From his spot atop the pit box of driver William Byron’s number 24 Chevrolet, crew chief Rudy Fugle sits at the top of NASCAR’s Cup Series. Together, the pair won their second straight Daytona 500 in February, and Byron currently leads the series in points. They’ve been together at Hendrick Motorsports since 2021, winning 13 races and finishing in the top 10 in every season. Though they have yet to win a championship, there’s a sense that it’s only a matter of time.
Nothing could have seemed more unlikely a dozen years ago, when Fugle, who’s now 41, started working for Kyle Busch Motorsports in the Camping World Truck Series. A native of Livonia, N.Y., he’d entered the sport with no connections, and slowly worked his way up the ranks of several organizations before getting his chance to be a crew chief at KBM in 2013.
Fugle’s impact in the truck series was immediate and substantial. He won six races that first season, calling the shots for both Busch and 16-year-old rookie driver Erik Jones. By the end of 2020, when he moved to Hendrick, he’d won 28 races with six drivers (including seven with Byron) and two championships. His victory total is tied for second all-time in the series. Taking over the storied 24 car at HMS was the next logical step.
Sports Illustrated spoke with Fugle ahead of Talladega on Sunday, which will mark the start of his 150th Cup race with Byron. They have yet to win at Dega, but have usually run well there, with a pair of runner-up finishes and five top 10s.
The following has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
SI: What was your Welcome to NASCAR moment? Was it in the truck series or the Cup series?
Rudy Fugle: Trucks. I was working with Kyle Busch Motorsports [at Kansas in April 2013]. It was my first year as a crew chief and, I think, it was the second time that Kyle was in the truck. We actually blew an engine in practice, and then lost a second engine that weekend in qualifying. And then we got into an accident in the race. So, what would seem like a great moment—you made it, and you’re at a track that you should win at because you have Kyle Busch—became a reminder of how quickly things can go bad, and how you need to be prepared to handle things the right way. And then, the very next week [with Busch at Charlotte], I won my first race as a crew chief.
SI: Your family has an auto parts business and salvage yard in Livonia, New York. What did you do in the salvage yard?
R.F.: My grandparents started the business in 1958, and my dad and my uncles worked for it and built it up into a pretty big business, with over 80 acres and 3,000 cars. So, I grew up just going there all the time. I started out dismounting tires—trying to help sell used tires to customers. And then I eventually got all the way to pulling engines and transmissions and getting things ready to sell. So, yeah, I had lots of different jobs. My family was just a big car-culture type of family.
SI: Did anybody else in your family race?
R.F.: No, not really. We just worked on cars. We always loved racing, and we talked about it all the time. I had some cousins and family members who’d worked on race cars, but nobody ever drove. I drove for a very short period of time—micro sprints is what they’re called, like small sprint cars. I drove those for about 20 races before I had to grow up and go to college and get a real job.
SI: What did you study in college?
R.F.: Mechanical engineering—one year at Rochester Institute of Technology and then three years at UNC Charlotte. They both have some motorsports and automotive programs—a couple of classes that you can take in your final few years.
SI: So you had your eyes on being a crew chief early on.
R.F.: I didn't know at first, but once I moved to UNC Charlotte that was the goal. Year one, I stayed in New York, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to get into motorsports. And then I started to learn more about it. And, at that time, engineers in NASCAR we're starting to become more of a big thing, so that helped me. That pushed me that way, for sure.
SI: Your first job was at Robert Yates Racing. How tough was it to break into the motor sports industry?
R.F.: It was really tough. In 2005, 2006, it was a really, really competitive time. There were lots of people that I was going to college with who were also trying to get into the engineering side of things. And Robert Yates was a huge company. It's very successful. We still had Dale Jarrett driving, and UPS was a sponsor. They had a very famous team, so I was lucky enough to start there helping all the teams. It was a great opportunity.
SI: Any advice for aspiring crew chiefs?
R.F.: I think there are multiple ways to get into the crew-chief field. The biggest thing to me that I think helps you separate yourself once you get in the door is to have a racing background. You don’t have to own a car. You don't have to be on a big team. They’re looking for people who are volunteering their time with local teams. It doesn't matter where you are. There's generally a racetrack somewhere near you: whether it's a competitive go-kart track, where they race every weekend; whether it's a dirt track; or an asphalt track. Most everywhere you go in this country, within an hour, they're racing something. And you can go learn how to do the tires, and set air pressure, and measure the tires, and then that's gonna lead to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And then when you come to a team like Hendrick Motorsports, and you apply and you get an interview, you can say, “I have a mechanical engineering degree, and I also have all this experience.” Or you can come and say, “I have a two-year degree and I've also been racing.” The biggest thing we want to see is if you know how to race on a regular basis. That experience—the people that have it usually stand out.
SI: When you moved to KBM in 2013, you started working as a crew chief in the truck series with all kinds of drivers, from inexperienced rookies to such seasoned vets as Denny Hamlin and, of course, Kyle Busch. What was that experience like?
R.F.: That was when I realized I could probably make a difference by trying to figure out how I could help young drivers become what they wanted to be. How could I teach them? How could I work with them? How could I give them confidence. We did that a lot with with Erik Jones in the first year. I tried to make our team’s niche around taking a young guy and making him into a Cup-worthy driver in a few years. That's kind of what we hung our hat on, and I really enjoyed that. We did a great job of teaching and relating with them, nurturing them the right way—not babying them, but making them accountable. We did really well, and I think we can be proud of how many of those drivers are successful in Cup right now. We have a ton that went through Kyle Busch Motorsports that are in the Cup series, that are successful. And that, to me, means as much as anything.
It started with Erik Jones. He was 16 years old, and he wasn’t mature yet. But I was able to create such a great relationship with him that over the three years that we worked with each other—the first two part-time, the third year was a full-time championship run.... I was still fairly young, but there was a 12-year age difference there. It was a big gap. I had to learn how to relate to him and talk to him. Obviously, his talent helped overcome some of my deficiencies when we had bad weekends or bad things would happen. And him being such a great friend and a great driver and a great kid helped me learn that this was how I needed to deal with someone from another generation.
SI: Do you remember the first time you told Kyle Bush what to do?
R.F.: [Laughs.] Yeah, it was that first year, in 2013, in a race at Homestead, where we were racing for an owner championship. And at that point I finally felt like I had enough confidence to decide that we were gonna stay out on the last caution. And it ended up being the choice that won us the championship. But it was tough: He wanted to pit. But he listened to me and we won the race. We won the championship.
SI: What was it like moving to Hendrick Motorsports in 2020 and taking over the 24 car? Was that sort of surreal because of the legacy and how far you’d come in a relatively short time.
R.F.: It was definitely a moment when I didn't know where I was. I was at a crossroads in my career, where I was either gonna keep doing what I was doing—which, I thought I was doing a pretty good job in the truck series and teaching young guys and helping run a very successful company—or was I going to make a leap to the Cup series to see if I could do it. And the fact that it was Hendrick Motorsports, the fact that it was the 24 car, the fact that the driver was William Byron made it the perfect time. I was like, “This is the time where if you say no you are probably never gonna get that opportunity again.”
SI: Do you and William Byron have any sort of relationship off the track? Do you go for beers after a day at the shop?
R.F.: No, not really. We will send each other a text here and there, and we will talk. We have a lot of the same interests, so when we see each other at the shop or on an airplane or at the track we enjoy talking about things that aren't racing. We have a great friendship that way, but like, outside of work.... He’s a city kid. I'm more of a country guy. He, obviously, is quite a bit younger than me. I’ve had a family for a while, so we don't go hang out, buddy-buddy all the time. We're not that way. We just have a great relationship and trust on the track. And I feel like 30 years from now it'll still be the same. It’s just a great relationship that you don't have to work hard at. It just is kind of natural.
SI: This week’s race is at Talladega, where you’ve never won at any level. Has it just been bad luck so far? You’ve won twice in a row with Daytona, so super speedways are not like an Achilles’ heel for you.
R.F.: Oh no, I agree. I think if I was to go through the record books I’d find a lot of top two and top three finishes there. It’s really been a pretty good place for our team and for me, with all the different teams I've been on. I enjoy going there. I love the fans and how it's kind of a party and a little bit different. The racing is a little bit of a crapshoot, obviously, but sometimes you’ve just gotta be in the right place at the right time. I'll take being in the top five when we come to the checker—if that's what it takes instead of being wrecked out super early. I like being methodical. I like Talladega and Daytona because, although there's a lot out of your control, there's still a lot of things you can do to try to execute the weekend and the race and you can leave there not winning. We can wreck and still feel like we executed really well, like we did what we were supposed to do. Bad luck happens.
SI: Was that a surreal moment for you at Daytona in February? Or is the 500 sort of another race on the schedule now?
R.F.: No, the Daytona 500 is special, for sure. Pretty much any race win is surreal. But when you pull into that place and you look around.... It’s about how many people are watching. You get text messages from friends that are watching the race that never watch any other race. It's a big deal. It's still our biggest race of the year. I want to win the Coca-Cola 600, and the Southern 500, and the Brickyard 400 and a championship. Those crown jewels are huge. But Daytona is the top of the crown jewels and always will be.
SI: You have four kids?
R.F.: Yeah. Reed is 21. Blake is 15. Avery is 13 and Ellie is 11.
SI: How busy are the sports schedules?
R.F.: Blake plays three sports: football, wrestling and track. Reed is in college, but he was in football, wrestling and baseball. Avery has gymnastics every day, so she's probably the busiest right now. And then Ellie dances and acts in plays. It’s just very busy. And my wife, Carie, is a teacher. She works, as well. But without her, we wouldn’t be able to get all the stuff done.
SI: She must drive more miles than William Byron.
R.F.: Yes, absolutely. We are putting some miles on her Chevrolet.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Get to Know Rudy Fugle, the Veteran Crew Chief and Steady Companion to William Byron .