Crew chiefs join drivers in NASCAR's revolving door

	With new crew chief Larry Carter now calling the shots in the garage, Jamie McMurray has been one of this season's biggest surprises of the early going. Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR

For decades, when the NASCAR community talked about silly season, the discussion revolved around what drivers were switching rides. But for the last several years, the talk has grown to include crew chiefs, who have been moving almost as often as the drivers.

Thanks to the advent of the powerhouse teams with as many as four or five cars, many of these crew chief switches were made in house as part of the elusive search for team chemistry, as technology and new teams formed by Dodge and Toyota changed the race day equation. NASCAR has grown to be such a pressure cooker that teams won't hesitate to fire a crew chief in the middle of a season.

Here's a look at how some of the crew chief changes during the offseason are turning out. Don't be surprised if the silly season starts up again soon.

Revolving Roush

Roush Racing has received more attention than most teams with the myriad crew-chief changes it made for 2006 and '07.

At the end of last season, Jimmy Fennig left Roush's Busch program to serve as crew chief for rookie David Ragan. Fennig had crewed Ragan's No. 6 car for years when it was driven by Mark Martin. Pat Tryson, who had been the crew chief of the No. 6 car in '06, then moved to Greg Biffle's team and took over for Doug Richert.

Bob Osbourne, who had been the crew chief of the No. 99 before switching to Jamie McMurray and the No. 26 for '06, returned to Carl Edwards' team. Consequently, Roush then hired Larry Carter from Michael Waltrip Racing and put him charge of McMurray's team.

For such a series of complicated moves, the merry-go-round has produced results. Biffle finished '06 in 13th place and has fallen to 17th this year, but he's running about the same as he did last year. Rookie Ragan is 24th in the points, not bad for a kid just getting started. Edwards has jumped from 12th to eighth in the points.

But McMurray has been the biggest winner. He was expected to be a rising star when he switched to Roush last year, but he limped home 25th in the standings. This year he's 10th in the points and has four top-10 finishes in seven races.

Late and not great

Lee than two weeks before the start of the '07 season, Hendrick announced Darian Grubb was going to move over from Jimmie Johnson's team and replace Lance McGrew as Casey Mears' crew chief. The change hasn't done much for Mears, who finished 14th in the standings last year, and has struggled in '07 as he currently sits in 32nd.