CONCORD, N.C. – Excitement abounds for the 2020 season.
And No. 88 crew chief Greg Ives is ready to capitalize on next year’s schedule change and new car to make it the best season yet.
Recently, Ives went on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio to talk about this past season and how their performance laid the groundwork for what he and the No. 88 team will focus on next year.
“Were penciling in some post-race items that we know are areas that we need to improve on and try to work on in the offseason,” Ives told Sirius XM NASCAR Radio. “Phoenix is going to be a huge race next year, Martinsville, some of those tracks that were a struggle, so that’s where we are putting some of our focus. We are trying to understand where we went wrong. Ultimately, we try to work on our weakest links.”
Not a weak link was the team’s dominance on 1.5-mile racetracks. Alex Bowman delivered an average finish of 9.27 on those types of tracks which ranks third among active drivers and includes his first career win at Chicagoland Speedway.
Last year was also the second season Bowman made it to the playoffs, and despite advancing to the Round of 12, the crew chief looks to put the team in contention for the championship come 2020.
“Now I know what we have to improve to not only be top 10 in points but to put ourselves in position with the new playoff schedule,” Ives explained. “You can have your favorite tracks in each round, now you kind of have to figure it out again and how that rhythm of each round is going to go. It’s going to be new for everybody, and hopefully, we can conquer that and get to the final four.”
One area he hopes will already be an improvement is the new Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, which will debut at The Clash on Sunday, Feb. 9.
“Everybody at Hendrick Motorsports worked so hard to try to get the body done and submitted in time,” Ives said. “Credit to those guys. We’ll start to see the performance gains at the start of the year.”