Danny Efland Explained

Daniel Efland (born October 4, 1988) is an American professional stock car racing driver, engineer and crew chief who works for AM Racing as the crew chief of their No. 15 Ford Mustang driven by Harrison Burton in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Efland formerly competed as a driver in USAR Pro Cup, what is now the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and the NASCAR Truck Series. He previously worked as an engineer and interim crew chief for Richard Childress Racing and Petty GMS Motorsports / Legacy Motor Club.

Racing career

From 1999 to 2002, Efland won 7 state championships as well as 5 National World Karting Association championships. Moving on to the Pro 4 Mod class at Florence Motor Speedway in 2002, he won the track championship as well as rookie of the year honors.^[1] He won his first late model race in 2005, and went on to win 8 more races in 2006.

In 2007, Efland made his Busch Series debut at New Hampshire International Speedway. Driving the No. 01 Chevrolet for JD Motorsports, he started 36th and finished 40th after retiring due to handling problems. He ran two more races that season and failed to finish either of them. In 2008, he returned to JD and competed in 18 races. Success was hard to find and he only managed a best finish of 23rd at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Efland made two start and park efforts for Corrie Stott Racing in the Camping World Truck Series in 2009, finishing 33rd and 31st. Efland returned to the Nationwide Series to run a limited schedule in 2010 and 2011, scoring a best career finish of 16th at Darlington Raceway.

Efland ran a partial Nationwide Series schedule in 2012 in the No. 4 Chevrolet for JD Motorsports.^[2] His best finishes came both Daytona races in 13th position. He also picked up a strong finish at Talladega in 16th and a 14th-place finish at Kansas in October.

It was announced on January 21, 2013 that Efland would return to the No. 4 JD Motorsports Chevrolet in 27 of the 33 races for the 2013 NASCAR Nationwide Series season,^[3] but he was released from the team in late March. He would run part-time for Mike Harmon Racing and later MAKE Motorsports for the rest of the year. Efland also returned to the Truck Series at Kansas Speedway, driving the No. 6 for Eddie Sharp Racing.^[4] This ended up being his last year driving in NASCAR.

In March 2014, Efland joined Richard Childress Racing, working as an engineer for the team's No. 33 Chevrolet in the Nationwide Series. In 2016, he would get to serve as interim crew chief for the No. 3 car driven by Ty Dillon in 2 races.

In 2022, Efland worked for Petty GMS Motorsports as the engineer for the No. 43 car driven by Erik Jones. In the race at Pocono, Efland served as the interim crew chief for the team after crew chief Dave Elenz was suspended for the race due to a rocker box assembly violation.^[5] Efland would continue with the team, now Legacy Motor Club after Jimmie Johnson became a co-owner of the team, in 2023 as the engineer for Jones and the No. 43 car in 2023 and would serve as the car's interim crew chief at the Chicago Street Course when Dave Elenz served the second race of a two-race suspension.

On October 2, 2024, it was announced that Efland would be the crew chief of the No. 15 AM Racing car in the Xfinity Series in 2025 driven by Harrison Burton. This will be his first permanent crew chief job after having previously served as an interim crew chief with RCR and Petty GMS/LMC.^[6]

Personal life

Efland graduated with honors from Dutch Fork High School and graduated from the University of South Carolina with a degree in engineering.

Motorsports career results

NASCAR

(key) (

Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)

Nationwide Series

NASCAR Nationwide Series results
Year	Team	No.	Make	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35		Pts	Ref
2007	D.D.L. Motorsports	01	Chevy	DAY	CAL	MXC	LVS	ATL	BRI	NSH	TEX	PHO	TAL	RCH	DAR	CLT	DOV	NSH	KEN	MLW DNQ	NHA 40	DAY	CHI	GTY 43	IRP	CGV	GLN	MCH	BRI	CAL	RCH	DOV 36	KAN	CLT	MEM	TEX	PHO	HOM	122nd	132	[7]
2008	JD Motorsports	0		DAY	CAL	LVS	ATL	BRI	NSH 37	TEX	PHO	MXC	TAL	RCH 41	DAR 35	CLT 43	DOV	NSH 39	KEN 42	MLW	NHA	DAY															PHO DNQ		43rd	1152	[8]
		01																					CHI 33	GTY 38	IRP 31	CGV	GLN	MCH 28	BRI 30	CAL 27	RCH 37	DOV 26	KAN 26	CLT 23	MEM	TEX 33		HOM 25
2010	Corrie Stott Racing	02	Chevy	DAY 21																																			63rd	628	[9]
	Danny Efland Racing	07	Chevy		CAL 41	LVS 23	BRI	NSH	PHO	TEX 38	TAL	RCH	DAR 26	DOV	CLT 31	NSH	KEN	ROA	NHA	DAY 33	CHI	GTY	IRP	IOW	GLN	MCH 41	BRI	CGV	ATL	RCH DNQ	DOV	KAN	CAL 39	CLT	GTY	TEX 41	PHO	HOM
2011	Jimmy Means Racing	52	Chevy	DAY	PHO	LVS	BRI	CAL	TEX	TAL 21	NSH	RCH																											34th	144	[10]
	Go Green Racing	39	Ford										DAR 16	DOV 23	IOW	CLT 19	CHI	MCH 33	ROA				NSH 26	IRP	IOW	GLN	CGV	BRI	ATL	RCH	CHI	DOV	KAN	CLT	TEX	PHO	HOM
	Danny Efland Racing	07	Chevy																	DAY 30
	Key Motorsports	47	Chevy																		KEN DNQ
	Go Green Racing	04	Ford																			NHA 40
2012	JD Motorsports	4	Chevy	DAY 13	PHO	LVS	BRI	CAL	TEX 31	RCH	TAL 16	DAR 20	IOW	CLT 35	DOV	MCH 27	ROA	KEN 34	DAY 13	NHA 29	CHI 32	IND	IOW	GLN	CGV	BRI	ATL 19	RCH	CHI 27	KEN 30		CLT 31	KAN 14	TEX 28	PHO	HOM 31			21st	327	[11]
	Randy Hill Racing	08	Ford																												DOV 35
2013	JD Motorsports	4	Chevy	DAY 25	PHO	LVS	BRI DNQ	CAL	TEX	RCH	TAL																												50th	78	[12]
	Mike Harmon Racing	74	Chevy									DAR 27	CLT	DOV 27	IOW	MCH	ROA	KEN	DAY	NHA	CHI	IND
	MAKE Motorsports	50	Chevy																				IOW 34	GLN	MOH	BRI	ATL 35	RCH DNQ	CHI	KEN DNQ	DOV 39	KAN	CLT DNQ	TEX	PHO	HOM

Camping World Truck Series

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series results
Year	Team	No.	Make	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25		Pts	Ref
2009	Corrie Stott Racing	02	Chevy	DAY	CAL	ATL	MAR	KAN	CLT	DOV	TEX	MCH	MLW	MEM	KEN	IRP	NSH 33	BRI	CHI	IOW	GTW	NHA	LVS 31	MAR	TAL	TEX	PHO	HOM	115th	0	[13]
2013	MAKE Motorsports	6	Chevy	DAY	MAR	CAR	KAN 28																						102nd	01	[14]
		50						CLT 20	DOV 33						MCH 33	BRI	MSP	IOW	CHI 33	LVS	TAL DNQ	MAR	TEX	PHO	HOM
		84								TEX 31	KEN 33	IOW 33	ELD	POC

Season still in progress
Ineligible for series points

Notes and References

1. Web site: Danny Efland Biography . 2010-03-19 . 2010-05-22 . https://web.archive.org/web/20100522122504/http://www.dannyefland.com/pages/bio.htm . dead .
2. Web site: JD Motorsports To Field Second Series Team In 2012. February 8, 2012. SPEEDtv.com. Fox Sports. 2012-02-09. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20120211001628/http://nascar.speedtv.com/article/nns-jd-motorsports-to-field-second-series-team-in-2012/. February 11, 2012.
3. News: Danny Efland Returns to JD Motorsports for 2013 NNS Season . January 21, 2013 . Danny Efland Press Release . Catchfence . 2013-01-21.
4. Web site: Danny Efland Picks Up New Sponsor For Eddie Sharp Racing / MAKE Motorsports Entry At Kansas Speedway. April 19, 2013. Catchfence.com. 2013-04-19.
5. Web site: NASCAR hits Nos. 42 and 43 Cup cars with L1-level penalties at Pocono Raceway . NASCAR.com . NASCAR Digital Media, LLC . July 23, 2022 . July 24, 2022.
6. Web site: Toby . Christie . Danny Efland, Former NASCAR Driver, to Serve as Crew Chief for AM Racing, Harrison Burton in 2025 . TobyChristie.com . October 2, 2024 . October 12, 2024.
7. Web site: Danny Efland – 2007 NASCAR Busch Series Results. Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. April 7, 2023.
8. Web site: Danny Efland – 2008 NASCAR Nationwide Series Results. Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. April 7, 2023.
9. Web site: Danny Efland – 2010 NASCAR Nationwide Series Results. Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. April 7, 2023.
10. Web site: Danny Efland – 2011 NASCAR Nationwide Series Results. Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. April 7, 2023.
11. Web site: Danny Efland – 2012 NASCAR Nationwide Series Results. Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. April 7, 2023.
12. Web site: Danny Efland – 2013 NASCAR Nationwide Series Results. Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. April 7, 2023.
13. Web site: Danny Efland – 2009 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Results. Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. April 7, 2023.
14. Web site: Danny Efland – 2013 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Results. Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. April 7, 2023.