Lawrence Joseph McReynolds III (born January 10, 1959) is a former NASCAR crew chief and current racing analyst on Fox Sports as well as a columnist on Foxsports.com. In the past, he has served as an advisor to Petty Enterprises, and as a minority owner in Bang! Racing.
Career
NASCAR crew chief
McReynolds was born in
Birmingham, Alabama. Larry is an only child. His NASCAR career began in 1975. He worked his way up the ladder and took his first crew chief job in 1985.
He served as a Winston Cup crew chief from 1985 to 2000, amassing 23 Cup wins, 21 poles, 122 top-five and 209 top-ten finishes. In 1988, McReynolds earned his first Cup win at Watkins Glen International with driver Ricky Rudd.
McReynolds began 1991 with King Racing and driver Brett Bodine, but after the spring Atlanta race, left to become the crew chief for Robert Yates Racing and its famed #28, with driver Davey Allison. McReynolds and Allison combined to win 11 races and three pole positions between 1991 and mid-1993, establishing himself as one of the sport's elite crew chiefs. He led Allison to a win in the 1992 Daytona 500, and the two swept the NASCAR All-Star Race (then The Winston) in 1991–92. He nearly won the series points championship with Allison in 1992, with the title chase going down to the final race.
After Allison died in 1993 following a helicopter crash, McReynolds began working with driver Ernie Irvan, who left his ride at Morgan-McClure Motorsports under controversial circumstances to take over for his fallen friend. Immediately the partnership paid dividends, as Irvan won two of the nine races he drove the #28 and recorded six top five finishes. McReynolds helped drive the success of the #28 the next year as Irvan won three times and was a strong contender to unseat Dale Earnhardt as champion.
Then, on the morning before the spring race at Michigan, tragedy struck again. McReynolds, in an interview for The Scene Vault Podcast in 2020 described the situation as such. The Saturday morning prior to the race, the #28 was on the track for a practice session. After ten laps, McReynolds called Irvan to bring the car back in because he did not like the way it was running. Irvan would run one lap at highest speed before bringing the car in, as was his habit. McReynolds did not see Irvan blow a tire and crash on the backstretch, which caused a massive head injury. He said, once he found out of the extent of Irvan’s injury and the likelihood that he might not survive, he was ready to leave motorsports altogether having had two of his drivers die while he was leading their pit crews.
After running the rest of the season with substitute drivers, McReynolds convinced team owner Robert Yates to sign Dale Jarrett to drive for him in 1995; although Jarrett finished outside of the top ten in points McReynolds did lead him to victory at Pocono.
After one more season as crew chief for the returning Irvan, who missed most of 1995 recovering from his injuries, McReynolds took over as Earnhardt's crew chief for 1997 after his former crew chief Andy Petree left to form his own racing team. Despite not winning a race, McReynolds brought the team a top ten points finish and he was on the pit box for what was Earnhardt's biggest win as a driver, his victory in the 1998 Daytona 500. He was then moved over to the #31 car driven by Mike Skinner. He led the #31 team to a top ten points finish in 1999, and a 12th place finish in the points in 2000. McReynolds ended his career as a crew chief after the 2000 season. During his career as a crew chief, his cars had 23 victories in 417 starts.
McReynolds' success and thorough approach to his profession earned him selection to the Copenhagen/Skoal All-Pro Team, an all-star "who's who" of crew members, for five straight years (1991–1995), and the 1998 UAW GM Teamwork of Excellence award.
On April 17, 2022, McReynolds announced that he would make his return as a NASCAR crew chief, working with Jeffrey Earnhardt at the 2022 Ag-Pro 300 for Richard Childress Racing. It would be the first time in 22 years that McReynolds would call the race from the pit box. The team ended up winning the pole during qualifying, posting a record time of 52.454. The team led 10 laps in the 124 lap race extended by overtime, finishing in 2nd.