McDowell’s crew chief Travis Peterson to join him at Spire

Travis Peterson, who has worked alongside McDowell as his crew chief for the last two seasons, will join him at Spire Motorsports when he takes over the No. 71 Chevrolet. The duo made the 2023 playoffs after winning at the Indianapolis Road Course.

This year, they’ve earned three pole positions together with the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford.

“It’s exciting to have Travis Peterson join Spire Motorsports,” said Spire Motorsports president Doug Duchardt. “The first time Travis and I worked together was when Greg Ives and Travis came to Hendrick Motorsports to be the crew chief and the engineer for the No. 88 car with Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. I got to spend time with Travis there as a young engineer and it’s exciting to see how he’s grown into a leader and a crew chief. He’s going to add tremendous depth to our crew chief lineup and be a great compliment to Luke (Lambert) and Rodney (Childers). I’m really excited to see what those three can do together.”

Spire Motorsports has made several announcements in recent weeks. Championship-winning crew chief Rodney Childers will join the organization after Stewart-Haas Racing closes its doors, and the team has made the decision to let Corey LaJoie go at the conclusion of the year.

It won’t be Peterson’s first time working with a Chevrolet-powered team. He was part of Chase Elliott’s 2014 NASCAR Xfinity Series title run with JR Motorsports, and later was part of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports group from 2015 through 2018.

“It is a very exciting opportunity,” said Peterson. “Michael [McDowell] and I had the opportunity to meet with Doug [Duchardt] and [Jeff] Dickerson and they really sold us on the vision of where Spire is going and how we could be big role players in building the organization. I think having that skin in the game was important to both of us. The opportunity in front of us has all the potential to be very rewarding. That was a huge part of it. I love the energy right now and the overall culture around Spire Motorsports. They’re investing in people and team ownership is highly engaged. The mindset is ‘We’re going to do what it takes to win and this is what we want to build. Here’s the vision, where we’re going, what we’re going to do to get there, and we want you to be part of it.’ That was the biggest selling point.”

Speaking on his partnership with McDowell, Petersen added: “There are times when you meet people and you are immediately able to naturally communicate on a real level. I feel like we were that way from the start. We didn’t have to work at it. Our personalities, the way we openly communicate, and our honest nature helped us click from the start. We have no problem talking about hard stuff or easy stuff. We can be happy together when we win and be sad together when we lose. There is no red tape. We just work. It’s hard to recreate that.”