TEAM NEWS: Hooper Named Crew Chief for No. 40 Chevy
04-16-2008 8:41 am

In a bold move to try and improve the performance of his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race trucks and team, owner Curtis W. Key has announced that former driver and now Crew Chief Lance Hooper has been hired to assume that position with the Key Motorsports organization.
 
Hooper succeeds veteran Gary Showalter who had held the Crew Chief's position at Key Motorsports and the team's #40 Chevrolet Silverado race trucks since May of last season.
 
"Our performances have not been where I had hoped they would be at this time, and I know that I have better equipment than what we have shown to this point in the 2008 season," Key explained. "When a team struggles, changes can be made in various areas in an effort to get better. I just felt that at this stage of the season, and after evaluating everything, that we needed someone different to oversee our truck racing program, so I have brought Lance back," Key added.
 
Hooper had been Crew Chief for the #13 ThorSport Motorsports team before being released just before the Martinsville race late last month.
 
After starting every race in 2007 for the first time in two, full-time campaigns, posting three top 10 and six top 20 finishes in 25 races and finishing 28th in owner's points to guarantee the #40 Key Motorsports Chevrolet a starting berth for the first four races this season, things have not gone as expected.
 
Chad Chaffin, hired by Key to drive the final eight races of the 2007 season in yet another attempt to make the team better and who in the process scored the two, best finishes ever for a Key Motorsports race truck with a 7th in Martinsville and 8th in Talladega last fall, was back behind the wheel of the #40 to start this season. The performances just have not been there, however, thus prompting the change.
 
"We made changes to our trucks and bodies, worked very hard to try and improve our engine program and then kept Chad as our driver through the winter to give us some continuity and momentum after finishing the year on the plus side," Key said of the team's off season.
 
However, Chaffin got caught up in a big wreck not of his choosing in the season-opener in Daytona and finished dead last, and though the finishes the next three races showed slight improvement, Key still was not happy to see his race truck running in the back of the pack.
 
"I haven't spent all the money I have spent over the last four years to run where we have been running, and after seeing how we performed as a group in Martinsville (Chaffin finished 22nd but on the lead lap for the first time in four races), I knew that we had to something big. Changing drivers was one option I had, but when we found some things that we were lacking in our race trucks, I felt it was our leadership at the top that had to be altered and I decided to bring Lance back to try and get us straightened out," Key ended.
 
Having worked closely with Chevrolet engineers for the past two years, Hooper's knowledge of the set-ups for the Chevrolets has expanded to the point that when he was retained by Key recently as a consultant he uncovered some major flaws in the majority of Key's 10-truck race fleet. The technology experience that Hooper now possesses is what ultimately convinced Key to make the permanent change and hire Lance full-time, and changes to the trucks are underway.
 
"Lance left my team for ThorSport Motorsports early in the 2006 season, and to be honest, that had been one factor that kept me from hiring him sooner," Key said. "But when I saw all of the things that he had learned over the last two seasons and then discovered what he had found in our trucks and what we needed to do to improve them, it became an easier decision to make.
 
"Gary (Showalter) did a good job for me over the last 11 months, and I really appreciate what he and our Director of Competition, Tommy Morgan, did to help rescue this team when we really needed it - right at the start of a string of seven consecutive weekends of racing. But it is quite evident now that we have been racing with some deficiencies that had gone unnoticed, so we needed Lance's help now and not later," Key said of his decision to change Crew Chiefs.
 
Morgan will remain in his current position with the team and will serve as the Crew Chief of Key's #31 Chevrolet Monte Carlos that will begin NASCAR Nationwide Series competition at Richmond on May 2. Jeff Green will drive as Key returns to the Series he once competed in for six seasons in the 1990's but after a 10-year hiatus.
 
A highlight to Hooper's tenure at ThorSports Motorsports was Willie Allen's drive to the 2007 NCTS Rookie of the Year title and a 21st place finish in owner points.
 
Hooper sees some good things in a much different Key Motorsports program than what he had worked with late in 2005 for selected races late in the 2006 season - the first full season of competition for a Key Motorsports NTCS team.
 
"It's good to be back, but we have a lot of work ahead of us, " Hooper said.
 
"When I last work with Curtis, we had half the trucks, half the motors and half the work shop, so he has really spent a lot of money and effort to improve the infrastructure. The changes we are making to the trucks were definitely needed in an attempt to make them more competitive," Hooper explained.
 
"Improvement will come over time, but Curtis does have the equipment to get the job done. We'll take each race one at a time to make sure that we have made the right changes and to tweak them as needed. I'm excited about the challenge here (at Key) and the opportunity for me to continue doing what I have done since I last worked here and that is to learn," Hooper ended.