Land O'Lakes Native is Danica Patrick's New Crew Chief
DAYTONA (FOX13) - In NASCAR, the driver-crew chief relationship can make or break a season. That's why Danica Patrick is on her third crew chief in a little more than a season.
Billy Scott is Patrick's new right-hand man. The Land O'Lakes native grew up three hours from Daytona International Speedway.
"I remember coming here as a kid a lot, and watching races," said Scott. "Yeah, I spent a lot of time even at short tracks around here. So, it's nice to come back to the home state."
This year, he returns with a new team and driver. Scott joined the number 10 team last November, and has been on the fast track to get on the same page with the entire team.
"It's certainly been a busy offseason, a lot to get caught up on," said Scott. "It's been great. All of our teammates have been a big help trying to get us up to speed. Everybody at the shop (has) been making sure that I know what we need to be, what information I need to be giving them, and been moving right along."
As far as any movement on the track, there hasn't been any. Teams can't test during the offseason, so Daytona was the first time Scott and Patrick could get a real feel for each other.
"You know, we just try to spend time together and it's evolving, every week every time we get on the race track," said Scott. "Every practice session we'll keep building on it. It's been great so far."
The two did a lot of team-building in the last few months. They even got away from talking racing, trying their hands at curling.
"That was a lot of fun!" exclaimed Scott. "It was kind of a company-wide deal they did for a lot of the marketing partners. "We didn't really know what to think going into that, a lot of jokes about it. But, once we got out there and got to see what it was about, it was actually pretty enjoyable. We were competitive as always."