2026 Martinsville I Race Report: Gutsy Gustafson Short-Pit Call Earns No. 9 Team Martinsville Victory

MARTINSVILLE, VA — After two stages of the Cook Out 400, Chase Elliott’s crew chief Alan Gustafson had grown frustrated watched his car run at the back end of the top ten. At lap 262 of 400, he called Elliott in to pit much earlier than he had originally planned.

“In this situation,” Gustafson said after the race, “Luke Mitchell, who is my race engineer at home, who does a great job of strategy, we just continued to communicate about it.”

Mitchell is a University of Colorado-trained mechanical engineer who works ‘back home’ in Hendrick’s “war room”, along with a cadre of other engineers and data analysts. Gustafson had Mitchell analyzing all types of scenarios for when to pit, including whether to make two stops in the third stage or to try to make it on just one stop.

It’s a delicate balance of factors. How many seconds are new tires worth? Do you want to chance doubling the opportunities for the pit crew or driver to make mistakes by having two pit stops instead of one?

“He (Mitchell) told me that it was close,” Gustafson explained, comparing one- and two-stopping the final stage. “And ultimately, it felt like that it was a safer play to one-stop it.”

But race conditions constantly change. That, combined with Hamlin’s seemingly unbeatable car, prompted to Gustafson to keep Mitchell studying the possibilities.

“And then I asked him to go do some other calculations,” Gustafson said “And then he’s like, hey, you know, it(two-stopping) is probably a couple seconds faster. And that was just enough for me to say, Yeah, we have to, you know, we have to give ourselves a shot.”

The Perils of Crew Chief Decisions

Only Gustafson and the Stephen Doran (Shane van Gisbergen’s crew chief) took the chance on short pitting. One could argue it’s more of a risk when you’re crew chief for a driver as popular as Chase Elliott. Gustafson basically can’t win: When he takes a risk and it works, most fans attribute it to the driver. When a risk doesn’t pay out, the halls of twitter echo with demands for Gustafson’s head.

“You’re not even on social media, are you?” Jeff Gordon, who joined Gustafson in the media center after the race, asked the crew chief. Gustafson said “Thank God,” but the shake of his head was more like “Hell, no.”

Elliott, for his part, has always defended Gustafson. Martinsville was a chance for him to basically say ‘I told you so.’

“It’s a great call,” Elliott said, with respect to the decision to two-stop Stage 3. “Glad he (Gustafson) picked up on that, saw that. I don’t think anybody else did. Goes to show that he’s pretty good at what he does, which I try to tell y’all that all the time.”

Gustafson Says More Data Makes for Better Racing

I asked Gustafson, who is in his 22nd year as a Cup Series crew chief, whether having as much data as he has access to these days makes the job more fun or less fun.

Even though he comes from the old-style crew chief school, Gustafson wants as much data as possible available. Especially since he’s not having to try to take it all in during the race. Those team and manufacturer war room have become incredible valuable these days.

“I enjoy working on those problems together with the team,” Gustafson said, “and being able to have dialog and be able to really be innovative.”

But it’s not just the innovation that attract Gustafson to data. The best way I can describe his response is ‘impassioned.’

“I think that (data) is something our sport needs a lot more of,” Gustafson continued. “I think strategy is one of the few things left that we have. You know, everybody’s pace is so close. Us winning (this) race is a perfect example of that, right? Statistically, we’re probably, you know, 10th fastest on the day. But you put that car in clean air, and all of a sudden you go win the race.

So that’s your 2026 Martinsville I Race Report. See you in two weeks for Bristol.