CONCORD, N.C. -- The 2016 season proved to be a unique one for the No. 88 team as three different drivers sat behind the wheel.
And at the helm of it all was crew chief Greg Ives.
Beginning his second season with Dale Earnhardt Jr., the veteran crew chief wasn't expecting to have to approach his job any differently than normal.
"When all the incidents occurred with Dale, it definitely was apparent that we needed to take a different approach and be more open-minded," Ives said. "We already had one year of working with Dale and we kind of understood where he wanted the race cars and areas to work on."
However, with needing two substitute drivers throughout the season, certain adjustments needed to be made to accommodate their various driving styles and comfort levels.
"When Alex got in the car," Ives explained, "I wasn’t really going to change that approach until I understood his driving style -- how he liked the balance of the race car. With Jeff it was a little bit different; I wouldn’t say harder or easier, just because we had a history with him. We had more information."
Ives said the biggest adjustment he had to make personally was understanding and balancing the expectations and pressures that accompanied each driver.
"With somebody new or considered an up-and-coming star like Alex," Ives said, "your expectations can change and instead of thinking you need to go out there and get top-fives and wins, you can roll that back and think you only need top-15s."
That's not how the No. 88 team saw it though.
"We kept our intensity level up and kept our expectations high, thinking that we had to qualify well and also had to race around the top five if we wanted to help our teammates," Ives said. "We saw in Loudon -- we didn’t qualify as well as we wanted to but was able to work our way up toward the front, had the incident at the end but we just kept building on good runs and realized we had the ability to reach our goals of staying in the top five and top-10 as far as race position but also qualify well.”
Not only did each driver bring their own expectations, they also brought different viewpoints to the table.
"After he (Gordon) retired in Homestead at the end of the year, he kind of assumed a different role within Hendrick Motorsports and was kind of making that transition throughout the year," Ives said. "He kind of became one of the ambassadors or counselors, a consultant for Hendrick Motorsports with his direct connection with Mr. Hendrick and all that he has invested with driving the race car."
Ives said the experience and knowledge that Gordon provided the team allowed them -- and the entirety of Hendrick Motorsports -- to "hone in and focus on what we actually had to work on."