In the 1980s, Jeff Hammond was one of the NASCAR Cup Series‘ most decorated crew chiefs. Two decades later, he became a mainstay on the NASCAR media circuit as an announcer for Fox Sports. On Tuesday, nearly twenty years after his last run as a crew chief, Hammond announced he will return to the pit box, serving as Clay Greenfield‘s crew chief for the 2020 NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series season; the two will contest at least eight races together.
“We are thrilled to have a legendary crew chief like Jeff join our team and help take us to the next level,” Greenfield stated. “With the addition of Jeff combined with equipment upgrades Rackley Roofing has allowed us to make, we are poised to have the most successful season in CGM’s history.”
After working as a pit crew member for three-time Cup champion Cale Yarborough at Junior Johnson & Associates in the 1970s, Hammond became Darrell Waltrip‘s crew chief in 1982. In their first season together, they won twelve races and the Cup championship, scoring top-ten finishes in all but ten races. The duo won another title in 1985, a season that saw them claim three race wins.
Even as Waltrip migrated to Hendrick Motorsports and eventually his own team, he and Hammond enjoyed success together, winning forty-three Cup races from 1982 to 1992. Among the race victories were the 1989 Daytona 500, and three Coca-Cola 600s (1985, 1988, 1989).
Hammond also worked as the crew chief for drivers like Terry Labonte, Kenny Wallace, and Bobby Hamilton. His final season as a Cup crew chief came in 2000, leading Roush Racing‘s #97 car driven by Chad Little and future Cup champion Kurt Busch.
In 2001, Hammond reunited with Waltrip at Fox Sports, who had recently acquired the rights to broadcast NASCAR races. In the nineteen years with Fox, he served as an analyst for the network’s NASCAR Race Hub, while his work inside Fox’s studio—nicknamed the Hollywood Hotel—prompted Waltrip to coin the nickname Hollywood Hammond.
Although Hammond has never worked as a Truck Series crew chief, he was a co-owner of the now-defunct Truck team Red Horse Racing. From 2005 to 2017, the team won sixteen races, with Timothy Peters also scoring a runner-up points finish in 2012.
“It’s like coming full circle to be able to return to the top of the box for such a first-class team and a hungry driver like Clay Greenfield,” Hammond said. “I believe this Rackley Roofing #68 is going to turn some heads and prove that we’re a team to respect!”
Greenfield has raced part-time in the Truck Series since 2010, much of which came in his #68 Clay Greenfield Motorsports truck. He has two top-ten finishes in forty-six career starts (2012 at Daytona International Speedway and 2017 at Talladega Superspeedway). In 2019, he ran four races with a best run of twelfth at Daytona.
