We all know that Joe Gibbs Racing has established themselves as the powerhouse of the field at this point in time. We know that Roush-Fenway Racing has come a long way in figuring out this new car and that Hendrick Motorsports seems to have lost the edge that they had on everyone else last year. We’ve analyzed potential contractual signings every which way we could, and still found ourselves locked in a guessing game. Been there, done that, but perhaps one of the stories that we haven’t talked nearly enough about are two teams that are holding out hope of getting a driver into contention for the Chase for the Cup for the first time in their team’s history, and another that hasn’t fielded a Chase contender since 2004.

Once considered one of the top organizations in NASCAR, Yates Racing last visited Victory Lane back in the Fall of 2005 when Dale Jarrett drove the no. 88 car to a win at Talladega and the last time they were able to land a driver inside the top-12 in points was with Elliott Sadler back in ‘04. Since those days, the team has gone through a horrendous rebuilding stage and continue to struggle week in and week out to find primary sponsorship of their cars driven by Travis Kvapil and David Gilliland. Both are highly regarded as “underdogs” every Sunday when the series hits the track, and both have failed to land a top-five finish all season long. Still, they’ve continued to push forward, and have managed to turn a few heads along the way, particularly Kvapil. Coming into the season as a driver that nobody really paid much attention to, Travis admittedly got off to a rather slow start. But, something seems to have clicked within this team ever since a solid run at Phoenix turned sour and he finished 22nd. After that race, Kvapil sat 24th in points, but four finishes of 16th or better in the last six races – highlighted with a 6th place run at Talladega and an 8th place run in Darlington – have now moved Travis up six spots in the standings. He’s now 18th in points and trails 12th place, Tony Stewart, by only 150 points.

Red Bull Racing has been the team that quite a few people have been talking about as of late. With Brian Vickers and AJ Allmendinger behind the wheel for the organization, the team managed to qualify for only 40 races in a combined 72 attempts in their inaugural season in 2007. Coming into the season with both cars outside of the top-35 in points and forced to qualify on time, Allmendinger again missed out on the first three events of ‘08 before being replaced temporarily by veteran driver, Mike Skinner. Despite failing to finish inside of the top-25 in any of the five races that Skinner filled in, the move appears to have paid dividends. AJ has been able to take what he’s learned from Skinner and put it to good use on the track, first winning the All-Star Showdown at Lowe’s to make the cut for the All-Star event itself, and then scoring a career best 12th place finish last week at Pocono. Still, the focus of the media on this team has been placed with Brian Vickers, who appears to be on the verge of scoring the second Cup victory of his career. After a disappointing 2007 that brought him only 1 top-five and 5 top-ten’s, Vickers has been impressive on several occassions this year, though it may not always show up in the results column. He’s been strong on all of the superspeedways, but the team really started to turn heads when they established themselves as one of the dominant cars in the Coca Cola 600 before an equipment failure ended their day. Since then he’s bounced back with a 13th place effort at Dover and finished 2nd last week at Pocono. Brian has now moved up to 17th place overall and trails 12th by a mere 112 points.

Rounding out the list of underdogs making a charge towards the Chase is non-other than Petty Enterprises. Despite the fact that this team has more wins than any other organization in the history of the sport and a slieu of championships from when “the King” himself, Richard Petty, drove the car, the company hasn’t celebrated a win since 1999 when John Andretti won at Martinsville, and the closest they’ve come to a bid for the Chase was an 18th place finish in the standings last year from Bobby LaBonte. Now, nobody’s really sure who will drive the no. 45 car next year as Kyle Petty, Chad McCumbee, and Terry LaBonte have all failed to do much with the ride, but Bobby continues to press forward. Though he’s failed to score a top-ten all season long, he does have seven top-15’s and has gone the entire year without a DNF, something that has hindered the team in recent years. Additionally, he’s got six finishes of 18th or better in the last eight races, which started with a 12th place run at Phoenix, and LaBonte now resides in 19th in the standings, trailing his former Gibbs teammate in 12th by 159 points.

As many of the drivers in the top-12 continue to experience their share of misfortunes as they bounce back and forth between the bubble spots, this could be a prime opportunity for one of these teams to capitalize. But, with the recent emergance of guys like David Ragan, the resurgance of Matt Kenseth, and other perrenial Chase hopefuls such as Ryan Newman and Martin Truex Jr. standing between them as well, the guys currently in the top-12 may not be all they’ll have to contend with.

DYN Imposes:
This week, Do You NASCAR also asks its readers …

1. Which driver in these 3 organizations will be the first to score their first / next win?
2. Are consistent top-15 and top-20 runs going to be enough to land a driver in the Chase field?
3. Which of these teams has made the best organizational move(s) in the last 2 years?
4. Will any of these 3 teams get a driver into the 2008 Chase? If so, who?

*Credit photos to Newscom.

Post from: EveryJoe

3 Teams Under the Radar & On the Move

Image details: Subway Fresh Fit 500 Qualifying served by picapp.com

Thursday night’s Sprint Cup qualifying session contained nothing near the drama that was witnessed last weekend at Texas qualifying, but it did feature “Flyin” Ryan Newman turning in the fastest lap of the evening en route to picking up his 43rd career pole award. His lap of 26.975 seconds earned him his first pole at Phoenix International Raceway since 2004, and is his fourth at the track overall. Newman was also the fastest overall in the first Cup Series practice session earlier in the day.

Elliott Sadler was second quickest, a mere 0.009 seconds slower than Newman, and will start Saturday night’s race on the outside of the front row. Carl Edwards looks to continue riding his hot streak by starting third, and Mark Martin and Kasey Kahne will complete the top-five.

Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, the winners of last year’s Phoenix races, will start the race 7th and 11th respectively in search of the Hendrick organization’s first win of 2008, along with Dale Earnhardt Jr – who will roll of the line in 13th. Series points leader Jeff Burton had a rough day of qualifying, turning in a lap nearly half a second slower than the polesitter’s, and will start from the 39th position. Kevin Harvick, second in the standings, will start 17th.

Dave Blaney, Dario Franchitti, Mike Skinner, Patrick Carpentier, Joe Nemecheck, and Johnny Sauter all successfully qualified based on time, while John Andretti and – for the second week in a row – the no. 45 team (this time driven by Kyle Petty) failed to make the show. Bill Elliott used another Past Champion’s Provisional to get himself in the show.

Starting Grid (from nascar.com):

Post from: EveryJoe

Qualifying: Phoenix

In preparation for making only his second career Cup Series start, Michael McDowell found himself in trouble heading into Turn 1 during his qualifying run. McDowell’s 00 Toyota Camry shot up the race track and smacked hard against the SAFER barrier. The car then turned upside down and proceeded to roll about eight times before finally resetting right-side-up down the backstretch. McDowell was able to walk away from the spill under his own power, but the crash did delay qualifying for 72 minutes while cleanup crews worked their magic to get the track clear.

David Reutimann was forced to qualify this week based on time, and he responded well with a sixth place qualifying effort. Mike Skinner, Patrick Carpentier, John Andretti, Dave Blaney, and Joe Nemecheck all qualified their cars based on speed as well, while Dario Franchitti, Chad McCumbee, and Burney Lamar failed to make the show.

Starting Grid (from nascar.com):

Post from: EveryJoe

Junior Nation Sits on Texas Pole

Richard Childress Racing won the fifth race of the season prior in Bristol prior to the Sprint Cup Series’ off-week, and after last week’s run in Martinsville, they’re now in control of the top two spots in the Sprint Cup points standings. But, that’s not what’s got them in the headlines this week. For a few years now Richard Childress has expressed interest in fielding a fourth race team in the Cup Series, and on Tuesday afternoon, they made that decision final.

In 2009, Childress will add the no. 33 Chevy Impala to their lineup, which already features the 07, 29, and 31 cars driven by Clint Bowyer, Kevin Harvick, and Jeff Burton. About a month ago rumors began to surface that if RCR were to create a fourth team that Bobby LaBonte could be the primary candidate to drive that car for Richard based on their past relationships. LaBonte is currently in the final year of his three-year contract with Petty Enterprises where he drives the no. 43 General Mills Dodge Charger. Tuesday’s announcement from RCR have made things a bit more interesting with LaBonte, because their announcement entailed the fact that they have already signed General Mills as the sponsor of the no. 33 car for next year.

Typically losing a single sponsor may not always seem life-threatening in the case of most teams, especially when you’re talking about a team that’s compiled more Cup Series victories in their tenure than any other race team in NASCAR history, which is exactly where Petty Enterprises sits. Despite their rich history, however, it hasn’t gone unnoticed that the team hasn’t won a race since John Andretti pulled into victory lane back in 1999. That stat – combined with the current situation in which many teams in NASCAR have been experiencing sponsorship woes the last couple of years – could spell trouble with a capital “T” for Petty. The scenario presently facing the team means that they’ll probably have to start looking at sponsors that are less concerned with the on-track statistics that the team puts out there, and more concerned with other things that the Petty group has to offer, mainly surrounding their charitable functions such as the Victory Junction Camp.

Therein lies the problem for Petty. It’s already no big secret that they’re middle-of-the-road in terms of funding, and they’re not fully capable of equipping their drivers with top-of-the-line equipment every week. Now, when you start talking about removing a huge sponsor like General Mills from the equation, and it starts to become about as clear as mud as to why any top tier driver in the sport would want to run under those conditions.

RCR has won six Cup Series Championships – all at the hands of the legendary Dale Earnhardt. Although they haven’t had the head seat at the Awards Banquet table in New York since the passing of “the Intimidator”, they’ve been right there knocking at the door on several occasions. In the past two seasons they’ve won a nine combined races between their three teams, and haven’t had a car finish worse than 17th in those two years, which was Clint Bowyer’s rookie season in ’06. Compare that to Petty’s nine-year winless drought and the fact that LaBonte’s 18th place run last year was the best points finish a Petty car has had in over a decade, and all the sudden the deck really starts becoming stacked against Petty Enterprises. LaBonte is a former series champion himself back in 2000, but his last win came in 2003 with Joe Gibbs Racing, and the veteran driver will turn 44 years old this May. In all reality, he may see this as an opportunity to reignite his career.

Coincidentally, the very same day that we learned of RCR’s signing of General Mills for 2009, Petty Enterprises also announced that Chad McCumbee will replace Kyle Petty behind the wheel of the no. 45 Dodge for this weekend’s Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway. There have been no mentions as to whether this is a one-time deal, or if the team has long-term plans of getting McCumbee some seat time in the Series, but the timing of this announcement strikes me as peculiar. The move could be merely the aftermath of Kyle failing to get his car inside the top-35 in owners points, and then missing the race in Martinsville. The other part of me, however, has a sneaking suspicion that this could be somewhat of an audition for Chad.

McCumbee is a regular to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, where he currently sits 13th in points with two top-ten’s in the four races the series has run this year. He also filled-in for Kyle last season at Pocono when he joined the broadcast team in the booth. My line of thinking here is that with the 45 car already outside of the top-35, then this team really has nothing to lose if McCumbee bombs. The organization as a whole, however, has plenty to gain in McCumbee if he were to run well and LaBonte were to leave Petty following this season.

The three RCR drivers are currently first, second, and twelfth in points with a combined 11 top-ten’s between them in the six races run so far this season. The two Petty Enterprise cars are currently listed twenty-first and fortieth in points with no top-ten’s between them.

DYN Imposes”:
This week, Do You Nascar also asks its readers …

1. Would signing with RCR in 2009 be the right career move for Bobby LaBonte?
2. What can Petty Enterprises do at this point to save their organization?
3. If RCR is unable to sign LaBonte for the no. 33 car, who are some other likely candidates?
4. Where would an RCR lineup that included LaBonte compare to Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Racing?

Post from: EveryJoe

RCR Stealing From the Petty Lot

Not sharing in McMurray’s fortunes were Kyle Petty, John Andretti, Tony Raines, and Joe Nemecheck who all failed to make the race after rolling out of Bristol outside of the top-35 in points. Ken Schrader surprised many fans by having the seventh fastest lap to get himself qualified, and Travis Kvapil continues his search for permanent sponsorship by qualifying fourteenth.  Martinsville favorites Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer, and Ryan Newman will all start Sunday’s race from the 8th to 13th positions (in that order).

Starting Grid (from nascar.com):

Post from: EveryJoe

Martinsville Qualifying Report

What does that mean for us? For the third time this season, Jimmie Johnson will take us to the green flag for the start of the race despite winning only one of those pole positions on actual qualifying time. His teammate at Hendrick Motorsports and good friend Jeff Gordon will start on the outside of the front row. Behind them will be Clint Bowyer and Matt Kenseth based on their finish in the points standings last year. Casey Mears will have an opportunity to turn his season around by starting fifth – a gift handed to him by replacing Kyle Busch in the no. 5 car. In turn, Kyle is forced to start the race all the way back in the 22nd position based on the car owner points that the no. 18 team accrued in 2007.

Past Champions Provisionals were awarded to both Kurt Busch and Dale Jarrett, whom start 36th & 37th. Busch’s team had to rely on the provisional due to the team handing their car owner points over to Sam Hornish at the beginning of the season.  The remaining provisionals were given to Brian Vickers, David Reutimann, Michael Waltrip, Ken Schrader, Joe Nemecheck, and Mike Skinner … the six teams with the most car owner points in 2008 that failed to finish in the top 35 last season.  Of the drivers that were originally found on the entry list for the Sharpie 500, those who failed to make the race were Jeff Green, John Andretti, and Patrick Carpentier.

After a Friday evening full of rain, the Nationwide Series was able to sneak in some practice early Saturday morning, but the rain clouds eventually moved back in, and NASCAR was forced to postpone the Nationwide race itself. The latest word is that they will try and get the race underway sometime around 4:00 pm est, but it’s still uncertain at this point if the weather is going to cooperate. On the bright side, there’s no rain in the forecast for Sunday. It’s projected to be a sunny day with high winds and a high of somewhere around 55 degrees.

Post from: EveryJoe

Bristol Qualifying / Weather Report

Busch turned a fast lap of 29.613 seconds in qualifying to earn himself the Coors Lite Pole Award, just 0.125 seconds faster than last week’s race winner Carl Edwards, who will start on the outside of the front row.

AJ Allmendinger, Johnny Sauter, John Andretti, and Joe Nemecheck all failed to make the race while Mike Skinner, Patrick Carpentier, and Ken Schrader will be racing for the first time this season. Kyle Busch’s teammate Tony Stewart will start the race 25th, but brother Kurt will start 9th. Jimmie Johnson, the defending winner of this race, will out of the gates in 33rd.

Race Lineup (courtesy of nascar.com):

Post from: EveryJoe

Busch Owns the Table in Vegas

First off, I’d like to apologize for getting this week’s “DYN Imposes” topic out a day late. With the extended weekend out in Fontana, I didn’t have much time to prepare anything for Tuesday, and this week’s topic is one that I wanted to give the proper justice rather than rushing it. With everything that’s already happened in NASCAR’s highly anticipated, yet young 2008 season, you’re probably expecting to start reading about Robby Gordon’s penalties incurred from Daytona or the impressive showing from Toyota thus far. Well, you’d be wrong. Quite frankly, I’m tired of having the same ol’ Robby Gordon debate with people that’s been going on for the last week, and Kyle Busch and/or Toyota is/are mentioned in nearly every post or story regardless of where you’re reading. No, this week I want to talk about NASCAR’s system for determining provisionals, because if this season has taught us anything, it’s the severe repercussions that this system can have on our sport.

NASCAR currently uses the system the cars ranked in the top 35 in owner points are guaranteed to start each race, with the remaining slots to be filled via qualifying times. They also incorporate a Past Champion’s provisional, which means if you’re a former Cup Champion, you’re also guaranteed a start in the race if you fail to qualify on time – except that only one driver may use this provisional in a race. For the first five races of the season, the top 35 in owner points is determined from the previous year’s standings, and the only other caveat to the normal rules is for the Daytona 500 where the remaining spots after the use of provisionals is no longer determined by qualifying times, but rather by where the drivers finish in their respective Gatorade Duels after Qualifying. Pretty straight forward, right? (note the sarcasm)

If you’re new to this sport as a fan, trust me, it’s as complicated as it looks. Heck, chances are I may not have even explained it thoroughly and probably left something out. It can be tough to explain, it’s just one of those things that you know after awhile. Well, here’s where it gets really tricky … note the emphasis on the term owner points. These are different that driver points and are used because of situations where teams change drivers throughout the course of the season. This way team owners can still accrue owner points for that particular car. It’s also crucial to teams that hire new drivers in the offseason. For instance, this past offseason Regan Smith, Jeremy Mayfield, Travis Kvapil, and Dario Franchitti – all drivers that were previously not eligible for the top 35 provisionals – moved into cars that were, meaning guaranteed starts for them in the first five races of the year that would have otherwise not been available to them. In an even stranger situation, Penske Racing revived their no. 77 racing team to give rookie Sam Hornish Jr. a ride this season. Typically, Hornish would have begun the season outside of the top 35 in owner points, but Roger Penske convinced NASCAR to allow Kurt Busch to transfer his team’s points over to Hornish’s, thus giving him the coveted provisionals for those five races. The effect on Busch’s team is nil during that period – with the exception that he would begin in the back of the field for races that had qualifying rained out – because he already qualifies for use of the Past Champion’s provisional.

Okay, I know I’ve lost some of you at this point, but try to bear with me because the side-effects of all this that I’m about to lay out for you may help clarify some of this for you … or just add to your confusion. We’ll see. Let’s start with Daytona … Bill Elliott failed to make the race because Kurt Busch had already used the Past Champion’s provisional after failing to finish his Gatorade Duel. Had he not been able to transfer his owner points to Hornish, however, Busch would have still made the race based on the top 35 rule, and Hornish would have raced his way into the race anyway. Elliott finished 16th in his Duel, while Dario Franchitti finished 25th and Jeremy Mayfield finished 20th. Yet, they both made the race because of the top 35 rule. Even worse, though, is for AJ Allmendinger who qualified 19th overall and finished his Duel event in 13th, yet failed to make the race. It’s clear here where the effects of the transfer in owner points can have a huge effect on making these first five races.

Now, let’s forget about the transferring of owner points for a second and just focus on NASCAR’s use of the Gatorade Duels for making the Daytona 500. Had they used normal qualifying procedures for determining the starting grid at Daytona, Bill Elliott would have actually made the race via the champion’s provisional and Boris Said would have made the field from his 9th place qualifying run, whereas John Andretti and Kenny Wallace would have been shutout from the competition.

Well, that’s Daytona. It’s neither here nor there, because it is afterall, only one race. Taking that into consideration, maybe NASCAR’s system works, or at least works well enough to not make a huge fuss over it. But, what if the second event on the schedule gets qualifying rained out? That’s exactly what happened, and now due to a various combination of potential flaws coming together within the sport’s system,  two weeks into the season AJ Allmendinger, Boris Said, and rookie Patrick Carpentier haven’t yet had the opportunity to compete despite outstanding qualifying efforts at Daytona. Meanwhile, Mayfield, Franchitti, and Regan Smith would have failed to make the race at Daytona – whether determined by qualifying or the Duels – yet, each now has two more starts than the previously mentioned three drivers.

The effect of this goes much deeper than just the fact that these drivers did not get to compete in the first to races. It also puts them in a devastating hole that they’ll have to climb out of if they want any shot at regaining enough ground to finish 2008 in the top 35 so that they don’t have to go through this again next year. At the same time, you have the intangible of what it does with these drivers’ relationships with their team owners, and the effects that it has on the owners’ relationships with their sponsors. These simple flaws could see these drivers lose the necessary financial backing that it takes to compete on a competitive level, or even worse, cause them to lose their ride altogether. Am I being a little drastic? Perhaps, but trying telling that to Allmendinger. AJ’s currently in his second year with Toyota at the Cup level, and as horrid as 2007 was for him, he had the most accessible scapegoat known to man in the form of Toyota. This year that group’s got their act together and they’re running well, but we have no idea if Allmendinger can be as competitive as the rest of these guys, and neither does Team Red Bull. The question is, by the time anyone does realize, will it already be too late?

There’s a ton of different scenarios I could play out through the first two weeks regarding NASCAR’s provisional system, but I’ll spare you for confusion’s sake, and also because it really doesn’t matter since in reality it just is what it is. I just think that at this point it’s becoming blatantly obvious that there’s a few guys out there getting the shaft while others are getting free passes that they never earned. Travesty is the only word you need to sum it up.

DYN Imposes:  This week, Do You NASCAR also asks you …

1) Should NASCAR revise their top 35 rule to reflect the top 35 in driver points rather than owner points?
2) Should team owners be able to transfer points from one car to another?
3) Would NASCAR be better off to determine the starting grid for the Daytona 500 based on Qualifying rather than running the Gatorade Duels?
4) Overall, who has been the biggest gainer and the biggest loser so far in 2008 by virtue of NASCAR’s current system?

Post from: EveryJoe

NASCAR’s System Flawed?