RFK, Hendrick race engineer joins Front Row as crew chief in ’23
Front Row Motorsports announced Wednesday that Travis Peterson will join Michael McDowell’s No. 34 team and serve as his crew chief for the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season.
Peterson will join FRM and depart his position at RFK Racing as Chris Buescher’s race engineer. He will replace Blake Harris who was picked up by Hendrick Motorsports after 2022.
In 2022, Harris took over as McDowell’s crew chief after Stewart-Haas picked up Drew Blickensderfer. Blickensderfer was his crew chief for three seasons after replacing Derrick Finley in 2019.
Peterson is McDowell’s fourth crew chief in six seasons. While he only has five starts as a crew chief, he has extensive race engineer experience for RFK Racing and three other high-profile teams.
Peterson helped lead the No. 18 NASCAR K&N East team to the 2011 title as a race engineer intern. Three years later, he won the Xfinity title with Chase Elliott and was promoted to the No. 88 Cup team for 2015.
Peterson immediately won three races with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and stayed with the team until moving to Roush/RFK in mid-2018. He won one race with RFK, with Chris Buescher at Bristol in September.
Todd Gilliland will also receive a new crew chief in 2023 as Seth Barbour will become FRM’s technical director. No word on who will replace Barbour.
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Jonathan Fjeld View All
Jonathan Fjeld is the co-owner of the The Racing Experts, LLC. He has been with TRE since 2010.
A Twin Valley, MN, native, Fjeld became a motorsports fan at just three years old (first race was the 2002 Pennsylvania 500). He worked as a contributor and writer for TRE from 2010-18. Since then, he has stepped up and covered 24 NASCAR race weekends and taken on a larger role with TRE. He became the co-owner and managing editor in 2023 and has guided the site to massive growth in that time.
Fjeld has covered a wide array of stories and moments over the years, including Kevin Harvick's final Cup Series season, the first NASCAR national series disqualification in over 50 years, Shane van Gisbergen's stunning win in Chicago and the first Cup Series race at Road America in 66 years – as well as up-and-coming drivers' stories and stories from inside the sport, like the tech it takes for Hendrick Motorsports to remain a top-tier team.
Currently, he resides in Albuquerque, N.M., where he works for KOB 4, an NBC station. He works as a digital producer and does on-air reports. He loves spending time with friends and family, playing and listening to music, exploring new places, being outdoors, reading books and writing among other activities. You can email him at fjeldjonathan@gmail.com