Meendering's blueprint for Petty success a proven one

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- During the latter half of last season, it appeared that Doug Randolph clicked as veteran driver Bobby Labonte's crew chief in the Sprint Cup Series.

So when it was revealed that Randolph would be leaving at the end of the season for another job at Dale Earnhardt Inc., it seemed a severe blow to the Petty Enterprises operation. The loss of Randolph, however, was already offset by the pending arrival of the man who was going to replace Randolph as crew chief regardless: Jeff Meendering.

The right direction

Tears have already been shed due to Petty Enterprises' move to Mooresville. But most know that greener pastures lie ahead.

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• Meendering named crew chief

"We knew for sure that Jeff was coming," said Labonte, who finished 18th in points in 2007. "We tried to keep Doug in another role -- director of engineering, testing, whatever the case may have been. We would have loved to have kept Doug on board. We just couldn't make it happen.

"But when it became clear that Doug was going to leave, we knew for weeks, maybe even months by then, that Jeff was coming. We just couldn't say it at the time. I felt bad about losing Doug, but I knew we had Jeff in our back pocket."

It was a comforting feeling to Labonte.

Meendering is best known as the former car chief for Jeff Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolets at Hendrick Motorsports. He stepped in as crew chief for six races last season when Gordon's own crew chief, Steve Letarte, was suspended for rules violations.

Even before that happened, Meendering, a former driver himself who used to compete at the same Concord Motorsports short track that Labonte once did, knew he wanted to be a crew chief. He also saw the writing on the wall at Hendrick, where already it had become clear that Darian Grubb, crew chief last season for the No. 25 Chevy driven by Casey Mears, was moving to another role to make room for the arrival of Tony Eury Jr., the longtime crew chief of new Hendrick driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.

"I can't say it was an easy decision to leave. I was really happy working at Hendrick. It's a great organization to work in," said Meendering, who had been employed there for 13 years. "But I also realized with Dale Earnhardt Jr. bringing Tony Eury Jr. over with him, they had one too many crew chiefs already -- and all their crew chiefs are well established and good crew chiefs.

"So I couldn't see any opportunities opening up anytime soon for me. I've got a 6-year-old at home and another baby on the way, so I kind of wanted to step it up a little bit because I can't see myself 10 years from now traveling the schedule like I am now. So I just kind of wanted to speed up my life a little bit here now."

Robbie Loomis, vice president of race operations for Petty, thought Meendering would be the perfect fit to help speed up not only Labonte on the track in the short term, but perhaps the entire Petty Enterprises operation in the long run. Loomis, who was Gordon's crew chief from 2000 until the final 10 races of the 2006 season, was the first to take a young Meendering out on the road for races after Meendering began his career at Hendrick "as a teenager sweeping floors."

"We see Jeff as another very important piece in our process of growing Petty Enterprises back into a championship-contending team," Loomis said. "I'm confident he will be a cornerstone of our organization for years to come."

Loomis told Meendering about the plans to move the Petty shop from Level Cross, N.C., where it had resided for nearly 50 years, to the old Robert Yates Racing shop in Mooresville, much closer to Charlotte. Loomis didn't have to do a hard sell on perhaps his employer's greatest asset -- the Petty tradition, which is even more steeped than that of Hendrick.

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"I had other opportunities that I wasn't really that wild about. But when Robbie approached me about Bobby and becoming part of Petty Enterprises, I thought that sounded like the perfect fit," Meendering said.

He said he still has to pinch himself sometimes when he's around the shop, sitting there shooting the bull with the likes of Richard Petty himself and Dale Inman, Petty's legendary crew chief.

"Richard and Dale Inman both hang out at the shop, and it's really neat to talk to them," Meendering said. "They tell me stuff that happened in the past. It's just neat hearing their stories. Richard Petty has always been kind of an idol to me, so it's just kind of hard to believe that now I'm working around him so much."

Meendering knows all about the Petty numbers: 268 career race wins but none since 1999 (when Loomis was crew chief for a John Andretti victory), and 10 championships (including the record seven by Richard and three by his father, Lee). And about Labonte's numbers: 21 career wins, a championship in 2000 when Labonte was driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, but no victories since he won two races in 2003 while also driving for JGR.

Meendering also realizes he has been brought on board to bring much of his Hendrick-honed expertise to the table, which, in turn, he and Labonte believe will finally pave the way back to Victory Lane.

"I think about that every day. That's going to be a really big deal when it happens, and I know it's going to happen," Meendering said. "We're improving the equipment of the racecars and stuff. They may have gotten a little behind on some things, but I worked with Hendrick for 13 years -- and that organization was just so on top of their game. I picked up a lot when I worked there.

"Now I'm trying to take a lot of what I learned at Hendrick and implement it at Petty Enterprises, things that I saw there that I know work. I think we can make them work now at the Petty organization, too."

So does Labonte, who said he has become a bigger fan of Meendering every day. The two just completed three days of testing during Preseason Thunder at Daytona International Speedway.

"He's solid," Labonte said of Meendering. "And Robbie, I think, is a great judge of character. What he was saying about him, I can see it more every day. I can see his leadership getting stronger, and his goals are strong.

"He has a good playbook of how Hendrick has done things for years. So he doesn't want to veer away from that. He's going to go this way and work it so it's the best fit for us."

Meendering said he knows there are skeptics who doubt the ability of Labonte and Petty Enterprises to turn the corner in a highly competitive arena that last season was mostly dominated by the Hendrick teams of drivers Jimmie Johnson and Gordon. But he pointed out this is different. He knows what made Gordon go fast and intends to apply the same plan to Labonte's program.

"It's definitely a very exciting time. I'm excited about how confident Bobby is about doing well," said Meendering, a quiet man by nature who admitted he is uncomfortable in the spotlight and doesn't believe he will enjoy dealing with the media. "We have high expectations going into this year. I think there are really some good things going on. We've made some really good hires in the offseason that are going to strengthen our team.

"I'm not content with not performing well. If I didn't feel like we could improve, I probably wouldn't have made the move."

It will take some time, he admitted. But he added that he expects results this season, despite the season-opening Daytona 500 being only one month away.

"We're building a lot of new cars right now. We're revamping our whole fleet of cars. That's taking some time," Meendering said. "The guys at the shop are getting a lot of work done. I can see where a month from now, I think we're going to be sitting pretty good as far as our car count and everything goes. We're going to be looking pretty good.

"As far as working now for Petty, I've been with one great organization and now I'm with another. I feel like I can bring some of the stuff I learned from one to the other to help it get back to where we all want it to be."