A sleepless night and dogged determination laid the groundwork for what has become the top new driver/crew chief combination three races into the NASCAR Cup season.
It started when Dave Rogers, competition director at 23XI Racing, woke up around 2 a.m. one night last year thinking about work.
“I was trying to find who is the next (Cup) crew chief coming from the Truck Series,” he said.
It seems an odd thought for an executive of a team that would win last year’s Cup regular season title and place a car in the championship race, but Rogers already knew the Xfinity crew chiefs. He wasn’t as versed about those in the Truck Series.
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Rogers’ work led him to what he was looking for, but it took some coaxing.
“I’m persistent,” Rogers said. “It’s just my nature.”
And the result, the pairing of Bubba Wallace and crew chief Charles Denike, has already proved worthwhile.
Consider:
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Wallace ranks sixth — highest among drivers with a new crew chief this year — in the standings;
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Wallace’s 94 points is more than 20 above his average through the first three races of a season since he’s been at 23XI Racing;
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He won his Daytona qualifying race;
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He qualified on the front row for the first time in a Cup road-course race last weekend at Circuit of the Americas;
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He won a stage last weekend at COTA.
“I truly believe,” 23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin said of Denike, “he’s going to be a game-changer for 23XI. He is special. All I can say is I’m glad we found him.”
Bubba Wallace needs a fast start
The message is clear: Wallace needs to run better early in the season.
“That’s the point of emphasis,” Hamlin said.
“No doubt about it. They have had 10-to-12 race stretches in his career where he has been a top-five driver and team. … They’ve not put it together for a full season yet.”
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Wallace has made the playoffs only once in his Cup career. He did so in 2023 — clinching the last spot in the regular-season finale.
He has never won a Cup race in the regular season. Both of his series victories came in the playoffs in years he was not racing for a championship.
So points have been key for Wallace, but he’s failed to score enough most years to extend his season. Often, the problems can be traced to slow starts.
Wallace has averaged 4.6 fewer points per race in the first 12 events of a season compared to his point total in the final 14 races in the regular season the past three years.
Had he matched his productivity from the back end to the front end last year, he would have secured a playoff spot.
“This sport is so hard,” Wallace said. “Being at the Cup level the wins don’t come often, and you have to be ready to pounce when they do. That’s what we’re looking forward to.”
An unexpected text message
So how does one study crew chiefs from another series?
“I just started watching tape and listening to audio,” Rogers said. “It was like, ‘Wow, this Christian Eckes guy is coming along pretty good. What’s going on here? Looked up the (team) roster, who is the crew chief. I learned it was Charles Denike, and I just started researching the progress that team had made and (it was like), ‘Wow, this is interesting.’
“He took a team and really helped build it. If you think about 23XI, that’s what we’re doing right now.”
What Rogers’ research showed was that Denike had been a crew chief in the Truck Series since 2020. Denike started with GMS Racing and moved to McAnally-Hilgemann Racing during the 2022 season.
He was paired in 2023 with Eckes, a 22-year-old. Eckes won four races that season and placed fifth in the points. They remained together last year and the duo won four races, the regular-season championship, and Eckes placed third in points.
Rogers also saw that Denike had been in the U.S. Army for nine years as an engineer officer, so “he’s into processes.” The more Rogers found out about Denike, the more he liked.
“I just need to meet this guy,” Rogers said.
So he texted Denike one day to see about any interest in meeting to discuss being with a Cup team.
The reception was unexpected.
“I didn’t think he was really interested in Cup racing,” Rogers said.
The right person for the job
Although McAnally-Hilgemann Racing had yet to win a Truck race when Denike joined the team in 2022, he saw what it could become.
“My goal at the Truck Series crew chief level was trying to be transformational with that program,” Denike said. “There was a whole lot of potential in that program, but it needed some significant steps to move it forward.
“Kind of the final step was when Christian got there and we were able to put all that together. Through the course of 2023 and 2024 you’re trying to showcase what you believe you’re able to do and continue to build on it.”
Denike’s focus was on that when he received a text message from a number he didn’t recognize.
“But then you see the first sentence or two,” Denike recalled, “and you say, ‘Maybe I need to read this.’”
Denike wasn’t looking to leave his job and wasn’t focused on the Cup Series, but he agreed to talk to Rogers.
It wasn’t until Richmond in August that Rogers felt things changed with Denike’s interest — and it happened after a chance encounter.
Rogers and Denike happened to pass after the Richmond Truck race, which saw Eckes sit on the pole and finish second. On the way from pit road to the McAnally-Hilgemann hauler, they talked.
“I was a little torn on what to do,” Denike said of if to pursue the 23XI Racing job.
Rogers recommended that Denike talk to Billy Scott, crew chief for Tyler Reddick at 23XI Racing, and Mike Wheeler, a former Cup crew chief who now oversees operations at 23XI Racing.
“That really, I’d say, was the catalyst to continue forward,” Denike said.
He and Rogers continued to talk about the position.
“After getting deep in the conversation, I was convinced that he was the guy for this,” Rogers said.
Challenges met
A couple of weeks before the end of a season that saw Wallace earn career bests in top-five and top-10 finishes and average finish position, 23XI Racing announced that Wallace would have a new crew chief for 2025.
Bootie Barker had been Wallace’s crew chief since late in the 2021 season. They were together for 110 races. But Barker would move into a competition leadership position.
“I was on the fence with making a change because I was so comfortable with Bootie,” Wallace said earlier this season. “It’s hard to step away from something that you’re comfortable with and something that seems to be working fairly well. But I kind of just took a step back and put all the trust and faith in the team to make the necessary calls and the right call.”
The day of the Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium last month, Wallace texted Barker: “Hey man, I know it’s a change of pace, but I wouldn’t be where I’m at without all the help and all the guidance that you gave and I appreciate you.”
But pairing Wallace with Denike, someone Wallace had not worked with before, presented challenges, especially for a driver needing to be better — immediately.
And to pull a crew chief from the Truck Series was not a common move in Cup. It has worked for two-time Daytona 500 winner William Byron, who has been with former Truck crew chief Rudy Fugle since 2021, but they worked together in 2016 in the Truck Series.
Rogers wasn’t worried the Wallace-Denike chemistry.
“You look at the structure of how we operate at 23XI,” Rogers said. “It’s not three independent race teams. It’s one race team that works together and that system affords us a learning curve (for a new crew chief). A lot of the things that a crew chief may have to learn in the Cup Series, he’s got two other partners helping him. So we think we can shorten that learning curve for him.
“(Plus) just his leadership, coming from the military … I think he’s going to be an extraordinary leader, and I think that’s going to meet Bubba right where he’s at now. Bubba, I think he’s going to benefit from a strong leader.”
The results show, he already has.
