Brandon Thomas Crew Chief Personal Statistics: Birthdate: April 17, 1974 Birthplace: Kingsport, Tenn. Hometown: Kingsport, Tenn. Residence: Huntersville, N.C. Marital Status: Single

BIOGRAPHY:

Brandon Thomas was named Tony Raines' crew chief for Hall of Fame Racing's No. 96 DLP® HDTV Chevrolet on Oct. 10, 2006. Philippe Lopez, who was handling both crew chief and competition director duties for the first 30 races, became full-time competition director when Thomas took over.

In his first race as crew chief, Thomas helped Raines score a season-best seventh-place finish in the Oct. 14 Bank of America 500 at Charlotte (N.C.). Throughout the final six races of the season that Thomas served as crew chief, Raines scored four top-20 finishes.

Thomas came to Hall of Fame Racing from Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), where he'd been employed since 2003. JGR supplies cars, engines and technical support to Hall of Fame Racing, which is owned by Hall of Fame NFL quarterbacks Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach as well as managing partner Bill Saunders.

Thomas, a native of Kingsport, Tenn., earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in 1997. His motorsports career began in January 1998 when he was hired as the assistant race engineer for Dan Gurney's All-American Racers and driver Alex Barron in the CART Series. In August 1999, Thomas moved to Penske Racing South as an engineer for Rusty Wallace, before moving to the shock department of JGR in December 2001.

Thomas left JGR in June 2002 to serve as John Andretti's crew chief at Petty Enterprises for the remainder of the 2002 season, but returned JGR for the 2003 season as Bobby Labonte's race engineer. In 2004, Thomas served as the head of superspeedway research and development for JGR before taking over as Labonte's crew chief for the last half of the year.

After his crew chief stint with Labonte, Thomas continued his role in superspeeedway research and development while working on NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow.

Under Thomas' guidance, JGR scored three superspeedway wins in an 18-month span. All three victories came at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway - two at the hands of Tony Stewart (July 2005 and July 2006) and one from Denny Hamlin, who won the non-points Budweiser Shootout in February 2006.