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While a blunder with tires on pit-road during the second stage of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship finale at Homestead might have cost Truex the championship — teammate Kyle Busch was victorious — the devastating defeat apparently did not factor into Pearn’s exit. By all accounts, his team was caught off-guard by Pearn’s decision to walk away.

“I was nervous about … keeping it a secret, and also having to tell everybody and see how it was received. I’m really passionate about my team and I didn’t want to let them down and that was really bothering me in a way,” said Pearn, who was considered to be NASCAR’s best active crew chief during his career. “But they were all super supportive and that helped for sure. A lot of the positive messages and phone calls I’ve gotten over the past couple of weeks have just put my mind at ease that we’re hopefully making the right decision. I know it’s what we needed to do. I’m sure there’s going to be things I’m going to miss, but at the same time it would have been hard to keep going.

“I’m definitely at peace a little bit in some regard.”

That Pearn is leaving on a relative high note is something that’s not lost on the University of Waterloo engineering graduate.

“Not many times do you get the opportunity to do that, to leave when you’re at the height of your success. I guess it’s nicer than having them kick you out or that side of things, so I think from my position, not many crew chiefs do that,” he said. “I guess it was just the way it played out. We were ready to go on to do the next chapter and I’m happy in the fact that I didn’t let it deteriorate. I was able to give it my full effort all the way to the end.”