There's a lot in a name. When that name is part of a legacy, it opens doors, doors that may not only have been locked, but concealed altogether. We experience it in business, in academics, and of course, in sports. In Super Freakonomics, it was reported that the single biggest factor determining kids who succeeded in becoming Major League Baseball players was having a father who also played in the majors.
Such is the case in motorsports, too. A talented stock car driver faces three limitations: talent, sponsorship, and opportunity. Given enough talent, enough funding, and a ride at the right level, the sky is the limit. But for a kid whose father is already in the sport, especially if that father has had any measure of success, those opportunities tend to come along more readily. A kid racing weekly at Lee USA Speedway, forty-five minutes from my apartment, is not going to be noticed by the big teams down south. He will have to seek out touring-series rides and sponsors to make the jump to the big leagues. By comparison, Chase Elliott is fifteen years old and has a development contract with Hendrick Motorsports, including a ride in the K&N Pro East Series (which, coincidentally, lowered its minimum age to 15 this year). Chase, of course, is the son of a guy named Bill Elliott who has a Winston Cup title and a few wins under his belt.
And so it is in NASCAR, where the surest way to get a big-league ride is to have a grandfather or a father or a brother who had a big-league ride, and had some degree of success. In the early days of the sport, drivers like Richard Petty and Buddy Baker got their first opportunities driving their fathers' hand-me-down cars, proving their talents in the big leagues before rising to national prominence. Later on, a wave of second-generation drivers swept the sport. Some, like Davey Allison and Dale Jarrett, carried on their fathers' winning traditions in the big leagues; others, like Dale Earnhardt and Rusty Wallace, were known for their fathers' success at the local level and dared to dream larger. Of course, having a fast father is no guarantee of success; Rusty's brothers Mike and Kenny never won in Winston Cup, and Rusty's son Steve remains winless after four full seasons in the Nationwide Series.
Perhaps the hardest act to follow, though, is being an Earnhardt. Richard Petty may have more wins than Dale, but Richard's success came in a different era. Petty Enterprises brought superior cars to every race; few teams could afford to keep pace. That's not to suggest Richard Petty lacked talent; he just had the advantage of superior equipment, too. Moreover, most of Richard's success took place off the TV camera. Many fans probably visually remember only two of Richard's wins; one is the 1984 Firecracker 400, and the other is the 1979 Daytona 500, where Richard got very little TV time while Cale Yarborough kept hitting Bobby Allison's fists with his helmet on the backstretch.
Dale Earnhardt, by comparison, was from a different, more competitive era. He had great equipment, but so did Tim Richmond, Rusty Wallace, Davey Allison and Jeff Gordon. Earnhardt knew the limits of his car, and how far he could push the limit before he was out of control. When in control, he was aggressive and tenacious. Ten years after his passing, fans still remember Earnhardt wrecking Terry Labonte at Bristol in 1995 and 1999, or Dale driving from eighteenth to the lead with five laps left at Talladega in 2000, or the famed and incorrectly-named "Pass In The Grass" at The Winston in 1987. Earnhardt took no prisoners and made no apologies.
Despite their successes, the Petty name doesn't carry the same expectation as the Earnhardt name. Kyle Petty's career was but a shadow of his father's, yet he only got some commentary that he was too unfocused to succeed in stock cars. But the Petty name had also become less potent after Richard's retirement, with the #43 only showing flashes of brilliance afterwards. After Adam Petty's tragic death in 2000, the Petty name was just a relic of the past, and narrowly escaped being wiped off the circuit altogether after last season.
By contrast, the Earnhardt name remains strong. Ralph Earnhardt was a force behind the wheel. Dale Earnhardt was a legend behind the wheel. Dale Earnhardt, Inc. was a championship race team with a winning record. Even Dale Earnhardt, Jr., for all the criticism he shoulders, has his share of Busch Series championships and Winston Cup victories, despite the fact that being Dale Earnhardt's son is an impossible act to follow. Dale's other son, Kerry, was not as successful, but prior to Dale's death, he had racked up a fair number of ARCA wins, opening the door to what would be a long list of second-rate rides before he announced his retirement in 2007.
It would be unthinkable to imagine an Earnhardt making the headlines for anything but winning.
And then, there's Jeffrey Earnhardt.
The younger of Kerry's two sons, Jeffrey made his NASCAR touring debut in a family-owned car, driving in the Busch East Series for DEI in 2007 and finishing fifth in points. The next year, he was teamed with Trevor Bayne and Jesus Hernandez as part of a three-car DEI program. Despite similar results, he was pulled from the car two races from the end of the season. Rumors flew that Jeffrey had been benched because his father Kerry, now working as a consultant for DEI, felt he was focused too much on his extracurricular life and too little on working on the car.
Jeffrey made a few Nationwide starts in 2009, then ran a few Truck Series races last year for Rick Ware Racing. During the offseason, Jeffrey was announced as the fulltime driver of RWR's #1 Truck team, with sponsorship from longtime RWR sponsor Fuel Doctor. The team survived the Daytona carnage to open the season with a top-ten finish, putting Jeffrey third in points leaving Daytona. Two top-twenty finishes have left Jeffrey in tenth in points early in the year, far ahead of expected contenders like Brendan Gaughan and Travis Kvapil.
Then, this Tuesday, RWR announced that Earnhardt would not be in the #1 Truck at Martinsville this weekend. The reason? Apparently, teams had reported to owner Rick Ware that Jeffrey and his agent were shopping around for a new ride, discussing bringing along Ware's Fuel Doctor sponsorship. Jeffrey, presumably through his agent, denied the charges, claiming that he had been told the team could no longer run Jeffrey in the #1 without sponsorship, hence he was looking for a new and stable ride.
I admit, I sort of saw it coming. Last year, Fuel Doctor sponsored Ware's #47 truck with Brett Butler behind the wheel. Butler lost the ride mid-season, after being rotated to a second truck, due to "lack of sponsorship." Seeing as Fuel Doctor remained on the truck through the season (and for Jeffrey Earnhardt's starts), I wondered what sort of sponsor RWR was dealing with. Fuel Doctor had also announced sponsorship of Timmy Hill's rookie efforts in an RWR-owned Nationwide car this season. All told, it sounded like RWR was trying to stretch a sponsor dollar between teams, expecting drivers to bring along additional money to secure the ride. And if the RWR truck team needed Jeffrey to bring his own sponsor portfolio along, I could see him losing the ride once the funding fell short.
But at the same time, if the allegations were true and Jeffrey were shopping the sponsorship around to a new team, one has to wonder what sort of agent would think it were a good idea to start with. Especially with the past rumors regarding Jeffrey's work ethic, this seems like a good way to burn a lot of bridges before ever crossing them. That's just basic business.
And never mind that...where else would he go? There are no competitive Truck teams with an open seat, and the only ones with an opening are demanding sponsor dollars, lest they be reduced to start-and-parking. Former series champion Mike Skinner had difficulty landing a ride before the season started; how would Jeffrey Earnhardt fare with no real credentials to flaunt but his name? Not to suggest that RWR is a top team, but at this point in the year, Jeffrey has completed all but two laps and sits ahead of a number of veteran drivers struggling through bad luck. A ride with potential beats a ride that doesn't yet exist.
Interestingly, RWR and Jeffrey released a press briefing Wednesday evening that they have settled their differences, and Earnhardt will drive the RWR truck at Martinsville and beyond while they search for additional sponsorship. Only time will tell how long this will last; scars like that have a way of lingering, and if a better driver became available, I wouldn't be surprised to see Jeffrey on the free-agent list within a couple months.
But then, you have to step back and wonder, if Jeffrey Earnhardt were Jeffrey Key (keep in mind that Kerry only changed his name back to Earnhardt a few years before his father's death) - or if he were a driver by any other name - would he have kept the ride after Tuesday's debacle? Would he have had a shot at the ride at all?
Showing posts with label sponsorship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sponsorship. Show all posts
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Now We Return To Your Regularly Scheduled Season
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.
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.
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