When Wood Brothers Racing picked Ryan Blaney in August as the new driver for the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion, they knew they were getting a young driver with NASCAR race wins and championships already on his resume. The rest of the package arrived with the Christmastime announcement that Jeremy Bullins, a young crew chief with championship credentials of his own, would be lead the way for the iconic No. 21.
Bullins, like Blaney, comes to the Wood Brothers courtesy of the technical alliance for 2015 and beyond that the Woods signed with Team Penske last summer. Not only is Bullins a familiar face around the Wood Brothers shop (his first job in racing was with the team from 1999 to 2002), but he’s familiar to Blaney. Bullins was crew chief of the Team Penske No. 22 Nationwide Series entry that won the past two owner’s titles, in both of which Blaney was a key contributor.
Len Wood, who owns the Motorcraft/Quick Lane team with his brother, Eddie, believes that the existing relationship with between Bullins and Blaney will pay immediate dividends.
“Jeremy coming over from Team Penske will help us transition from our past alliance to our new alliance with Team Penske,” Wood said. “Because he’s worked with Ryan in the past, and knows the Team Penske system, Jeremy should be able to get Ryan on the track and running competitively right out of the box, without a long development period.”
Although hesitant to set lofty goals and expectations himself, Bullins also thinks the existing successful driver-crew chief working relationship between he and his driver will be beneficial.
“The goal, every time you leave the shop, is to win the race,” Bullins said. “Other than that, goals aren’t something you talk about. You go and give it your best effort every week and work on the things that you need to do to get better.
“But you can’t really talk about winning races,” he further explained. “You have to talk about finishing in the top 5 because if you run top 5 the opportunity to win races is there. If you can run in the top 10 then the opportunity to run in the top 5 is there with a little more work. We know going into the season that we’re going to have the equipment that we need.”
Bullins is unfazed by the reality that he and Blaney are Sprint Cup rookies in their new positions on the Motorcraft/Quick Lane team.
“Yeah, I’m a rookie Sprint Cup crew chief but I was an engineer in this series for many years and it doesn’t overwhelm me by any means,” he said confidently. “And Ryan has been around the sport for a long time and there’s nothing that overwhelms him.
“It’s a matter of us getting our feet wet, getting laps, getting experience, getting a couple of races under our belts and seeing where we stand,” Bullins continued. “We’ll see where our weaknesses are and what we need to work on and go from there.
“Our expectations are to be competitive,” he said. “If we are competitive that means we can compete to win. Is that going to happen overnight? Probably not, but the potential is there.
I’m committed to the long haul of seeing him get to the next level.”
According to Bullins, the team will benefit from the experiences the driver and crew chief have already shared while running together in the Nationwide Series.
“You learn how to communicate over time, to know what he means when he says things about how a car is handling,” Bullins explained. “He’s pretty calm most of the time, but you can tell if the car is really loose or really tight. He’ll get a little more vocal. Part of that has gone away as he’s accumulated more experience. He stays a little more even keel during a bad time.”
The new Motorcraft/Quick Lane team crew chief noted a couple of instances last season when the race car wasn’t set up right to start the race but he and Blaney worked on it throughout the run and ultimately finished strong.
“He stayed calm, told me what he needed, we worked on it and he kept me posted on how we were doing in fixing it and by the end of the race we had a pretty good car and came away with second- and third-place finishes,” Bullins recalled. “Days like that are what put you in position to win races and ultimately championships.”
Suffice to say that Motorcraft/Quick Lane Racing, the Wood Brothers, Blaney and Bullins all are looking forward to Daytona.
Ford Racing PR
