July 22, 2008
By Allen Madding
Born February 4, 1955 in Winston-Salem, N.C., Tim Brewer began his racing career in 1969 at the age of 14 wrenching on the cars of local driver Ernie Shaw at Winston-Salem’s Bowman Gray Stadium. At the age of 18, Brewer became one of the youngest crew chiefs in NASCAR history when he joined the Cup Series team of Winston-Salem driver Richard Childress in 1973 where he served for five years.
In November 1977, Brewer left Childress to go to work for Junior Johnson as the crew chief for Cale Yarborough beginning a 12-year career at Junior Johnson Racing. In 1978, Brewer led the Junior Johnson team and driver Cale Yarborough to win the NASCAR Winston Cup Series Championship. In 1980, the pairing finished runner-up for the NASCAR Winston Cup Series title.
In 1981, Brewer served as crew chief for the Junior Johnson team with driver Darrell Waltrip. Together the pairing won the 1981 NASCAR Winston Cup Series Championship. Surprisingly, Brewer left the team at the end of the season to go to work for M.C. Anderson’s team and driver Cale Yarborough. In 1982, Brewer led team in winning the Union 76 / Rockingham World Pit Crew Championship.
In 1983, Brewer joined forces with Raymond Beadle’s Blue Max Racing team as the crew chief for Tim Richmond and the Old Milwaukee No. 27 Pontiac recording 1 win and 4 poles.
In 1984, Brewer returned to Junior Johnson Racing to work with Neil Bonnett on the No. 12 Budweiser team. In their first two years they won 3 races. In 1988, Johnson hired Terry Labonte to drive the No. 11 Budweiser Chevrolet and Johnson paired him with Brewer. In the two seasons together, the pairing recorded 1 pole and 2 wins.
In 1991, Brewer was crew chief for Tommy Ellis and the No. 11 Junior Johnson owned team. In 1992, Bill Elliott was hired to drive the No. 11 Budweiser Ford for the Junior Johnson team, and Brewer began working as Elliott’s crew chief. Together in 1992, they recorded 2 poles and 5 wins finishing runner-up in the title points. Junior Johnson was so irritated by losing the championship that he fired Brewer at the season’s end.
In 1993, Brewer accepted the crew chief position for Bill Davis Racing’s No. 22 Maxwell House Ford and rookie driver Bobbie Labonte. Together they recorded 1 pole and finished runner-up to Jeff Gordon in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series Rookie of the Year points.
In 1994, Brewer went to work as the crew chief for the newly formed Kranefuss-Haas team and driver Robbie Gordon. They made one outing at Michigan in June finishing 38th after being involved in a crash.
In 1995, Brewer led the Kranefuss owned No. 37 Kmart / Little Caesar’s Ford and driver John Andretti. By the end of 1996, communication problems between Brewer and Kranefuss had come to a head and they parted ways.
In 1997, Brewer started the year working as the crew chief for Morgan-McClure’s No. 4 team with driver Sterling Marlin. Brewer and the team parted company in June of that year. Mattei Motorsports hired Brewer as crew chief for their No. 7 QVC Ford driven by Geoff Bodine. Brewer left the team before the April race at Talladega in 1998 accepting a position with Larry Hedrick’s No. 41 Kodiak Chevrolet team with drivers Rick Wilson and David Green.
In 1999, Brewer started the year as a consultant for Hedrick, but later resigned. Brewer signed on to crew chief Jim Smith’s Cup car with driver Kenny Wallace at Indianapolis and then moved to a role as a consultant for the team working in research and development for the team’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series efforts. In 2000, the team moved Brewer to crew chief for the Cup Series team pairing him with driver Mike Wallace. In 2001, Smith released Brewer as the crew chief after the Cup race at Texas.
In 2003, Brewer was hired once again at Morgan-McClure to serve as a consultant with driver Mike Skinner. Skinner was released and Brewer was moved to crew chief on the No. 4 Kodak Film team with drive Kevin Lepage. In 2004, Kodak left as the team’s primary sponsor replaced by Yoketv.com. During the season, Lepage left and Jimmy Spencer began driving. Brewer parted company with Morgan-McClure in August and began working as an independent racing consultant.
Brewer joined ESPN in 2007 as a motorsports analyst on NASCAR Now and NASCAR Countdown on ESPN2 and serves as a technical analyst during ESPN coverage of NASCAR events.
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