I will say, this year's Speedweeks was well worth it. Maybe it's because we wait all winter for a peek of racing, then we get two weeks of the most-exciting edge-of-your-seat racing NASCAR has to offer. (Speedweeks might not be the same if it were held at California or Michigan.) Never mind the surprise stories I spoke of last time, capped off with a rookie winning the Daytona 500 in storybook fashion.
But that was three weeks ago. It's March now, and we're back into the regular season. Gone are the one-off Daytona dreams and big headlines and fantasy stories. Back are, well, the typical tales of an early NASCAR season. Let's take a look.
Trevor Bayne is a Sprint Cup rookie again. No doubt, the biggest story of Speedweeks 2011 was Trevor Bayne. The Tennessean turned 20 the day before the Daytona 500, but caught the press' attention when he not only debuted a fast Ford in qualifying, but drove with savvy and patience in his qualifying race Thursday. In the 500, Bayne ran up front all day, proving he could indeed be trusted in tight traffic. He inherited the lead late and never flinched on the last lap, blocking Carl Edwards and taking his first Sprint Cup victory in his second start.
At Phoenix the following week, brake problems cost him a car in practice, and he wrecked a second car early in the race. The critics noticed.
Of course, everyone wants to be the one who correctly determines if Trevor Bayne is the next Jimmie Johnson or the next Casey Atwood. Somehow, people think we can figure that out from two races. Here's what we know for sure: He is a 20-year-old Sprint Cup rookie. At Daytona, he drove like a veteran and won a hard-fought race, no doubt. But he's still a rookie. He's still driving for a team that, legacy aside, had not won a race since 2001, and only scored three top-ten finishes since 2006. I won't write this one off as a fluke - he was a threat as soon as the Wood Brothers unloaded - but as of now, he's just a member of a club occupied by Richard Brickhouse, Dick Brooks, Ron Bouchard, Greg Sacks, Bobby Hillin, Phil Parsons, and more recently Brad Keselowski.
All won their only career Cup race on a plate track. (Sacks was the only of those to do so at Daytona.)
Trevor showed lots of maturity by turning down opportunities to run for Sprint Cup rookie honors, and has chosen to run full-time in Nationwide while running a limited Cup schedule. We'll see how he matures, and if Jack Roush can prepare a better Cup ride for him for 2012.
A Nationwide driver hasn't won a Nationwide race yet. This year, it was a big deal that Cup drivers wouldn't be able to score points in the Nationwide or Truck series, meaning that the second-tier series will have its first full-season series-only champion since Martin Truex in 2005. Critics pointed out that this didn't limit participation by Cup drivers, of course, and fueled speculation that this year's Nationwide champ could win the title without winning a single race.
Well, Tony Stewart won Daytona again, using a late-race push from Landon Cassill to pass fellow Cup drivers Clint Bowyer and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Kyle Busch led every lap at Phoenix to win. And at Las Vegas, Brad Keselowski's flat tire on the last lap opened the door for Mark Martin, who won a race in which no Nationwide-only drivers led a lap all day.
This coming week is Bristol. Last year, Justin Allgaier won his first career race at the half-mile bullring. It was his only win all year, but more astonishingly, it was the only race won by a Nationwide regular all season. Could Allgaier or another Nationwide regular pull it off again?
The Truck Series isn't looking any better, for now. In the neighboring garage area at Daytona and Phoenix, the Camping World Truck Series had a similar outlook to the Nationwide Series. The Trucks have traditionally had fewer interloping Cup drivers stealing victories, though those who moonlight in the series usually come away with a trophy on race day.
Daytona opened with series regulars James Buescher and Timothy Peters leading the first sixty-seven laps, but Elliott Sadler took over at lap 71 and led until Michael Waltrip stole the lead on the last lap. At Phoenix, Kyle Busch led the last 107 laps to win. This week, the Trucks raced at Darlington, an off-week for the Cup and Nationwide teams. Of course, Kasey Kahne showed up to race in Kyle Busch's truck and won the Darlington race.
At least this trend won't continue on the Truck side, by virtue of the fact that Kyle Busch won't run most of the Truck races. But three races into the big three series' seasons, the only big-three race not won by a Cup "regular" (the semi-retired Waltrip is registered for Cup points) has been the Daytona 500.
There are too many bare fenders out there. The argument that keeps Cup drivers stepping down into the other series (and winning) on Saturdays has two parts. For one, it steps up the competition level of the minor leagues, forcing them to race against a higher level of talent. And second, it draws fans. Fans who can't get a ticket to see Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick on Sunday can see them Saturday for half the price and half the crowd. In theory, this brings more fans to the race who might not have gone to see Jason Leffler and Reed Sorenson fight it out.
But my real issue with the Cup drivers isn't fan attendance or driver talent. It's money. Daytona's starting field contained a lot of cars with blank fenders, the so-called "sponsor-me white" paint scheme. At Phoenix, where only forty cars showed up for 43 starting positions, even more cars were blank. Even Jack Roush was running unsponsored cars, with only partial-season deals in place for Ricky Stenhouse and perennial contender Carl Edwards. And there are still a few teams showing up to "start and park," dropping out after a few laps to collect last-place prize money and go home with an intact car. Add in the fact that this is the first full season for NASCAR's "car of tomorrow" chassis to be implemented in the Nationwide Series, making last year's entire fleet of Nationwide cars obsolete. Some teams showed up at Daytona with only one or two cars built to start the season.
With so many teams scrambling for sponsors, prize money is even more important. But that prize money was cut after last year, when NASCAR announced a twenty-percent reduction in weekend purses for the Nationwide Series. So teams are having to rebuild their entire fleet of race-legal cars, funded with nonexistent sponsors and reduced prize money. And when fully-funded, fully-sponsored cars from Cup teams are winning Nationwide races, that leaves even less money for the series regulars. After three races, Reed Sorenson leads the Nationwide points standings with two top-five finishes and $120,000 in series earnings. Brian Keselowski, who completed 28 laps of the Daytona 500 before being crashed out, took home over $270,000 for his forty-first-place finish.
Interestingly, where in past seasons teams would often start a backup car to fill a short field, the new car introduced this year has left a lot of teams without backup cars to start and park. When Joe Nemechek crashed his primary car at Vegas in practice, he had to race his #97 S&P entry for points, then borrow a car for Kevin Conway to start and park after two grueling laps.
The Truck Series, by contrast, looks pretty healthy early in the season, with a number of new teams coming to play. Three trucks failed to qualify at Darlington, by far the fewest number of DNQs in a Truck race this year. But many of those trucks are still scrambling for sponsors, even those of Kyle Busch and series champions Todd Bodine and Ron Hornaday.
Danica Patrick is apparently a stock car driver now. Last year, after Danica's first three races in a Nationwide Series car, the Joyce Julius numbers suggested that her sponsor, GoDaddy.com, had enjoyed more TV exposure from her mediocre runs by leaps and bounds over the next-closest sponsor, Verizon Wireless (whose driver, Justin Allgaier, had three top-ten finishes to start the season). It's a way of quantifying the judgment that the cameras couldn't get off of Danica last year, no matter how poorly she was running (or, at Daytona, if she was running at all).
This year, ESPN was again quick to keep us abreast of Danica's progress, or lack thereof, throughout the races. I didn't think they went too overboard at Daytona. But after mid-teens finishes at Daytona and Phoenix, Danica survived a fuel-mileage battle to finish fourth at Las Vegas.
The next day, an ESPN article surfaced discussing how Danica's finish wasn't anything resembling luck, and how she has come into her own as a winning stock car driver. Pundits were also fast to mention how it was the first time a woman had finished in the top five in a NASCAR race (incorrect, as Shawna Robinson scored a few victories in the Goody's Dash Series back in the '80s, but apparently the Dash Series doesn't count anymore). It's no secret that Danica's performance thus far has been a disappointment to everyone who thought she might come in and set the series on fire, but to praise her after one top-five finish is like calling Trevor Bayne the next Jimmie Johnson after Daytona.
From everything I've read, Danica was mostly thrown into the driver's seat last year, without a real effort to develop her talents. This year, she has Johnny Benson, Jr. serving as a driver coach, helping her to refine her skills behind the wheel of a stock car. Between that and having a consistent teammate in Aric Almirola, instead of last year's driver-of-the-week rotation in the #88, Danica has looked less lost behind the wheel. It shows in the point standings, too; Danica is fourth headed to Bristol.
Danica is in the #7 car at Bristol, too. We'll see how much she has arrived when she takes to the half-mile.
There has to be a different way to set the early-season fields. Back in 2005, Robby Gordon had a strong run in his Daytona 500 qualifying race, finishing seventh. A year or two before, it would have meant a top-fifteen start in the 500. But that year, the new franchising system had been put in place, and Robby's #7 Chevy was not locked into the field. Instead of racing in the Daytona 500, Robby Gordon failed to qualify.
The old NASCAR provisional system allowed new teams a fair shot at qualifying for a race if they were fast enough, with a few spots at the tail of the field for a regular team that missed the setup or blew an engine in qualifying. Under the current system, where drivers in the top of the owner's standings are guaranteed a starting position, it is more difficult for a non-guaranteed team to qualify for a race at all. There are thirty or thirty-five cars locked into the field, not just seven, so the chance of making the field is slimmer. And as Robby Gordon found out at Daytona in 2005, a driver is equally dependent upon speed and fortune. Two cars ahead of him in his qualifying race were also non-guaranteed starters. If all six were guaranteed starters, he would have made the race.
Late in the season, this is not a huge deal. But early in the year, when new teams are forming, it is a big problem. The first few races of the year, the guaranteed starting positions are established by the previous year's top finishers in the owner's points (top-35 in Cup, top-30 in Nationwide, top-25 in Trucks). Team owners with a multi-car team will often switch their points from one car to another, so a veteran driver can qualify on time (or, preferably, a past-champion's provisional) while the rookie driver has the safety net of owner points. And this results in some interesting dealings in the offseason, as new team owners will name a "silent partner" who had a guaranteed starting position from the previous season, rather than let the points go unused.
So far, the biggest victim of this in 2011 has been James Buescher in the Truck Series. Last year, James' Nationwide Series deal came apart early in the season, and so he and future father-in-law Steve Turner turned their part-time Truck Series plans into a full-season effort. They started their season five races in, but by season's end had emerged as weekly contenders in the Truck Series. James was eleventh in driver points, and Turner Motorsports was fifteenth in the owner's standings.
However, the guaranteed starting positions are only awarded to teams that attempt all the races. So going into 2011, Turner Motorsports' #31 truck was not locked into the starting field. At Phoenix, James Buescher was fast in practice, but he could only muster the 25th-fastest qualifying lap. Unfortunately, there were enough faster trucks that were also not locked in. James Buescher failed to qualify at Phoenix.
Similarly, at Daytona, Rick Crawford turned a lap that was fast enough for 24th on the grid. Eleven of the faster drivers, though, were not locked into the field either. Crawford, Cole Whitt, Tayler Malsam and seven other drivers went home early while a few slower trucks made the field by virtue of their locked-in positions. Malsam was in a similar position to Buescher; his Randy Moss Motorsports team had taken a late-season hiatus, so the missed attempts cost them a guaranteed spot despite being in the top-25 in owner's points.
The aim of the guaranteed positions, much as the original aim of the provisional system was, is to reward teams that have made a full-season effort with a safety net for the occasional blown engine or cut tire on a qualifying lap. I'm all for that, but in the early part of the season, there needs to be a better way to award starting positions so that new teams have the opportunity to break into the sport. It's one thing if a team is consistently slow and fails to qualify. It's another when a team goes home while ten or fifteen slower cars are guaranteed to start.
Some expected contenders are struggling. Every year, one or two of the expected title challengers falls short early in the year. A DNF at Daytona, or a couple early crashes, and the media feels obligated to say that someone's title hopes are over.
On the Cup side, someone mentioned to me that Jimmie Johnson is back in thirteenth in points after Vegas, and hasn't run well yet this season. As usual, that means little; they'll be in form by the Chase. Jeff Burton and Greg Biffle are the bigger surprises, stuck in 31st and 32nd after three weeks. Again, they will be in top-ten form by mid-season. By contrast, Paul Menard is sixth in points overall. I can't imagine him staying there very long.
In Nationwide, the big surprises have been Aric Almirola, running for JR Motorsports, and Elliott Sadler, running for Kevin Harvick, Inc. Aric is seventh in points, Elliott twelfth. The surprise is that neither has scored a top-ten finish yet. Elliott was crashed out early at Daytona, but otherwise, both have just been underwhelming so far, finishing a couple laps off the pace. (Granted, when the pace is set by Kyle Busch, it's a hard act to follow.) Similarly, underfunded Joe Nemechek and Mike Bliss cling to the top ten in points. Kenny Wallace is a pleasant surprise in eighth, with two top-ten finishes this year after not scoring one since 2009. Kenny could hang on for a good year if his team keeps it up.
Matt Crafton leads the Truck standings with three top-ten finishes in three starts this year. Of course, Crafton has one victory in 250 series starts, so he falls under the category of consistent, but not title material yet. Rookie Cole Whitt sits second in points, with two top ten finishes and a strong run at Daytona in a borrowed ride. Contender Brendan Gaughan sits all the way back in 20th, with Travis Kvapil struggling in 26th. It could be worse, though; Kvapil's teammate Tayler Malsam, in Randy Moss' second truck, sits 38th after missing the first two races.
But it's only four weeks into the season. Let's sit back and see what things look like in a few more weeks, when the early surprises wear off and normalcy settles in a bit more.
No comments:
Post a Comment