Bob Osborne will be entering his sixth season on top of the pit box for the No. 99 Aflac Racing Team for Roush Fenway Racing in 2010. Bob Osborne has led Carl Edwards to 16 wins, 54 top-five, 83 top-ten finishes, and four poles in the Sprint Cup Series, while being able to make it into the Chase For the Championship four out of five years, with a second place finish in the points standings in 2008.
Bob Osborne and Carl Edwards began working with one another in August of 2004, when Jeff Burton departed and went to Richard Childress Racing. In their first race with one another, the duo recorded a top-ten finish. Osborne has been working himself up the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series ladder since 1997, and finally landed the crew chief position on the No. 99 Fords after being a team engineer at Roush Fenway Racing.
He is a graduate of Penn State University in 1997, with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. It wasn't until late in his junior year at Penn State that he decided to go into racing. While working on a formula SAE project, he became friends with a man who ran the shop where the project car was being built. Cairson Baird a retired, IMSA Driver and crew chief spent time talking to Osborne about racing and pointed Osborne in the direction of NASCAR. For six months he knocked on doors for a job, and finally in January of 1998, he was given the opportunity to work for the No. 96 Sprint Cup team as a tire specialist. He worked for the team for one year. At the end of the 1998 season, the No. 96 team closed down and Osborne went on to work for Jack Roush and Roush Fenway Racing where he has been ever since. Osborne began his tenure at RFR as general R&D data acquisition engineer, he held down the position for two seasons.
Until Jack Roush decided to place an engineer with each of his teams on the Sprint Cup Series. Osborne was placed on the No. 6 team where he spent two seasons as the team engineer for Mark Martin's No. 6. He became the crew chief's right hand man on the pit box for the team.
It wasn't until the 2004 season that he was given the chance to be a crew chief. It came at Darlington in the Spring where he was given the chance to be crew chief for Burton. There were struggling times with Burton, as he decided to leave and go to RCR, however, Osborne began working with a younger talented driver, Carl Edwards in August. The two closed out that year with one top-five and five top-ten finishes in the final 13 races.
The two have been a deciding factor in the Sprint Cup Series ever since. Their most successful season came in 2008 when they won 9 races and finished second in the points standings. |
