Steven Letarte (born May 14, 1979) is an American professional NASCAR crew chief and sportscaster who works for NBC Sports as a color commentator on their telecasts for NASCAR. He also works as a consultant for Spire Motorsports, a NASCAR Cup and Truck Series team. He was previously a crew member and crew chief for Hendrick Motorsports from 1995 to 2014, retiring after 20 years with the team. From September 2005 to 2010, he was the crew chief for Jeff Gordon's No. 24 car and from 2011 to 2014, he was the crew chief for Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s No. 88 car.
Racing career
Letarte began working for Hendrick Motorsports part-time in 1995. In 1996, at the age of 16, he joined the group full-time. From 1997 to 1999, he worked as a tire specialist for Jeff Gordon's No. 24 team. He then became a mechanic and finally car chief in 2002.
Crew chiefing career
No. 24 crew chief
Letarte was promoted from car chief to crew chief after Gordon missed the 2005 Chase for the NEXTEL Cup. He was promoted after 26 of the 36 races in the 2005 season.
In Letarte's sixth race as crew chief with Gordon, he visited victory lane for the first time in October 2005, winning the Subway 500 at Martinsville Speedway, in Martinsville, Virginia. Gordon improved with three top-five finishes in the last five races of the 2005 season.
Entering the 2006 season, Hendrick Motorsports made wholesale changes to the No. 24 team. Gordon fought major handling issues at almost all of the intermediate racetracks, (1.5/2-mile downforce racetracks) which relegated Gordon to run outside the top-ten and even outside the top-fifteen. Gordon finished outside the top-ten at California, Texas, Charlotte, and Pocono – all of which were down-force tracks.
When the series reached the 2-mile racetrack of Michigan International Speedway, near Brooklyn, Michigan, in mid-June, Gordon experienced a huge turnaround at a track that he had struggled at in previous season. Gordon led the most laps and finished eighth in a rain-shortened event; showing an instant improvement in Gordon's downforce program. For the first time since 2004, the No. 24 Chevrolet made the Chase for the NEXTEL Cup.
Gordon experienced an up-and-down postseason in 2006. They finished in the top five in both of the first two races, but posted 39th- and 36th-place finishes in the next two events, due to a failed fuel pump in Kansas Speedway and a crash at Talladega Superspeedway. Gordon also experienced an engine failure with 33 laps to go at Charlotte which relegated the No. 24 to a 24th-place finish.
Letarte and his team rebounded with finishes of: 5th at Martinsville, 6th at Atlanta, 9th at Texas, 4th at Phoenix and a 24th-place finish at the season finale at Homestead, and ended the season 6th in the final points standings.
In 2007, Gordon finished the year with 6 wins, Gordon's highest total since 2001, and a series-leading 21 top-5s, the most scored in a season since 1999. The No. 24 team also finished with 30 top-10s, setting a new NASCAR modern era record for most top 10s in a single season. They dominated the points standings throughout much of the year, earning, in total, 353 more points than Jimmie Johnson's No. 48 team, and 706 more points than Tony Stewart's No. 20 team (who earned the third most points of any team in 2007). However, due to the Chase playoff system, Gordon lost the championship to Jimmie Johnson. Their performance in the Chase was exceptionally good however, winning two races and scoring an average finish of 5.1, but it was not enough to outperform Johnson, who racked up more wins and better average finishes than Gordon.
2008 would be a brutal reminder of how difficult racing in NASCAR's top series can be. Astonishingly, Gordon went winless for the first time since his rookie year in 1993. The team posted a respectable 19 top-10s and 13 top-5s en route to a 7th-place finish in the season's final standings, but it was a disappointing follow-up to the 2007 season. Despite being the target of blame from many critics for the team's failures, Jeff Gordon and Rick Hendrick stood by the longtime Hendrick Motorsports employee and Letarte returned at the helm for 2009.