Geisler hoping driving experience helps in role as Hornish crew chief
By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor
Thursday, August 21, 2008
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Travis Geisler is hoping his experience as a driver will help him as he takes over as crew chief for Penske Racing’s Sam Hornish Jr. beginning this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Geisler, a mechanical engineering graduate from Vanderbilt, competed in 12 races in the then-Busch Series in 2004 while working with DCT Motorsports. He later abandoned his driving career to work for Robert Yates Racing before going to Penske at the start of the 2007 season.
“Maybe I envisioned myself being a Cup driver [four years ago],” Geisler said. “But twists of fate and sometimes you don’t make your own roads, you just make them as smooth as you can. I had an opportunity to go work at Robert Yates and got an opportunity … to have an exposure to a lot of different people, and it kept you learning at a very fast pace.”
Although he doesn’t have much high-level NASCAR driving experience, Geisler believes he can use that experience to help rookie Hornish, a three-time IndyCar Series champion.
“As far as what he’s going through and his adjustments, he’s obviously a top-caliber driver from the IRL side, but there’s some different things to learn, and there’s different ways Cup guys go racing,” Geisler said.
“He’s certainly done a great job of getting up to speed with that. Hopefully I can help carry that along with at least a sense of understanding what his job entails.”
Geisler has been the engineer for the No. 12 team at Penske. The No. 77 team is 34th in the owner standings, 23 points from dropping out of the top 35 guaranteed a starting spot in each race.
“Obviously we need time to build our team together and having the opportunity to get started with them this season,” said Geisler, who is replacing Chris Carrier. “This is a decision the company wanted to make. It’s better to do it now and give us all a chance to work together so we an focus better on what we need to do next year to get ourselves in a position where we’re not worried about the top 35 and where we’re racing for top-15s and top-10s.”
Geisler’s interaction with Hornish has been pretty much limitetd to team debriefings at the track. All the cars at Penske are virtually the same with only tweaks for a specific driver, Geisler said.
“There will be a little bit of a learning curve between us,” Geisler said. ”I am excited about the opportunity to work with him because he is open-minded. He is willing to listen, and he’s got some good intensity about making the car go fast, and that’s fun to work with.”
One of his main goals for the rest of the season is to build confidence for the group as a team, Geisler said.
“This team has very good potential,” Geisler said “They’ve shown the potential to run right with Ryan and Kurt [Busch] at times this year. To do that as a rookie is pretty impressive. Getting some experience together and some confidence is what we need right now.”
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Sam Hornish Jr.
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