Johnny Sauter, the driver of the #21 Allegiant Airlines Chevrolet, and his crew chief Joe Shear Jr. celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Bar Harbor 200 presented by Sea Watch International at Dover International Speedway on June 2, 2017, in Dover, Delaware. Photo – Matt Hazlett/Getty Images

After an emotional win in Daytona to start the 2018 season with Johnny Sauter behind the wheel, Joe Shear Jr. was asked if he would trade the experience of working with the veteran Sauter for anything.

“No, I would never do it.”

And that bond and loyalty is evident in the success they have shared. Shear and Sauter have had a long friendship off the track and a strong relationship at the track. The two paired up full-time for the first time starting with the final ten races of 2009. That carried through the 2012 season, as the duo put together six wins over that span.

Shear then worked with a rotating cast of drivers from 2013 until he was put back on Sauter’s pit box for the seventh race of the 2016 season – which proved to be the perfect reunion as they won two races and the Camping World Truck Series championship that season. (Sauter also won the 2016 season-opener at Daytona with then-crew chief Marcus Richmond.)

The two have stayed together since, putting together a career-best season total (for both driver and crew chief) of four wins in 2017 and starting off 2018 in Victory Lane.

Together, Shear and Sauter have visited the upcoming Dover track four times together with a truck (2010, 2011, 2012, 2017) and won in their most recent trip to the Monster Mile. It was the first win at the track for both members of this powerful Camping World Truck Series partnership.