Cole Pearn has resigned as crew chief for NASCAR Cup Series driver Martin Truex Jr. to pursue opportunities outside of NASCAR.
Joe Gibbs Racing made the bombshell announcement Monday evening.
In their first season together at JGR following the folding of Furniture Row Racing, Pearn, Truex and the No. 19 Toyota team finished second in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship to teammate Kyle Busch this season after winning a series-high seven races.
In addition to guiding Truex to his first career short-track victory at Richmond (Va.) Raceway and sweeping both Richmond races, the No. 19 team were also victors at Dover (Del.) International Speedway, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway, Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway, and his final win of the year at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway cementing the team into the Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway last month.
“This was an incredibly difficult decision,” Pearn offered in a team press release.
“At the end of the day, I really want to spend time with my family and actually see my kids grow up. Being on the road, you are away from home so much and miss a lot of time with your family. I don’t want to miss that time anymore. I want to be there for all the things that my kids are going to experience while they are still young.
“I love racing and there isn’t a better place to be than Joe Gibbs Racing, but I don’t want to look back in 20 years and think about everything I missed with my wife and kids while I was gone. They are what is most important to me.”
While Pearn and Truex were familiar with the Joe Gibbs Racing infrastructure through Furniture Row Racing’s technical alliance, the move to in-house operations facilitated in the duo of Pearn and Truex earning nine of the organizations’ 19 Cup wins in 2019.
Pearn and Truex have been paired together since the 2015 and won the Cup Series championship in 2017, a year after Denver, Colo.-based Furniture Row Racing became a technical alliance partner in 2016.
From 2015 to 2019 or 179 races in all, Pearn and Truex won 24 races, collected 12 poles, earned 70 top-five, 110 top-10 finishes and led more than 7,000 laps.
“I cannot say enough good things about Cole and what he has meant for my career,” said Truex.
“I appreciate his hard work and dedication to our race team over the past six years going back to when he was my engineer at Furniture Row. Our friendship is what matters most to me, and I’m happy that he’s doing what’s best for him and his family.”
Joe Gibbs Racing said a new crew chief for Truex will be announced at a later date.
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