit box. All that's left now is to use some of that magic during qualifying.
