Beam named crew chief for RCR's AOL team.

Veteran crew chief Mike Beam will be calling the shots in 2003 for Jeff Green and Richard Childress Racing's [RCR] No. 30 America Online team.

Todd Berrier, the team's crew chief for the 2002 season and its eight-race schedule in 2001, will stay on at RCR to oversee its research and development program.

Beam's career as a crew chief began in 1981 with Kyle Petty. Since then, he's worked with many notable drivers, including Richard Petty, Michael Waltrip, Bill Elliott, Sterling Marlin, Elliott Sadler and for the past two seasons with Ricky Craven. Beam has three victories [two with Elliott and one with Craven], 16 poles, 55 top-five and 153 top-10 finishes. He also has six top-10 finishes in the season point standings.

"I'm very excited about bringing Mike Beam to Richard Childress Racing," said Richard Childress, president and CEO of RCR. "He brings a great depth of experience to the America Online team and Jeff Green and I'm impressed with his ability to run a race team.

"Moving Todd into our R&D program will help all of our teams. Todd's focus will be on the Winston Cup teams but he's a championship-winning Busch Series crew chief so his knowledge and skill will benefit those teams, as well."

The AOL team was RCR's most consistent team throughout the 2002 season. In his first full Winston Cup season, Green finished 17th in the point standings with four top-five and six top-10 finishes, including a career-best second July 21 at New Hampshire International Speedway.

"I'm really looking forward to the opportunity," said Beam. "RCR has all of the resources anyone could ask for and I'm just honoured to have a job here. Richard and I have talked about getting together for about 10 years so I'm glad that it has finally happened. It's been a while since I've worked for a multi-car team so I'm amazed at all of the people that work at RCR."

Beam, a native of Hickory, N.C., resides there with his wife, Nancy, and daughters Erin, Emily and Sara.