Tyler Allen

Did You Know?

• In September 2010, Allen was chosen for the Richard Petty Driver Search I and finished fifth overall, taking first in Mechanical and Marketing categories.
• While at Venturini Motorsports, Allen led chassis setup and wind tunnel aerodynamic testing as car chief for Brennan Poole's ARCA team, which scored two wins and three poles in 2012.

Early years

Allen's grandfather Robert Allen, known as "Grandpa Bob," began racing on small dirt tracks in California in the 1950s and later won a National Hydroplane Championship in 1983. Allen grew up around small tracks in the Pacific Northwest, where his father Terry and uncles Mike and John raced 1/2 sized stock cars. In 2007, he entered the University of Washington School of Mechanical Engineering and joined the UW Formula SAE team, working on suspension design.

While studying, he started Allen Racing and drove Limited Late Model Stock cars for three years at South Sound Speedway, finishing second in points for the track's championship in his final year. In 2010, he competed at Evergreen Speedway in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series. To fund his racing, Allen worked as a Product Development Engineer at ROMAC Industries, designing and developing a product called the PIRANHA. He left ROMAC at the end of 2010 to move to North Carolina.

Move to North Carolina

Allen relocated to North Carolina to pursue a career in NASCAR and was hired by Richard Petty Driving Experience as a driving instructor. He traveled across the United States driving stock cars at tracks including Charlotte Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway, Daytona Int'l Speedway, Atlanta Motor Speedway, and Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He worked with driver and crew chief Brad Noffsinger, who was lead instructor and head of driver development at the experience, and supported Noffsinger's USAC Ford Focus Carolina Series team.

ARCA Racing Series

In late 2011, Allen began working for Venturini Motorsports as a volunteer shop helper and was soon hired as a shop mechanic, fabricating and building race cars for the 2012 season. He was assigned as car chief to crew chief Billy Venturini, handling chassis setup, pull down rig analysis, simulation, and wind tunnel aerodynamic testing. Promoted to car chief for driver Brennan Poole, the team had a successful ARCA season with two wins, three poles, five top-fives, and 15 top-ten finishes.

NASCAR Nationwide/Xfinity Series

Tyler Allen entered NASCAR in 2012 as a race engineer for RAB Racing, working on the No. 99 car driven by Alex Bowman alongside crew chief Chris Rice. That season, the team recorded two top-five finishes, five top-ten results, and six top-15 finishes. At RAB, Allen honed his chassis setup skills through static and dynamic vehicle testing, using equipment like pull down rigs, an 8-post shaker, an AVCS rig, and wind tunnel testing. He also partnered with Toyota Racing Development to develop pre-season testing strategies, relying on MoTec and PI OSIsoft real-time data capture and analysis.

Later, Matt Lucas replaced Rice as crew chief for James Buescher. In December 2014, Allen joined Joe Gibbs Racing as a race engineer on the No. 54 Xfinity Series car, working with crew chief Chris Gayle and driver Kyle Busch. During the 2015 season, the team won five poles and six races, leading 1,000 laps. In 2016, Allen moved to the No. 18 team, again with Busch, where they captured nine poles, ten wins, and led over 2,000 laps.

Other drivers who piloted the No. 54 and No. 18 in 2015 and 2016 included Boris Said, Bobby Labonte, Denny Hamlin, David Ragan, Owen Kelly, Drew Herring, and Matt Tifft. On December 13, 2023, Joe Gibbs Racing announced Allen’s promotion to crew chief of the Xfinity Series No. 20 car for 2024, primarily driven by John Hunter Nemechek and Aric Almirola. On October 16, 2024, JGR said Allen would crew chief Taylor Gray’s rookie Xfinity season in the No. 54 car in 2025, but on December 2, the team instead announced he would crew chief the No. 54 Cup Series car driven by Ty Gibbs in 2025, with Jason Ratcliff coming out of retirement to handle Gray’s Xfinity entry.