2024 NASCAR

wdwfan4ver

Well-Known Member
Here is my thoughts of NASCAR's young drivers:
Bubba Wallace - he's a good truck series drivers in a average at best cup ride. The fact Aric Almirola has more speed at Stewart-Haas than at Petty speaks about the equipment Petty has. To top it off, Petty moved from Ford to Chevy this year. We all know Chevy has bad equipment with Petty having RCR equipment. Petty right has been affected by depending on trying to be a bunch of companies trying to sponsor a car.

Austin Dillon - he was an overrated prospect going into the cup series. While he was a Truck series championship, how he won the Nationwide series championship was a concern . Austin won the Nationwide series championship without a win and that was caused Roger Penske focusing on the owners championship despite of Sam Hornish Jr going full time back in 2013 in the Nationwide series. Roger Penske had a Nationwide car that had 4 drivers that combined for 13 Nationwide wins that year. He only can win be strategy or plate races.

Sam actually had a win, more top 5's, and more top 10's than Austin Dillon had, but Sam finished 2nd to Penske's other Nationwide car 3 times. I mentioned the amount of 2nd place finishes Sam had to the other time car because Sam lost the Nationwide series championship by 3 points.

Besides the talent level of Austin, Kevin Harvick made RCR better than it was in his final years there. RCR equipment is not good to say the least and Austin is exposed as a driver. Ryan Newman was decent in RCR equipment, but Ryan is not as good as Kevin as a talent.

Ty Dillion - he was overrated as a prospect before going to cup. Austin did better than Ty in the Trucks and in the Nationwide/Xfinity series before going to cup. Ty is with a mid pack organization in Germain Racing, but Germain Racing is having a down year. Germain Racing is had the same garbage RCR equipment as Bubba Wallace and Austin Dillion has.

What makes it worse is they fired their long time crew chief after Ty's Rookie year and Ty is now finishing 4.7 spots per race worse this year as a result. Their long time crew chef carried the organization to top 25 points finishes despite not having great talent behind the wheel. Germain Racing before ty had Casey Mears. Casey was not not exactly a good cup talent and he didn't impressed me as an open wheel driver either.

Chase Elliott - good driver, but he couldn't seal the deal in the cup series. That sounds like how his dad was before his first cup win. His dad finished 2nd 8 times in 115 starts before his first cup win.

What also is hurting him is Hendrick Motorsports is on the decline and how the equipment of Chevy is currently.

William Byron - He's rushed into cup. He might another Joey Logano. William is a good prospect, but he was rushed into cup besides being in a Hendrick Chevy car at a wrong time.

Alex Bowman - he's a solid driver, but has the same problem as his teammates has for equipment.

Chris Buescher - He's been stuck with bad or average through out his cup career including being with JTG Daugherty Racing right now. Front Row Motorsports at the time he was there was considered a bad organization from a equipment standpoint. JTG Daugherty was never a great organization before he went there.

That organization has multiple problems including being a multi car team currently and their cars has the same car sponsor and is hurting resources as a result. The team Chris also is with currently has RCR engines with Hendrick Equipment. That is a bad combination right now. Hendrick is behind right now with Chevy having problems with the new car along with RCR engines being behind for years.
 
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wdwfan4ver

Well-Known Member
Here is more thoughts on young drivers in the cup series:

Kyle Larson - I hope the president of International Motorsports Corp isn't blaming him for Attendance issues. He's doing a great job in cup and is overachieving in Hendrick Chevy equipment. Kyle Larson is the best Chevy Driver and is having a great year. He almost won multiple times this year.

Daniel Suarez - I thought there was too high expectations with him when he went to cup. Daniel is a solid driver, but he does not the upside of Erik Jones. Erik Jones in lower series on NASCAR had more pure speed than Daniel did.

Erik Jones - He is an impressive talent before going to cup, but only problem was harnessing his speed without making a mistake. I don't know what is with the 20 team this year, but it looks like some growing pains by the results.

Ryan Blaney - He's fast to say the least with 463 laps already led this year and has almost as many laps led as his two teammates combined.

Ryan's problem is he can't really close races on the cup level despite having a win last year.
 
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wdwfan4ver

Well-Known Member
Since the first 18 races are completed in the cups series, I'm doing the best, worst and the wildest race of the first half year categories.

I think the best cup race of the year is 2018 Overton's 400. What makes this the best cup race is great battle between Larson and Kyle Busch, good passing in the race, and Areodynamics didn't mean quite as much due to aged surface on a very hot day.

The worst race is 2018 Coca cola 600. If it wasn't for the fact the Indy 500 is on the same day, this race needs to start earlier. The problem is the novelty of 400 laps from daylight to night time transition didn't work for this race at. This is like when Truex won it in 2016.

The wildest race to me is the 2018 coke Zero Sugar 400. Usually it is a plate race unless if it like the 2017 Brickyard 400. I choose the 2018 coke zero sugar 400 since its the least tame of the 3 plate races and the big wrecks started sooner than usually. NASCAR decided to change the plate for the race and the wrecks kept on coming in this race. The only things this race did is one less driver in the all star race open next year and NASCAR's marketing department is happy that a young driver won.
 

wdwfan4ver

Well-Known Member
rumours swirling around of levine racing to switch to Toyotas next year? if this wer to happen it'd probably cost kasey kahne a ride
I heard the same rumor and I'm 100 percent sure Kasey Kahne would be out of a ride. At the same time, there is a rumor going around that Furniture row Racing is not going to be resigned by JGR for support and this is part of the Levine Racing rumor.

What I know about the Toyota rumor with Levine is Joe Gibbs Racing has too many development drivers under contract and JGR wants Christopher Bell in cup as a result.

As far as Furniture Row goes, I have no idea where they would end up if JGR decides not to support them. I'm guessing Ford at this point if they are forced to leave Toyota.
 

wdwfan4ver

Well-Known Member
Wow. They've been working together for 17 years already, and this will extend the agreement through 2020. I'm wondering what the average (in terms of years) is for the other drivers/crew chiefs.
It depends on Ryan Blaney. Ryan ran 3 full seasons, but he ran a cup season with only 16 races in 2015. I'm middle of doing averages, but I expect it to be inflated due to Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano at Penske. The current driver and crew chief working relationship through 17 drivers is 3 and that includes Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano. I expect that average to go down since I haven't done some teams like Front Rowing Racing.

Brad Keslowski has Paul Wolfe for 8 years now. Joey Logano is with Todd Gordon for his 6 year now.

What I can tell you is the average depends on the organization in terms of handling crew chiefs, or there being a driver change.
 
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wdwfan4ver

Well-Known Member
5 Hour energy is leaving the 78 car after this season and can't be in NASCAR next year. What happened was Erik jones was their driver last year, but 5 Hour Energy couldn't follow him to Gibbs due to Monster Energy being the sponsor of the cup series.

The other news is Tony Stewart wants an Xfinity and a cup race at his race track Eldora. Stewart's Race track has been hosting Dirt track races for the truck series for the last 6 years. The race truck has been performing anywhere from solid to great attendance numbers. Tony Stewart does have people that support Stewart for wanting Xfinity and cup races at his track in Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Larson, Xfinity series driver Chase Briscoe, Austin Dillion, Martin Truex Jr., Darrell Wallace Jr., and Xfinity series driver Cole Custer.

The only thing is Eldora is only capable of having the capacity to do 30,000 to 40,000 seats. My big argument is take a look at the attendance at some of cup races lately and the Xfinity series for that matter. If there is any changes for NASCAR schedules though, it can't happen before 2021 due to Brian France giving race tracks guaranteed dates contract that expires after 2020.

The only way for getting one less date at this point is what Speedway Inc. did with New Hampshire Speedway and that is taking a cup date from one of their other tracks and give a 2nd cup date to another track the same company owns.
 

wdwfan4ver

Well-Known Member
The average I got for full time drivers that year is in the 2 range for working with a crew chief. I'm guessing it is a two to 3 range all time between drivers and crew chiefs.
 

wdwfan4ver

Well-Known Member
A name was mentioned for being of the people that are interested in BK Racing's Charter and assets. The person in question is Mike Beam and he's the President of Gallagher Motorsports.

I'm amusing that means Gallagher Motorsports wants to race in the cup series. I'm guessing the driver for Gallagher Motorsports if they get BK racing charter and assets is Spencer Gallagher or Johnny Sauter.

Johnny Sauter did race in cup in the past and is possible that he could be used for building up the team for Spencer Gallagher.
 

MinnieM123

Premium Member
The fans in NH needed to pack their patience with the rain delays today. Race only got underway at 3:50 PM, a few hours late. (They were going to start at 1 PM.) I think this is the only race in NH this season, so I hope the rain is completely over for the day. It's been intermittent throughout parts of New England today.
 

wdwfan4ver

Well-Known Member
Some race teams are going to get fine later this week. 13 cup teams flunked post qualifying inspection. Daniel Suarez became the Pole winner after Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch failed post qualifying inspection.

The 13 teams are Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Clint Bowyer, Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, Aric Almirola, Jimmie Johnson, Paul Menard, Austin Dillon, William Bryon, Darrell Wallace Jr., and Kasey Kahne.

All I know is Kevin Harvick's car failed at Optical Scanning Station according NASCAR and Kyle Busch's car was found was outside tolerances at the chassis station. All I know about those two stations is NASCAR is using scanning technology to inspect the cars.
 
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MinnieM123

Premium Member
Some race teams are going to get fine later this week. 13 cup teams flunked post qualifying inspection. Daniel Suarez became the Pole winner after Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch failed post qualifying inspection.

The 13 teams are Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Clint Bowyer, Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, Aric Almirola, Jimmie Johnson, Paul Menard, Austin Dillon, William Bryon, Darrell Wallace Jr., and Kasey Kahne.

All I know is Kevin Harvick's car failed at Optical Scanning Station according NASCAR and Kyle Busch's car was found was outside tolerances at the chassis station. All I know about those two stations is NASCAR is using scanning technology to inspect the cars.

Jaw drop . . . 13 teams?! :jawdrop: Seriously, I don't get it -- with all the expertise and money behind these cars, how in heck can they fail post qualifying inspection? (Obviously if anything was out of the ordinary for the rules, wouldn't the race car mechanics assume that it would be "caught" upon inspection?)

Or, conversely, is it more a case of the disqualifying issues being so subtle, that they're not things that could always be avoided?
 

wdwfan4ver

Well-Known Member
Holy cow 😮😮😮.
Glad to see By bubba walk away.
When I saw that crash, the first thing I though of is how lucky he is that his crash happened instead of my earlier days as a race fan.

Bubba walking away is a tribute how safety has improved now than it was 15 to 30 years ago. I said 15 years ago because of Jerry Nadeau's career ending Richmond crash in 2003 that had no safer barrier at the time. 15 years ago, Bubba had the possibility of his career ending due to that wreck without a safer barrier. Safer Barriers started to be installed in 2002, but were not installed at every NASCAR track at the time Jerry had his career ending crash.

I've been watching different types of racing since the 1980s and NASCAR since 1993. If Bubba had that crash before Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s death at the 2001 Daytona 500, Bubba would've been dead or injured pretty bad due to Head and neck were not common before Dale Sr's death.
 

wdwfan4ver

Well-Known Member
Jaw drop . . . 13 teams?! :jawdrop: Seriously, I don't get it -- with all the expertise and money behind these cars, how in heck can they fail post qualifying inspection? (Obviously if anything was out of the ordinary for the rules, wouldn't the race car mechanics assume that it would be "caught" upon inspection?)

Or, conversely, is it more a case of the disqualifying issues being so subtle, that they're not things that could always be avoided?
I'm guessing it is the teams pushing the envelope due to them working in the gray area. I read last week that some cup teams were trying to do stuff that the scanning detection can't pick up.

11 out of the 13 teams are big teams and they are pushing the envelope. The 48 team is pretty well known for pushing the envelope for a very long time rather it is qualifying or post race.

The cup team garage is still following two old Richard Petty quotes. The first quote is If you ain't Cheatin, you ain't tryin. The 2nd quote is If you ain't trying to cheat a little, you ain't likely to win much.

What I got out of Pocono Qualifying was NASCAR did not inspect the cars before qualifying and they did the same at an earlier cup race this month. What happened is a lot of teams in the past didn't qualify or barely had time to make qualify lap after having problems in inspection and NASCAR decided to wait to do inspection after qualifying is over instead.
 

wdwfan4ver

Well-Known Member
While yesterday had the highlight of Chase Elliott winning his first cup race, I'm pretty it got overlooked pretty fast due to what NASCAR CEO Brian France made the headlines for.

Brian France last night was arrested in sag Harbor, Long Island New York for DWI and Drug possession and spent the night in jail:facepalm:. Brian France was pulled over after driving through a stop sign and the police found oxycodone, and Brian's blood alcohol content was 2 times the legal limit:jawdrop::facepalm:.

Brian France's Uncle, Jim France is now the intern CEO and Chairman of NASCAR.


I had a rough idea that Brian France had a drug and alcohol problem before this arrest for years. Brian in 2006 was accused of driving at reckless speed and hit a tree with him stumbling out his car by a witness in Daytona. Brian had strange behavior at the NASCAR awards ceremony for the cup driver last December by him appearing to be in a hurry with him not shaking Martin Truex's hand.
 

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