NASCAR Cup Series

Erwin out as Biffle's Cup crew chief

Published Jul. 11, 2011 7:47 p.m. ET

foxsports

Greg Biffle will have a new Sprint Cup crew chief starting this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Greg Erwin is out as pit boss for the No. 16 team.

Nationwide Series crew chief Matt Puccia will take over on top of the pit box.

FOXSports.com first reported the change early Monday.

“Matt Puccia has been a very effective and successful crew chief with the organization in both the Nationwide and Camping World Truck series,” said team owner Jack Roush. “Most recently he has led the research and development efforts for our superspeedway program which helped put David Ragan in Victory Lane in Daytona. This is a natural progression of our crew chief development and I have every confidence that he will do well in this new role. Greg Erwin has made a significant contribution to our engineering efforts and our program is better because of him.”

Erwin has been with the No. 16 team since May 2007. Although they finished 14th in that first year together, the group qualified for NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup every full season after the change, with a best finish of third in 2008.

This season, Biffle has struggled to keep pace with other title rivals. He has earned just one top-five and five top-10 finishes in 18 starts, putting him 14th in the championship standings as we hit the midway point of the season.

“I am excited for the opportunity to work with Matt Puccia,” Biffle said. “Greg Erwin led this team to the Chase the past three years and I look forward to Matt doing the same.”

By contrast, two of Biffle's other teammates, Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth, are in position to make the Chase while the third, David Ragan, could earn one of the two wild cards for NASCAR's playoffs because of his recent win at Daytona.

Puccia was last crew chief of Roush Fenway Racing's No. 98 Nationwide Series team in 2010, where he helped guide Paul Menard to a fifth-place finish in the championship. Along with Roush's Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series teams, Puccia also had stints with Yates Racing's Nationwide team and Ultra Motorsport's Truck team since his crew chief career began in 2004.