Cliff Daniels and the Cheerio in the corner: Inside the mind behind Kyle Larsons hopes

Nearly every weeknight, after he, his wife and his two young children have finished dinner, Cliff Daniels will tidy up the kitchen. And not just washing dishes, a cursory wiping of the counters and other typical duties after a meal.

Oh, no, this is Daniels, whose attention to detail and focus on performing at the highest level possible is well known. And this means that he makes sure the kitchen looks pristine.

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“My daughter is 4, my son is almost 2, and when we’re done with dinner and the floor is a mess, I still make sure I vacuum and sweep every inch of the floor,” Daniels said. “That’s just my personality.”

This will surprise no one who knows the crew chief for Kyle Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team. Ask around the garage about Daniels’ defining characteristics and the responses are near universal: He’s detail-oriented, an exceptional leader and has an unmistakable white-hot intensity. Such attributes are the catalyst behind Larson vying for his second NASCAR Cup Series championship in three years Sunday at Phoenix Raceway.

“Cliff takes the role seriously, embraces it, has the world’s most talented driver, bar none, and leads him,” said Chris Gabehart, crew chief for Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team. “He’s not afraid of it, he embraces it, outwardly and all the pressure and responsibility that comes with it. I think he does a great job. He’s earned the spotlight he’s in.”

Exceptional crew chiefs, the kind whose teams are perennially in championship contention, generally have a keen understanding of the mechanical and engineering elements that go into building fast race cars. These abilities are an absolute must. In a sport where the mechanical margins to find speed keep shrinking, it’s imperative that those leading teams find other avenues to propel their teams to victory lane.

“He strives tirelessly to find performance,” said Chad Knaus, Hendrick vice president of competition. “And that comes in many, many different packages. He does that through simulation, he does it through data, he does it through the human performance element. He’s a very, very good communicator. He’s not afraid to talk and approach and find resolve in a situation. And he’s tireless, like he works all the time. He’s very, very dedicated to his craft.”

It’s easy to dismiss the role a crew chief plays when you’re with an organization the caliber of Hendrick, which has won more championships than any other, and also happen to be aligned with a generational talent in Larson, whose ability frequently draws comparisons to NASCAR multi-time champions Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart.

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And being with Hendrick and having Larson as your driver unquestionably brings with it certain advantages. But just giving a great chef the proper ingredients doesn’t ensure they’ll produce a five-star meal.

It’s a reality Larson recognizes. He is adamant that, without Daniels, he wouldn’t be the driver who produced a historic 2021 season that saw him win the championship and 10 races, with potentially a second title coming Sunday in Phoenix.

“Cliff holds everybody to a very high standard,” Larson said. “Yes, he’s stern and strict and aggressive at times, but I think at those times, a lot of us need it. And he does a good job of knowing when the right time is to put pressure on people.”

Before 2021, Larson says, he didn’t always have crew chiefs who held him accountable anywhere close to the same degree. There would be times he’d commit an on-track mistake and often it would be excused as a byproduct of him merely trying to get the best finish possible. A great driver pushing his car to its limits; something worthy of a pat on the back.

There were times, though, Larson said, when he had actually made a mistake that he shouldn’t have and deserved to have his feet held to the fire.

“I like that I make him upset when I make a mistake,” Larson said. “I like that he gets upset with me because I’ve had other crew chiefs in the past where I make a mistake and I’m mad at myself and everybody’s always coddling me, and he’s not like that.”

Holding people accountable is not an issue with Daniels. The crew chief has no qualms demanding Larson work on improving his craft, something Larson appreciates even if the way Daniels delivers the message can sometimes come across in a brusque manner.

When informed that Daniels would be his crew chief, Larson wasn’t sure how Daniels would handle him. Before long, though, Larson realized that Daniels was exactly what he needed if he was to fulfill his potential.

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“He’s somebody for me that I didn’t think that I would ever do good with because in the past, I haven’t felt like I would like the intensity that he brings,” Larson said. “But now I’m super thankful that I have him leading me because I think the way he is in the way he pushes me to continue to get better and get closer to perfect is always good for me and all that accountability is great for me.”

In some respects, the 35-year-old Daniels is not all that different from Knaus, who won a record-tying seven championships as Jimmie Johnson’s crew chief, including a record five straight. Beginning in 2015, Daniels served as an engineer on Knaus’ team for four years, a stint that included Johnson and Knaus winning their final title. In July 2019, Daniels took over the No. 48 team, replacing Kevin Meendering who had replaced Knaus. (The 48 was renumbered to 5 in 2021.)

“I think it’s easy to put a blanket over it and be like, ‘They’re similar because when you’re just looking at the 30,000-foot view, they’re both intense, they both will do what it takes to win,’” said Jesse Saunders, car chief for the No. 5 team. “But once you start breaking it down, there are different nuances and differences. Like when I came to work for Chad, it was Chad and then Ron (Malec, Knaus’ car chief) had a lot more of the dealings with the team as far as the car prep things like that. And he kind of was that mediator — not wrong in any way about it, just more of any guy in this team can just go straight to Cliff and ask him a question. It’s a small difference, but it is a difference.”

How Daniels manages the No. 5 team extends beyond just what he learned working alongside Knaus. He extensively has read books by experts in the field of leadership and culture. Lately, Daniels has taken to focusing on the mindsets of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.

He studies how head coaches in other sports guide their respective teams, like Alabama head football coach Nick Saban and Mike Tomlin of the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers. Though he’s never met either of them, Daniels has imparted some of their methodology in how they’ve built championship football teams into how he’s built his NASCAR team.

“I try to make myself very well rounded of observing these great leaders, these great coaches, these great folks,” Daniels said. “What are their values? What are their principles? What are the things that they have embodied that has made them or their team successful and how does that relate to us? Some of it directly applies more than what the average person might think would apply from basketball to racing, or from football to racing, or from leading a Christian life to racing, whatever it may be. But I’ve tried to adopt and embody those within my approach and within our team.”

Like a football coach, Daniels frequently uses motivational pep talks and words of inspiration at key moments. His most well-known one occurred during the May 2022 race at Charlotte, where the No. 5 team experienced a disastrous first half during NASCAR’s longest race that featured a litany of blunders, including Larson hitting the wall, several penalties on pit road and even the car catching fire at one point.

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Watching it all unfold was Daniels, who had every reason to lambaste his team, but chose not to. Instead, he calmly told the team they had positioned themselves to make an extraordinary comeback that would showcase their resolve.

“In the first half, all I want you to remember is how good TV we made,” Daniels told Larson over the radio. “We went from the back to the front more times than I can count. We hit the wall, we spun out, we literally caught on fire. We were also the most penalized team on pit road in the first half. All that means is that in the second half, already we’re going to be starting way better than what we started the first half. We’ve got to go execute right now, so I don’t know what the hell you’re worried about, but I’m fine, the team’s fine. Everybody down here is nodding their heads and giving a thumbs-up, so let’s go.”

Exactly as Daniels expected, the team responded. Larson rallied to finish ninth and may have won were he not collected in an accident not of his own making.

“He is like a football coach,” Larson said.

Daniels understands that his approach may not be for everyone. It takes a particular type of individual to be able to hold up to the demands placed on them by Daniels and his heightened intensity. Winning races and contending for races is not just a goal, it’s the expectation.

He acknowledges that he worries about pushing his driver and team too hard, to where they eventually tune him out. He wouldn’t be the first crew chief whose team grew tired of their leader.

“I know that because of the driver we have and the team that we have, I have to stay focused in the moment and continue to push, and that can be exhausting at times,” Daniels said. “And I know that down the road, there will come a time where things will change, and my approach will have to change. But for now, my mindset is to continue to evolve, and us being on an upward trajectory for our team, I believe that it’s going to be on how I lead us through that. The downside to that is the possibility of burnout.”

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To help combat both these potential issues, Daniels makes it a point to be more relaxed behind the scenes while at the Hendrick shop during the week. Away from the racetrack, Daniels encourages his team to rib him and make jokes at his expense and is also emphatic that team members take days off when needed.

“I think where Cliff does a good job is that he is very intense, but he’s also vulnerable and he shows both sides,” Saunders said. “And it’s hard, right, because when you want to be a leader, sometimes the misnomer is that the leader has to be here and there has to be this invisible wall and then everybody else. Well, he’s normalized the, OK, when we need to work and we need to be in the moment, we all lock in and we’re in the moment. And when we have the time to kind of let our guard down and relax in the van on the way to the track, things like that, we can be human, we can be genuine, we can have that balance. A lot of people don’t see that, they just see Cliff at the track.”

Daniels has been a crew chief for four full seasons, plus a little more than half of another. On Sunday, Larson enters the Championship 4 as the driver many have tabbed as the title favorite.

Whether his driver and team win or lose, though, isn’t going to change Daniels’ approach. He’ll continue to be the guy who finds it relaxing to obsessively pick food off the floor.

“My version of relaxation is still doing any duty or job or chore or preparing a racecar to the best of my ability under any condition. That is still relaxing to me,” he said. “Like I’m still relaxed when I’m cleaning the Cheerio out of the far corner behind the fridge and my wife thinks I’m nuts. That doesn’t bother me. And she’s like, ‘You just need to relax and don’t worry about that.’ And I’m like, ‘No, I don’t want the Cheerio to be stuck in the corner, so we’re going to sweep it up.’ That’s just how I am.

“People observing that from the outside would say that’s not relaxed. But to me on the inside, actually what relaxes me is doing things the right way.”

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(Top photo of Daniels and Kyle Larson celebrating the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series championship: Chris Graythen / Getty Images)

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