Grubb takes over as crew chief for Kahne

Kasey Kahne will work with Darian Grubb for his final nine races with Hendrick Motorsports. Announced Monday, the No. 5 team will be overseen by Grubb starting this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Grubb is a veteran of the NASCAR garage and returned to Hendrick Motorsports last year after spending four seasons as a crew chief at Joe Gibbs Racing. He also spent three years (2009-2011) with Stewart-Haas Racing, who had a technical alliance with Hendrick at the time, guiding Tony Stewart to his third championship in 2011.

"Darian is an extremely talented and experienced crew chief," Hendrick Motorsports president Marshall Carlson said in a team release. "Having been back with us for more than 20 months, he knows all of our people and processes. There's no one more prepared to hit the ground running at this point in the year."

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Grubb is third among active full-time crew chiefs with 23 career wins, which he earned with five different drivers. He was promoted last month to director of competition systems at Hendrick Motorsports, the organization he initially joined in 2003.

The crew chief role at HMS is not unfamiliar to Grubb. In 2006, Grubb, who was Jimmie Johnson's lead engineer, served as Johnson's interim crew chief for the first four races of the season. The duo won the Daytona 500 and the race at Las Vegas. It was also Grubb who was the crew chief for Casey Mears when he scored his first career win in 2007.

"I'm looking forward to working with the team for the rest of the season," Grubb said. "I enjoy competing in a playoffs environment, and we have tremendous resources at Hendrick Motorsports to pull from. I'm ready to get started this weekend."

Grubb replaces Keith Rodden, who had been paired with Kahne since 2015. Kahne and Rodden finished 21st in Sunday's opening race for the Playoffs at Chicagoland Speedway, which they qualified for courtesy a win in the Brickyard 400.

However, it is the only victory the two earned in 99 races together. Kahne also failed to make the Playoffs in each of the last two seasons. It was announced last month Kahne would be leaving Hendrick at season's end.

In its announcement, Hendrick Motorsport said the crew chief for the No. 5 team in 2018 with driver William Byron has not been determined.