One of the biggest debates on the Sprint Cup Series goes with engineers becoming crew chiefs, especially at the Roush Fenway camp. Of Roush Fenway’s five crew chiefs that are on the Sprint Cup side, there are are only two crew chiefs that are not engineers at the organization.

The two being long-time Roush Fenway crew chief Jimmy Fennig on the No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion, and Larry Carter who is the head man on the No. 26 Crown Royal/Irwin Tools Ford. Struggling marks have came off of McMurray this season and the rest of the team seems to be moving forward in the standings. But this doesn’t exactly point at the crew chief. Many people know that there is more than a crew chief that keeps these teams going, but it is usually the crew chief that takes the first hit with the problems.

Then there is what appears to be the odd man out at Roush. Long-time employee and leader of the No. 60 Roush Fenway team, Pierre Kuettel may never get his chance to be a crew chief at the highest level because he doesn’t have a piece of paper to fall back onto. Kuettel who came to Roush at the end of the 1998 season, has probably seen more changes that anyone could have asked to have seen, and been through quite a few himself. Kuettel has the smarts of the engineering team and setup the No. 99 Fords for years before moving over to the No. 60 to be the crew chief.

However, when you have a crew chief system like many of the organizations do these days, very few are crew chiefs without a little piece of paper saying you are an engineer. P.K. is a very knowledgeable crew chief and his talents are right there with Bob Osborne and Greg Erwin. So where does this leave guys like P.K. in the future?