Hey race fans!
We are just two short weeks from seeing some on track action with the Sprint Unlimited....Can we please get a better name for that? It sounds more like a phone plan than an auto race. Anyway, the Cup cars haven't even hit the track yet, but already the Ganassi boys are building up some momentum.
Kyle Larson is 3 for 3 in 2015. Three wins in three different types of cars! He won in a sprint car (not to be confused with Sprint Cup) in Yuma, Az, a midget in Tulsa, Ok, and a Daytona Prototype sports car at the Rolex 24 hours of Daytona. Watch out for him in the Unlimited.
Oh, and Larson's teammate, Jamie McMurray, was also a part of that Rolex 24 win, making him just the 3rd driver to ever win the 24 Hours of Daytona and the Daytona 500. A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti are the other two. Pretty good company for the Mac Attack. Not only that, but Jamie is the only driver to have won the Rolex 24, Daytona 500, Coke 600, and Brickyard 400. Chip better work on getting him into an Indy Car because he knows how to win the big races. Until then I guess he can just focus on winning the Southern 500 this fall.
Now let's take a look at the big story lines heading into the 2015 season....
The End of an Era
Earlier this week Jeff Gordon announced that he will be retiring stepping away from racing at the end of this season. Gordon's 92 wins is 3rd all-time behind Richard Petty (200) and David Pearson (105) and his 4 championships is 4th all-time behind Petty (7), Dale Earnhardt (7), and Jimmie Johnson (6). The announcement of him stepping away wasn't so surprising as much as the timing behind it. Jeff is coming off his best season in years! He won 4 times, the most wins he's had in a season since 2007 when he won 6, and he was the points leader after 20 of the 36 races last season. If it wasn't for the late race incident with Brad Keselowski at Texas we could be talking about him coming off his 5th championship! He did lead the most laps at Homestead, just sayin'. That being said, Gordon has to still be considered one of the favorites to win the Cup this year. If he does he will be just the 2nd driver in Nascar history to walk away from full-time racing immediately after winning the championship. Ned Jarrett did it back in 1965.
Repeat?
We just got done talking about the 24, but could this year be #2 for #4? Kevin Harvick, even though he didn't always have the finishes to prove it, was arguably the most dominant driver in the sport last year and it paid off with his first championship. What are the odds he can back it up with another? Since the inception of the Chase in 2004 only one driver has won back-to-back titles, Jimmie Johnson, and we all know he won five straight (2006-2010). Before that, the last time someone won consecutive championships was Jeff Gordon in 1997-98. History sure isn't playing into Harvick's favor, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.
Let's Try This Again
When Dale Earnhardt won his 6th championship in 1993 it didn't take him long to tie Richard Petty and win his 7th. He did it the next season. Well, Jimmie Johnson couldn't quite pull that one off, but it's a new season for the 6-time champ and he will have his second go at tying the record. Jimmie shouldn't be too down about not picking up number seven last year, after all, it took Richard 4 years after his 6th to win his 7th. All I can say is that Jimmie has to be a whole heck of a lot better than last year if he wants to get it done.
Who's Next?
Forget about one driver winning back-to-back titles! We haven't seen back-to-back first time champions since '03 and '04 when Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch (Then teammates at Roush Racing) picked up their first (and so far only) championships. So let's take a look at who has the best chance of ending that drought this year.
Denny Hamlin didn't have the best of season's last year, but he did get hot at the right time with 7 top 10's in the Chase and finished 3rd in points. He finished 2nd in points to Jimmie Johnson in 2010 and might be one of the favorites to pull it off this year. The question is chemistry. Can he really cope with Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards as teammates? I give him a 3% chance.
Joey Logano is coming off his best season of his career. 5 wins (first time winning multiple races in a season) and finished 4th in points. Joey is going to win a championship at some point in his career, I'm just not sure if it'll be this year. I'll give him an 11% chance.
Kyle Busch had a bit of an off year last year with only one win. Busch can win races, there's no doubt about that. His issue is consistency. He's won 29 races in his ten seasons in Cup, but has never finished better than 4th in points. And like I mentioned just a second ago, there are a lot of egos over at Joe Gibbs Racing right now. Not sure how that will work out. I say a 7% chance Kyle wins it all this year.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. is also coming off a career year. His 4 wins was the most he's had in a season since he won 6 in 2004. In fact he hadn't won multiple races in a season since 2004. Which leads me to....
Can Dale Jr. Replicate His 2014 Success?
Junior has had two really good seasons with Steve Letarte as crew chief. But Letarte is gone having given up the pit box for the press box. So who's Jr.'s new crew chief? The one and only Greg Ives! Don't know him? Well, let's just say he knows how to win championships, or at least a championship. Greg was the one calling the shots for Chase Elliott on his championship run in the Nationwide (now Xfinity) series last year. So the big question is can Jr. and Ives put together the same success that he and Letarte had last season? I think so, and I give them a 12% chance of winning it all!
Bouncing Back
In 2013 Matt Kenseth nearly stole the show winning seven races and finishing 2nd in points to Jimmie Johnson. He was a heavy favorite to win the championship in 2014, but was an utter disappointment failing to go to victory lane and coming up 7th in points. Will this year be a bounce back year for Kenseth? Or are we starting to see the decline of a former champ? I'm thinking bounce back. If he should win the championship this year, he will tie Terry Labonte for the longest span between championships, 12 years. Terry won the Cup in 1984 and 1996. Kenseth won the Cup in 2003.
Another driver looking to bounce back is Brian Vickers. Brian had heart surgery this offseason and will miss the first two races of the season while he recovers. Nascar has given him a pass and he will still be eligible for the Chase should he win. But a win will pretty much be mandatory for him to make it. I don't see anyway he could make it on points after missing two races.
Familiar Faces in New Places
As is the case with any offseason we saw some drivers shuffle around to new teams. Let's do a quick breakdown of the movements over the last few months.
Carl Edwards left Roush Fenway Racing to join Joe Gibbs Racing in a 4th car. As noted earlier Matt Kenseth made this same move with much success just two years ago. No doubt Carl is hoping for that same sort of success. Carl has had 2 wins in each of the past two seasons but finished a disappointing 13th and 9th in points respectively. One big glaring issue, though, is the (poor) relationship between he and former/new teammate Matt Kenseth. There is much speculation that Carl Edwards was the reason Kenseth left Roush in the first place. In their last season as teammates, Edwards was winless, missed the Chase, and finished 15th in points. It is at this point his worst season in his ten year career.
2011 Daytona 500 winner, Trevor Bayne, who has been driving part-time for the Wood Brothers for the past 4 years is finally getting his shot in a full-time Cup ride. Bayne will takeover for the departing Edwards and pilot the iconic number 6 for Roush Fenway Racing with Edwards's former crew chief Bob Osborne. Aside from the big win at Daytona, Bayne has 2 Xfinity Series wins and finished 2nd in points twice.
Marcos Ambrose has left the Sprint Cup Series to return home to Australia and race V8 Supercars for Roger Penske. Sam Hornish Jr. will take his place behind the wheel of the #9 for Richard Petty Motorsports. This is Sam's second go around in a full-time Cup ride. The three time Indy Car champ made the switch to Nascar in 2008 driving for Penske. After a dismal rookie season with just 3 top 20's and a best finish of 13th, Hornish came back and picked up 7 top 10's in 2009 with a best finish of 4th. Big things were expected in 2010, but with only one top 10 he lost his Cup ride when Penske cut back to just two teams. Sam still ran part-time for "The Captain" in the Xfinity Series in 2011 and even picked up his first Nascar win at Phoenix. He picked up a full time ride in Nascar's number two series in 2012, was called up to Cup when A.J. Allmendinger was suspended, and picked up a 5th place finish at Watkins Glen. In 2013, Sam won another Xfinity race and finished 2nd in points, but when they were unable to find sponsorship during the offseason, he again lost his ride. Joe Gibbs eventually put him in an Xfinity car for 8 races where he picked up another win and 4 top 5's. Hornish has had plenty of opportunities to go back to Indy Car, but his determination to succeed in Nascar has kept him from doing so. Hopefully that determination pays off for him.
Recently most of the new Cup teams search for a young talented driver to help them get off the ground. The problem with this is that most of these drivers are relatively inexperienced and struggle and often times find themselves in trouble on the track. Well, The Motorsports Group (A new team in 2015) decided to go a different route and get a seasoned veteran to pilot their #30...Ron Hornaday Jr. Hornaday rocked the Winston West series in 1994 with 4 wins and won 6 races in the inaugural season of the Truck Series in 1995. He won his first Truck championship in 1996 and his second in 1998. In 2000, at the age of 42, Ron became a rookie in the Xfinity series winning twice and finishing 5th in points. He got his first shot at full-time Cup racing in 2001 driving for A.J. Foyt. He missed 4 races, had only one top 10, finished 38th in points, and was replaced the following season. After sitting out the 2002 season, Hornaday returned to the Xfinity Series in 2003 driving for RCR. In two seasons he won two more races in finished 3rd and 4th in points. He went back to the Truck Series in 2005 driving for Kevin Harvick Inc. and won two more championships. KHI closed shop after the 2011 season leaving Ron without a ride again. He drove for 3 different teams over the next 3 years. Last season he found himself 4th in points coming off back-to-back top 5's with just nine races left when a legal battle between co-owners Harry Scott and Steve Turner caused them to shut down Ron's truck . The 57 year old will not be competitive this year, but he will most certainly keep the car clean and out of trouble for this new up and coming team.
A few other minor moves amongst the smaller teams. Michael Annett has left Tommy Baldwin racing and taken sponsor Pilot/Flying J over to HScott Motorsports to form a 2nd team with Justin Allgaier as a teammate. Alex Bowman has left BK Racing to take over for Annett at TBR. Cole Whitt has also left BK Racing to drive a 3rd car for Front Row Motorsports with teammates David Ragan and David Gilliland. JJ Yeley, who filled in part-time for BK racing after the departure of Ryan Truex last year, has been named a full-time driver for the team this year.
Who Will Win First?
Several drivers are still looking for their first career win. So who will be the first to get win #1?
Most likely it will be Kyle Larson. He finished 2nd three times last year en route to winning Rookie of the Year, including twice in the last 8 races. If Kyle doesn't win in the first 16 races, however, Sam Hornish might very well be the one to do it at Sonoma. Will it even take that long? Ricky Stenhouse finished 2nd at Bristol last year and had top 10's in three of the four restrictor plate races. Austin Dillon had 4 top 10's last year including both Daytona races. Danica Patrick has 4 career top 10's and two of them are at Daytona. Possible upset?
Will it even be a full-time driver? It only took Chase Elliott 6 races to win in both the Truck and Xfinity Series. He's only scheduled to run 5 races this year though, so maybe we'll look for him to win the 2016 Daytona 500 when he takes over for Jeff Gordon.
How about Ryan Blaney? He won in just his 3rd Truck start and it only took him 15 races to win in the Xfinity Series. He's currently slated to drive in 18 races this year. Hmmm.....
Bold Predictions
Earlier this week Felix Sabates (Co-Owner of Chip Ganassi Racing) boldly predicted that both of his drivers would make the Chase. Well you know what? I AGREE! Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson will both make the Chase for the first time in their careers.
Kevin Harvick will win more races than any other driver.
There will be 14 winners in the first 26 races, leaving two Chase spots based on points.
There will be two first time winners. Kyle Larson and Ricky Stenhouse.
There will be one surprise winner. (Like David Gilliland, Casey Mears, Danica Patrick, or Landon Cassill at one of the Superspeedways)
And the biggest prediction of all......For the first time in his career, Jimmie Johnson will FAIL TO MAKE THE CHASE!
The Chase Field
The 16 drivers to make the Chase will be: Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Brad Keselowski, Kyle Larson, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Ryan Newman, Carl Edwards, Clint Bowyer, Denny Hamlin, Ricky Stenhouse, Casey Mears, Jamie McMurray, and Greg Biffle.
First four out: Casey Mears, Ricky Stenhouse, Greg Biffle, and Carl Edwards.
Elite 8: Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth, Joey Logano, Jeff Gordon, Ryan Newman, Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Kyle Larson. (Denny Hamlin, Clint Bowyer, Jamie McMurray, and Brad Keselowski eliminated.)
Final Four: Joey Logano, Matt Kenseth, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Kevin Harvick.
And finally, the moment you've all been waiting for. The 2015 Nascar Sprint Cup Champion will be....................................
Matt Kenseth!
Told you he'd bounce back. Stay tuned for information on a new fantasy racing competition. Until then. Happy Racin' Y'all!
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