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BRISTOL, Tenn. -- The decision, Clint Bowyer admits, was "a shocker,'' but not as much as what he's done since.

Although Bowyer finished in the top five in points each of the past two years, car owner Richard Childress moved Bowyer to the organization's newest team before this year. Childress, though, did not move Bowyer's crew with him. Thus, Bowyer entered this season with a new crew chief, Shane Wilson, and new crew members.

Such changes can hold teams back early in the season. Driver-crew chief communication is critical. If a crew chief can't relate to what the driver is saying about the car, it can't be fixed. Typically, it takes time for the two to perfect their communication. Test sessions often help speed that process, but when NASCAR announced it would restrict testing for this season, teams that made crew-chief changes seemed to be in trouble.

Funny how things work. Bowyer ranks second in the points heading into today's Sprint Cup race at Bristol Motor Speedway. He's one of five drivers in the top 12 who have never worked with their crew chief in Cup races, a group that includes Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart, Brian Vickers and David Reutimann.

They've combined talent and some luck into a fast start but many challenges remain and whether those pairings are the right moves won't be determined until later this year.

Even with his early success, Bowyer says it hasn't been as easy as it seems.

"Practice sessions &ellipses; have been a little bit of chaos,'' Bowyer says of learning to work with Wilson, who won a Nationwide title as Kevin Harvick's crew chief in 2006. "That's just because we haven't been able to get to know each other, get to know what we like in one another and what I like in a race car.

"If you watch us, we don't start the race off very good, but by the end we get it right.''

Bowyer has gained spots in the second half of a race in three of the first four races this season.

One simple technique to learn more about a driver is to watch their facial expressions.

Darian Grubb does that when he discusses the car's performance with Stewart. It's one thing to hear a driver say his car is ill-handling and another to see his reaction when he says that.

"We're learning each other now, so everything is a clean sheet of paper,'' Grubb says. "Everything everybody says is right until you get to where you have some arguments and you have some things go wrong and you're not finding the answers.''

That, Grubb admits, will be the true test for any new driver-crew chief combination.

Such communication remains challenging even for the best. Jimmie Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus are viewed as the model in driver-crew chief relations with three consecutive series titles, but Johnson admits even they don't always get it right.

Johnson, who has struggled at Bristol, said that he recently spent extra time with Knaus and the team's engineer going over the track and what his car does at each portion. They discovered that they didn't view the corners the same way.

"We weren't talking the same part of the turn and maybe that's what has hurt us here,'' Johnson says.

The difficult thing is that there's no cure-all.

"Every person is different,'' Vickers says. "How much friction is healthy in a marriage and how much is not, you look at it like that.

"Some couples never fight, some couples fight all the time and both have been married for 60 years. It depends on the individuals. You have to be honest. And when you're honest, then usually there's going to be a little bit of friction. I don't know what the right combination is. Hopefully what Ryan (Pemberton) and I have will be it.''

Contact Dustin Long at 373-7062 or dustin.long@news-record.com