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The Top Five: Breaking down the Kansas race

Five thoughts after Saturday night’s race at Kansas Speedway…

1. For the love of the game

There are few things in NASCAR more boring than when one driver dominates a bunch of races (or championships). It typically sucks all the oxygen out of the sport, because it suddenly feels predictable — and predictability often equals a lack of excitement.

But Kevin Harvick’s crazy start to the 2018 season feels different. It’s more of the holy-crap-that’s-amazing dominance than the oh-geez-not-this-again snoozefest.

Five wins in the first 12 races of the season. In-SANE! Harvick has already tied his career high for wins in a season and is on pace to become the first driver since Jimmie Johnson in 2007 to reach double digit wins.

Look, we’ve seen teams come out and kick butt for a season in recent years — Martin Truex Jr. last year and Harvick in 2014 come to mind.

But winning at this rate? It’s been a long time since we’ve seen anything like this, and Harvick knows he’s in the midst of something very special.

Like everyone else, he’s curious to see how far it can go.

“Now it feels like a game,” he said. “You want to see how many races you can win. You want to see how many laps you can lead. We know that we’re riding a momentum wave that is hard to come by, and you need to capitalize on it as many times as you can — because it may never come again.”

I wasn’t around for Jeff Gordon’s 13-win season in 1998, but I’m guessing what Harvick and Rodney Childers are doing is shaping up to be the closest thing. Harvick said the feeling is “addicting” and it feels like Homestead in terms of the level of focus each week.

“It’s something that you may never do again in your career,” Childers said. “… The reason we all are here is because of watching people like Jeff Gordon and Ray Evernham win 12 races a year, and that’s what your goal should be no matter what race team you are.”

Can they get there? It’s intriguing to consider the possibility, and it’s starting to make me actually look forward to watching this kind of dominance rather than dreading it.

2. Larson the beast

Kyle Larson has still never won a 1.5-mile track race, but he sure looked on his way to doing it at Kansas.

Even though he didn’t win, that performance might have been the best NASCAR race of Larson’s career. He ripped around the high line more effectively than anyone and executed it to perfection, clearly elevating his car to another level.

In a race dominated once again by Fords and Toyotas, Larson was the one Chevrolet driver who can run up front — and stay there. But Larson wasn’t taking credit for the performance; he said the cars have been pretty good.

“I was happy about the performance in our Chevy,” he said. “It looks like (Chevrolet) has been struggling, but I don’t think we really have been that much.”

Still, it has to have a lot to to with Larson. Remember earlier in his career when he used to ride the high lane but then hit the wall every time he was having a good race? He’s not doing that anymore. The guy is just extremely talented, and it’s a joy to watch when he’s on like he was at Kansas.

So did he agree it was one of his best races? He’s not really one for boasting, so he actually downplayed it.

“It’s not too hard to run the wall here,” he said. “It’s fairly smooth and has a lot of grip. But yeah, I was happy with it. I felt pretty calm out front.”

3. Truex team has lost a step

Martin Truex Jr. almost won at Kansas for the third straight time, but that was thanks to pit strategy rather than pure speed.

For the most part, Kansas reaffirmed Truex’s car isn’t where he needs it to be right now.

It’s not like the 78 is awful, but the flat splitter and the enhanced inspection have certainly cost it some speed. Meanwhile, the Fords have gained at the same time and it makes Truex look vulnerable.

“We’re going to have to find something,” Truex said. “We’ve had good speed throughout the season at points, we just haven’t been as consistent as last year in finding it.”

I wouldn’t discount Truex’s chances of making another final four, but it just seems like he’s going to be doing the chasing instead of being chased this summer.

“It’s pretty evident the Fords have an unfair advantage this year,” he joked, referencing the accusations lobbed Toyota’s way in 2017. “I’ll just throw that out there.”

4. YRB’s bummer

It’s not like Ryan Blaney meant to hit Larson, but he felt there was no choice but to aggressively side-draft in the situation that led to the No. 12 car wrecking out after leading 54 laps.

“You have to run inches from each other,” Blaney said. “Can’t pass nobody anyway, so you have to do that.”

Blaney took blame for the incident, but said he essentially had to race Larson that way or “he would have sucked me around into (Turn) 1.”

“The cars are really edgy and hard to handle,” Blaney said. “Harvick went by me a foot from me — probably 10 mph faster — and about spun me out.”

Was it fair game? After all, Larson had done a similar side-draft on Harvick earlier.

But Larson rejected the direct comparison when I brought it up.

“It wasn’t the same move, because when I was side-drafting Harvick to get by him, I had more of a run than Blaney had on me,” Larson said. “I was able to clear (Harvick) when I side-drafted. (Blaney) was just trying to side-draft and slow me down and get to my door.”

5. A penny for Trevor’s thoughts

Trevor Bayne showed up at Kansas to be a good team player, even though Matt Kenseth had basically taken his ride. The point of Kenseth returning to Roush Fenway Racing is to get the program headed back in the right direction, but this weekend was probably a rude awakening as to how far off Roush actually is.

Kenseth finished 36th after getting caught in a crash, but the night wasn’t great before that. He was running two laps down in the mid-20s when the wreck happened.

I’d love to know Bayne’s true thoughts after watching Kenseth struggle in the car — or at least run about where Bayne had been this season. There had to be some sense of, “See, guys? It’s not just me!”

Maybe it was never realistic for Kenseth to show up and immediately make the No. 6 into a top-10 car, but there were definitely people (um…me!) who thought a Cup champion who had just won a race last November could immediately elevate that ride beyond its typical finishes.

Perhaps that will be the case later this season, but now we know the car is definitely more to blame for poor results than the driver.

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12 Questions with Martin Truex Jr. (2018)

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The series of 12 Questions interviews continues with defending Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr. of Furniture Row Racing. This interview is recorded both as a podcast and is transcribed in written form. Truex has participated in a 12 Questions interview for every year of the series (2010-present); an archive of his past interviews can be found at the bottom of this page.

1. How often do you have dreams about racing?

Do I ever dream about racing? Yes I do. I can tell you in your dreams, you always win. (Laughs)

Do you ever have a winning dream and then it comes true for that race?

Eight times last year. (Laughs)

2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize?

I think it matters. There’s a line there where you kind of know if that might not have been intentional and might have been an accident. And then when you hear somebody say, “Man, I’m sorry, I really feel bad about blah, blah, blah,” it kind of makes you feel a little bit better. Like “OK, I think he’s not lying.” But you can usually tell when they’re completely full of crap.

3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you?

I think the biggest compliment is just somebody that respects who you are as a person. If somebody says, “Man, he’s a good guy.” In my opinion, that’s a pretty big deal to me, you know?

4. NASCAR comes to you and says, “Hey, we are bringing a celebrity to the race and we’re wondering if you have time to say hi.” Who is a celebrity you’d be really excited to host?

I’m not huge on celebrities. Like I don’t get starstruck or anything.

By anybody?

It’d have to be somebody old school, like some old (guy) like Hank Williams Jr. or something like that, like a legend. It couldn’t just be some guy that’s on TV or a movie star. It would have to be somebody who is legendary. Hank would do it.

5. In an effort to show they are health-conscious, NASCAR offers the No. 1 pit stall selection for an upcoming race to the first driver willing to go vegan for a month. Would you do it?

Heck no! That’s insane. Who doesn’t eat meat? How could you live? How could anyone live? I don’t know. Like Sherry (Pollex, his longtime partner) tries to do it somewhat because it’s good for her and stuff, but she can’t even do it. She tries, but she has to eat meat, too. It’s impossible. If you don’t eat meat, there’s something wrong with you.

6. It’s time for the Random Race Challenge. I have picked a random race from your career and you have to guess where you finished. This is the 2014 Spring Dover race.

’14, that was a pretty rough year. But we did run good at Dover both times. I’m gonna say sixth.

Wow, that is correct! Sixth.

We finished sixth in both races at Dover that year.

How do you remember that stuff?

I remember everything.

So you can remember most races?

I remember a lot of races and what I did and what happened. I can remember racing my Modified and what setup I had and what springs I ran in at what race and this and that. It’s pretty crazy.

But I can’t remember people’s names for crap, just so you know.

Is that a trade you would make?

Not yet. Not until I’m done racing. (Laughs)

7. Who is the best rapper alive?

I don’t know.

You don’t know any rappers?

I don’t.

You’re not into rap at all?

Not really, no.

You don’t strike me as a rap-type person.

No. There’s some songs that I think, “That’s not terrible.” Like I don’t turn it off, but I’m not really into it much.

So that’s the highest compliment you can give a rap song. Like, “Yeah, I won’t turn it off.”

I won’t change it.

8. Who has the most punchable face in NASCAR?

Man, I love this guy, but Joey Logano.

So it’s not like you want to punch him, it’s just his face seems punchable, is that what you’re saying?

Yes. It’s just sitting up there on that long neck, just right there for the taking. And he’s always squinting so much, it’s like he wouldn’t even see it coming. (Laughs) I love Joey, he’s a great guy, so I would never do that. There have been a few times in racing that I wanted to punch him, but that’s pretty much for everybody out there at one point in time.

9. NASCAR enlists three famous Americans to be involved with your team for one race as part of a publicity push: Taylor Swift, LeBron James and Tom Hanks. Choose one to be your crew chief, one to be your spotter and one to be your motorhome driver.

Tom Hanks is definitely gonna be the crew chief. He seems like the smartest of the bunch to me. He may not be, but it seems like he would be. Motorhome driver, I’m gonna have to go with LeBron, just because it would be hilarious.

Your motorhome driver takes you around in the golf cart and things?

Absolutely.

So you get to spend time with them?

Yeah, that’d be fun. 

But then Taylor would be your spotter.

Yeah, I mean, I listen to half of what my spotter says anyway, so it’ll be fine. (Laughs)

10. What is the key to finding the best pre-race bathroom?

Honestly, I just go to the closest one. I got a new PR guy (David Hart) this year and he’s kind of been scouting them out for me. Over the years, I’ve always had to go and find it by myself and I always see Kyle (Busch’s) motorhome driver standing there holding the door for him and waiting and I’m like, “Seriously?” But now my guy, he actually scopes it out. When I see him after I get out of the pickup truck, we do the ridearound usually, he’s like, “There’s a bathroom right there,” and I’m like, “Sweet, man! Thanks!” So it’s working out pretty good so far.

11. NASCAR misses the highlight reel value brought by Carl Edwards’ backflips and decides a replacement is needed. How much money would they have to pay you to backflip off your car after your next win?

Well it depends on what there is there to land on — or in. If there’s a foam pit or a swimming pool, I’d probably do it.

I don’t think there’s gonna be that.

But on the grass or asphalt, no. They couldn’t pay me enough, because I won’t be able to go race the next weekend, because I would have damn sure busted my ass.

Well if it was Homestead, you have the whole offseason to recover.

I can’t do a backflip at all. Period. I can’t do it into a pool. I can’t do a backflip.

What if they give you $50 million bucks?

I would just fall on my face and then put $50 million bucks in the bank. And then I wouldn’t do anything different than I do right now, so what’s the point?

12. Each week, I ask a question given to me from the last interview. Last week, I interviewed Noah Gragson. He wants to know: Does NASCAR need more road courses?

I think there should be. I think two is not quite enough. Maybe four would be good. There’s so many good road courses around the country that we could go to. It’d be fun. I love road racing too, so I think it would be fun. Four would be good. I don’t think we need any more than that.

The next interview I’m doing is with Ty Dillon. Do you have a question I can ask him?

Did it surprise you just how much harder Cup is than Xfinity? Because I think everybody kind of gets surprised. I just want to see kind of how he feels about it.

Previous 12 Questions interviews with Martin Truex Jr.

— Aug. 18, 2010

— May 18, 2011

— April 25, 2012

— May 15, 2013

— April 1, 2014

— Feb. 25, 2015

— March 16, 2016

— March 1, 2017

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The Top Five: Breaking down the Auto Club 400

Five thoughts after Sunday’s race in Fontana…

1. We were robbed

Nothing against Martin Truex Jr.’s dominating win, but Sunday sure could have been a lot more interesting had Kevin Harvick not wrecked with Kyle Larson during the first stage.

What would have happened? Would Harvick have won his fourth straight race? Would Truex have thumped the field anyway?

“We’ll never know,” Truex said.

ARGH! That stinks. Even Furniture Row Racing owner Barney Visser sounded a little disappointed about it.

“After the beginning of the season there, watching Harvick run away with everything, I wasn’t sure where we were at,” Visser said. “I wish he would have not had the problems he had today and we could have run him again. I think we had something for him today.”

Now everyone has to wait for three weeks — until Texas Motor Speedway — to find out who will win a head-to-head battle on an intermediate track (Martinsville is next week, followed by an off week).

Still, the lack of evidence didn’t stop drivers from guessing what would have happened.

“Just the little bit I was around Kevin, I felt like he still had the best car,” Larson said. “Who’s to say, though?”

Truex said he left pit road after the first stop and drove away from Harvick — which leads him to believe the No. 78 car might have won anyway. It was pretty damn fast, after all.

But there’s no way to know for sure.

Sigh. Oh well.

“I’m sure we’ll have plenty of chances to race each other throughout the rest of the season,” Truex said.

2. What was that?

So what exactly happened in the Larson/Harvick incident?

Though it initially seemed Harvick was somehow retaliating against Larson for hard racing (a theory floated by the FOX broadcast), that turned out not to be the case.

Harvick said he went down to side-draft Larson when they came off the corner, and he was “trying to get a little too much right there.”

“That’s my fault for coming down the racetrack and trying to side draft,” he said. “… That was just a dumb mistake on my part.”

Larson had a more detailed explanation when asked if he was surprised Harvick was racing him so hard. Harvick had pitted one lap earlier than Larson, so the Chip Ganassi Racing driver was coming with slightly fresher tires.

“I think he knew he was better than I was overall, so he was just trying to hold me off, race me hard to maybe burn my stuff up, and then he could stay in front of me and not have to worry about me 10, 15 laps later when he would be better than me,” Larson said.

Makes sense, right? At that point, Harvick just made a mistake rather than acting out of malice.

“I was actually having a lot of fun racing like that because this place is really cool and you can just kind of go wherever,” Larson said. “I respect Kevin a lot. I think he respects me a lot, too.  You never want to see anything like that happen.”

3. Harvick, and…

After five races, it’s not much of a mystery which team is the one to beat. And it’s not the one that ended up in victory lane.

“I don’t think anything changes with the 4 car being the fastest car in the field right now,” Brad Keselowski said.

“He’ll be good every weekend,” Larson said.

If that’s the case, Truex — now the points leader — is probably second-best, with Kyle Busch also right there.

But who else is good?

Larson, for one. Keselowski and Joey Logano, too. The thing is, they’re all a half-step away from being able to run up front regularly like Harvick, Truex or Busch.

“I’ve been happy to see how we’ve started so far,” Larson said. “But we still have a little ways to go to win.”

Keselowski said he’s been about a fifth-to-10th place car most weeks and noted the team hasn’t seriously contended for a win. And Logano, who missed the playoffs last year after his infamous encumbered penalty at Richmond, said his team is “getting closer” but isn’t there yet.

“Today we had some decent speed and it’s progress in the right direction,” Logano said. “We still have a ways to go, but we’re getting closer to where we can have solid runs, score stage points, score good finishes and keep ourselves up there for points.”

There are really no surprises in the top half of the playoff standings. Truex and Busch are 1-2, followed by the Team Penske trio of Logano-Keselowski-Ryan Blaney. Then it’s Denny Hamlin and Larson.

4. Standings surprises

Speaking of the point standings, there are still a few unexpected trends after five races.

— Despite winning three of the first five races, Harvick is only eighth in the standings. That’s because of Daytona and Fontana, where he got only two points.

— All four Stewart-Haas Racing drivers are in the top 11 of the standings. In fact, they are 8-9-10-11 (Harvick-Clint Bowyer-Aric Almirola-Kurt Busch).

— Chase Elliott is the lowest-running Hendrick driver (21st) after Jimmie Johnson moved up to 18th in the last couple weeks. The lead Hendrick driver is Alex Bowman, who is 16th.

— Jamie McMurray, who has pointed his way into the playoffs, is only 26th in the standings — behind Michael McDowell and both JTG Daugherty Racing drivers.

— Daniel Suarez is 23rd in the standings while all of his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates are 13th or higher.

5. The clock says Bubba Time

As Bubba Wallace walked off pit road following a 20th-place finish at Fontana, he was already looking toward next week — his first visit to Martinsville Speedway since winning the Truck Series race there four years ago.

“Man, I’m so pumped up and so excited to get there,” he said. “I want to win this fucker. … We’ll have to be ready there.”

Unlike recent weeks — such as Phoenix, where two loose wheels turned a possible top-15 day into a 28th-place finish — the No. 43 team might be rolling into the next race with some positive mojo.

There wasn’t anything particularly special about Fontana, except nothing went wrong.

“Smooth on pit road all day, didn’t make any dumb moves on the racetrack and came home 20th,” Wallace said. “We can improve from that.”

Wallace and his team are still figuring each other out, and the team is transitioning to Chevrolet and its alliance with Richard Childress Racing at the same time. But in only nine career Cup starts, Wallace now has top-20 finishes in five of them — all with a mid-level team — and has a three-point lead in the Rookie of the Year battle with William Byron.

“We came back here (after the Phoenix disappointment), regrouped, took a deep breath and can use this as a little bit of momentum going into Martinsville,” he said.

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The Top Five: Breaking down the Atlanta race

Five thoughts after Sunday’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway…

1. Veterans Day

The top eight finishers at Atlanta all have at least eight seasons in the Cup Series — a veteran-heavy scoring pylon led by the definitive expert on this old track.

Was it by chance all those experienced drivers found themselves finishing toward the front?

“There’s no coincidence,” Kevin Harvick said.

First of all, Harvick is simply better than other drivers at Atlanta. He understands exactly how to get around the bottom quickly and without abusing his tires — as demonstrated in leading a combined 66 percent of the laps in the Cup and Xfinity Series races.

“He can be on a tricycle and probably be that fast here,” said Joey Logano, who finished sixth.

But the other drivers in the top eight aren’t too shabby either, and it’s because they know how to race from the days when it wasn’t just hammer-down and go all-out — a finesse that can only come with experience.

“This is just the way it used to be when you had a lot of horsepower and you could spin the tires a lot,” Clint Bowyer said after finishing third. “It seems like you get on these tracks like we’ll be at next weekend (in Las Vegas) and it’s qualifying laps every single lap, and those kids will show back up.”

“Those kids” weren’t much of a factor on Sunday. Kyle Larson finished ninth and Chase Elliott was 10th after pit strategy (the same as the one Denny Hamlin and Logano used).

But the others in the top 10 — Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Bowyer, Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Logano and the Busch brothers — all have at least 300 Cup starts.

So despite the youthful look to the Daytona 500, it was the veterans who took over once more experience came into play.

“Talladega is in April,” Harvick said, inferring that would be the next time young drivers would dominate the running order again.

2. Fords focused

Toyota dominated the last two seasons and Chevrolet had its fearsome new Camaro body hitting the track this year, which led everyone to believe the Fords might spend 2018 playing from behind.

But then the manufacturer went out and swept the top three spots at Atlanta, taking four of the top six positions overall.

“It’s clear the Fords have an unfair advantage,” joked Hamlin, who has spent the last two years hearing all the accusations about Toyota’s edge.

Ford drivers were optimistic after their solid day, but cautiously so. Atlanta is “a unique beast” and much different from the other intermediate tracks, Logano said. Just because a driver has a good Atlanta race doesn’t mean it will translate to the other tracks.

Las Vegas “really shows where your mile-and-a-half speed is at,” he added. “Next week will be the true test to see where we’re at.”

Bowyer acknowledged he was “a little bit nervous” in the offseason after knowing the Chevrolets would be showing up with a new body and the Toyotas wouldn’t lose anything.

“But so far, so good,” he said.

3. Jimmie’s jam

What in the world? After two races, seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson is 35th in the point standings — behind even Mark Thompson and DJ Kennington, who only ran the Daytona 500. He is the lowest-ranked driver of all those who have run both Cup races so far.

That’s what happens when a driver finishes 38th and 27th in the first two weeks of the season.

So is it time to panic? Of course not. Johnson and the 48 team can win anywhere, and that’s all it will take.

Still, it has to be unsettling at the very least. Johnson didn’t run well the entire weekend and was lapped on two different occasions before spinning out and really putting his race in the craptastic category.

Another bad run at Vegas could certainly challenge the team’s morale.

4. Gunning it

It’s really quite amazing how few hiccups there have been on the pit stops so far, at least in terms of subtracting one crew member. As noted after the Clash, it doesn’t seem like much of a factor and teams are quickly adapting to the new choreography.

What has been a challenge so far? Pit guns, apparently. As reported here last October, NASCAR implemented a common pit gun for every crew this year. But as it turns out, some teams are having hiccups.

Truex crew chief Cole Pearn told NBC’s Nate Ryan and ESPN’s Bob Pockrass after the race the pit guns were “pieces of shit.” And Truex noted it certainly would be unfortunate if a faulty gun cost someone a win or a spot in the championship race.

Several teams, including Truex, Harvick and Alex Bowman appeared to have issues with them.

But is that a trend, or just a coincidence? Or are they getting blamed for pit crew members messing up?

After all, it didn’t seem like the problems were widespread.

“Mine worked, so we’re happy,” Hamlin said. “If it didn’t work, we wouldn’t be happy.”

It seems too early to judge if this is going to be an ongoing problem or not. Perhaps as the teams work through the quirks of the new gear, it won’t be as big of a deal. But if it happens again in the next few weeks and turns out to be a continuing issue, it’s going to cause some major grumblings from the drivers.

5. Rain Dance

I woke up Sunday morning absolutely convinced the race would be postponed. Even the most optimistic forecasts said there was only a 20 percent chance of getting the race started, and once the rain hit, it would sit over the track and not move until Monday afternoon.

I’ve been through plenty of rainouts before, but this one was different. Now that I’m spending my own money (money many of you gave me through Patreon to travel to races), I felt deeply disappointed and sort of sick over it.

American Airlines was asking $414 to change my flight, which was a no-go. And buying a new flight would have been in the $500 range. That meant I was going to have to go home without seeing the race after making an investment to get here.

That sucked. But even with that feeling, it’s still not the same as what many fans go through during a rainout. After all, I’m supposed to be here; this is my job. Fans who stretch the budget and spend vacation time in order to make a race and then have to leave to get back home for work, school or other obligations must feel so empty and sad when that happens.

I had a little taste of it Sunday morning, but I got lucky when the entire race unexpectedly got in, just with a two-hour delay.

If it hadn’t, at least fans at Atlanta had a “Perfect Weather Guarantee” that would have given them a ticket credit had the race been postponed and they were unable to attend.

That should be the standard at all tracks. The industry has to make it so that NASCAR’s most loyal customers don’t get burned and have nothing to show for their time and money. Because after an experience like that, who would want to come back and try it again?

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On first day where it really mattered, NASCAR’s new inspection system delivered

Martin Truex Jr. stands with members of the 78 team after the team failed to make it through inspection Friday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. (Photo: Jeff Gluck)

The new Optical Scanning Station inspection system was a mystery heading into the first real qualifying day of 2018.

Would a bunch of teams fail at in the first downforce race of the season at Atlanta Motor Speedway, as they did under the old system? Or would everyone sail through now that it is tougher to push the rules? Perhaps it would be somewhere in between.

“We were supposed to have limited the inspection process by a lot. It’s supposed to be what, 90 seconds?” Chase Elliott said. “If everybody gets through in 90 seconds, we shouldn’t have any issues, right?”

For the most part, that was the case. More than half the field (20 of 36 cars) breezed through on the first attempt, and only three cars had to make more than two attempts.

But while Jimmie Johnson and Harrison Rhodes made it through on their third tries, defending Cup champion Martin Truex Jr. did not. As a result, he will start 35th and spend the weekend without car chief Blake Harris, who was ejected.

Crew chief Cole Pearn was visibly angry after the car failed for a third time, which followed what Truex said was an extra focus on getting through inspection.

“We stopped practice early just to try to get a jump start and have good plan going into this system today, just to see what happens,” Truex said before inspection began. “We’re trying to get ahead of the curve. It has potential to be very difficult.”

As it turned out, it was for his team. There were problems on one attempt with the body and problems with the rear-wheel alignment on another attempt.

Furniture Row Racing president Joe Garone said the team was frustrated and the mood was “volatile” after the third failed attempt.

“You’re trying to figure out what you actually did, especially when you feel like maybe the equipment itself is off a little bit,” Garone said. “But it’s also on our side as well. … It does change every time you go through.”

NASCAR disputed the suggestion its new equipment was inconsistent. In fact, NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller said most of the comments he got from teams on Friday were the opposite.

“Of course they’re going to say that,” Miller said of Furniture Row. “… All I can say is we feel like we did our job.

“Everybody else made it out there no problem at all, with time to spare. I don’t know what else to say about that.”

Miller said the tolerances used in inspection Friday will be the same all season long. The new system measures thousands of data points and provides a heat map of the car — it shows green if the car is legal, for example — and Miller said “there’s no real way to fake your way through there.”

The tighter limits could have made for far more headaches. Instead, the day was mostly smooth with the exception of the 78 team not getting through.

 

“I certainly would have guessed there would have been a lot more (than Truex), that they wouldn’t have been the only ones,” Kyle Busch said.

A NASCAR inspector reviews the heat map of a car, which shows green for the areas it passed inspection. (Photo: Jeff Gluck)
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NASCAR driver popularity in the Dale Jr. Era

Since Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the Most Popular Driver award 15 straight times, there’s no dispute which driver was the most liked by fans in the last decade and a half.

But who were the other popular drivers during that time? Well, we actually know the answer to that question because the National Motorsports Press Association (which administers the award) has released a top 10 of the voting each year since Earnhardt first won it in 2003.

Only seven of the current 10 most popular drivers will return next season — Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott, Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne, Kyle Larson and Martin Truex Jr. That’s in alphabetical order, because the NMPA no longer releases the order of the final voting (they used to not only release the order, but also the vote totals).

Who will the other three be? It seems fairly wide open at the moment.

That’s because only two active drivers — Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski — have ever made the top 10 in the past and failed to make it this year.

All other active drivers — including the likes of Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano and Clint Bowyer — have never appeared on the top 10 list.

At the bottom of this post, I’ve compiled a spreadsheet of all the data dating back to 2003. But first, a few observations:

— What happened to Harvick? This is the biggest mystery from the voting. Harvick was the third-most popular driver in 2003 and 2004, then dropped to the bottom half of the list over the next decade — but was still in the top 10 for every year from 2003-13. But he has now missed the top 10 in three of the last four years (starting with the year he won the championship, oddly enough). Perhaps it’s because he’s been more affected than anyone with old-school fans abandoning the sport (assuming his fan base early on had a large portion of Dale Sr. fans after he took over that ride in 2001). What are some other theories?

— Truex on the rise. Martin Truex Jr. never made the top 10 in voting until the past two seasons — this despite being a full-time driver since 2006.

— New faces emerge. Ryan Blaney and Kyle Larson both made the top 10 in voting for the first time this season. Chase Elliott has made it in each of his first two years.

— Streak continues. Of the remaining active drivers, who has the longest streak of making the list? It’s a tie between Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne, who have both appeared every year since 2004. But while Johnson has typically been in the bottom half of the voting when the order has been revealed, Kahne is usually toward the top (and got as high as second in 2013).

— That 2014 list! Seven of the 10 drivers from 2014 are no longer in the sport full time. Of course, that’s a bit misleading since Josh Wise made the top 10 that year based on the Reddit push. But the other six drivers (Earnhardt, Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Danica Patrick and Tony Stewart) took up a combined 68 spots in the top 10 over 15 years — and that’s going to be hard to replace.

Here’s the spreadsheet I compiled if you want to look at the raw data. “Yes” signifies they appeared in the top 10 that year; in years when the NMPA released the order, the driver’s position in the top 10 is noted.

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The Top Five: Breaking down the NASCAR championship race

Five thoughts after Sunday’s championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway…

1. Truex gets his due

Ladies and gentlemen, Martin Truex Jr. is a NASCAR Cup Series champion.

It’s too bad we can’t send messages from the future back to our past selves, because it would have been almost impossible to believe that a few years ago.

In 2014, Truex wrapped up his first season at Furniture Row Racing with a single lap led. He finished 24th in points. And he had two career wins to his name at the time.

Now he’s the dominant car of the past two seasons, with 12 wins and 4,062 laps led in that span. Plus he’s got a championship to go with it.

I’m as guilty of this as anyone, but due to his career history (two wins in his first nine seasons) it’s been easy to just say, “The cars are just that good” when talking about Truex’s success. Since he didn’t win much until Cole Pearn showed up as crew chief and Furniture Row improved, Truex probably hasn’t gotten enough credit as a driver.

That should change after Sunday night. Kyle Busch was chasing him down — with what appeared to be a better car — and stalking him in case there was even the slightest bobble in the 78 car.

“Then I could try to pounce,” Busch said. “But that never happened.”

Truex drove a flawless 20 laps and showed he’s worthy of being in the conversation about the sport’s best drivers.

Toyotas are elite, but as Brad Keselowski noted: “He’s still beating the other Toyotas, so he deserves credit for that.”

Good point, right? And that’s not lost on Truex.

Yes, he’s basically driving a Joe Gibbs Racing car — just tweaked by Furniture Row. But he’s beating all the JGR drivers with it.

“That’s the coolest part of it, is showing people that you’ve got it, that you can do it,” Truex said. “It’s the best feeling in the world to have the same thing as somebody else and beat ’em with it.”

And Truex was especially pumped about out-driving Busch, who he called “one of the best drivers ever.”

“To beat him,” Truex said, “was awesome.”

2. This Bud’s for Dale

When Dale Earnhardt Jr. told the media about his goals for the weekend — I just want to finish all the laps, he kept saying — it turns out he was only telling part of the story.

There was a reason behind the wish: He wanted to turn his No. 88 car into a mobile Whisky River, right there on pit road.

“That’s why I kept saying, ‘Man, I hope I finish all the laps,'” he said with a grin. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s really why I was saying that. Everyone says, ‘Who are you going to miss the most?’ and it’s my family. (The 88 team) is my family. We are so close.

“I told them, ‘The one thing I want to do is finish the race, and we’re going to drink a beer together.’ That’s the only thing that kept coming to my mind about what I do when I get out of the car: I want to have a beer with my guys. I want to have a moment with them that sort of closes it up for us.”

So there they were, Earnhardt and the members of the 88 team, using the car as a bar and chugging Budweisers in the middle of a mob scene on pit road. If it was possible to have an intimate moment while surrounded by a couple hundred people, they had it.

Earnhardt and the crew posed for selfies, tossed beers at each other until the coolers were empty and raised toast after toast.

Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyy, they yelled in unison, holding their cans to the sky.

“Standing around the car and the heat coming off the car and drinking them cold beers — they were so cold, they had them in those Yeti (coolers), man. Those things are so awesome,” Earnhardt said. “That’s what I wanted. I said, ‘Whatever I do after the race, I don’t care about anything else — I just want to have a beer with my team.'”

It was one of the most unusual postrace scenes in NASCAR history. But it was the first step toward normalcy — something Earnhardt is craving after a weekend he called “weird.”

All the various things swirling around Earnhardt — his retirement from the Cup Series, the upcoming birth of his first child, his best friend winning the championship, his team’s Xfinity Series success, his new job with NBC Sports — it all played into it.

“I’ve got this job next year that I got to get ready for that I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. I know nothing about it. I’m freaking out,” he said. “There’s just so many things happening for me. I mean, what the hell!? It’s ridiculous what’s going on in my life. So I can’t put my emotions about finishing my Cup career in a capsule. I can’t single it out.”

So what’s next? A hangover, Earnhardt predicted. But then he hoped for an uneventful week ahead.

“It’s been an amazing weekend,” he said. “I’m ready to go feel normal, though. I’m ready to go just do nothing for awhile.”

He looked at the group of reporters. His team had left — the celebration was over for now — and Earnhardt lingered on pit road, willing to fill reporters’ notepads with golden quotes like he’d done so often over the years.

“But I’ll miss all y’all,” he said. “And I’ll be back because of that.”

With that, Earnhardt smiled, gave a thumbs up and disappeared into the crowd of waiting fans one more time.

3. Like a punch in the face

The primary reason for Kyle Busch not being able to catch Truex in the final laps, Busch said, was a tough battle with Joey Logano.

Busch had been on his way toward the front and easily passed Kevin Harvick, but then he reached Logano. That pass proved to be a lot tougher.

Logano took the top lane and pinched Busch down; Busch had to back out of it, reset for a couple laps and try again.

“Just wasting too much time with him,” Busch said afterward. “He held me up. He was there blocking every chance he got, so got a real buddy there. But that’s racing. That’s what happens.”

Logano’s move was subtle, and perhaps it was nothing more than racing hard for his own victory — but it does raise questions.

For example: Did Busch’s ongoing rivalry with Logano teammate Brad Keselowski play a part in the hard racing? Or perhaps did lingering ill will between the two — Busch did punch Logano in the face earlier this year, after all — have anything to do with it?

There aren’t any quotes from Logano on the post-race transcripts about that, but I’d love to know whether that played a role.

If so, it’s just another example of the entire season building toward the pinnacle that is Homestead.

4. Keselowski the politician

Leave it to Brad Keselowski to get one more shot in before the offseason begins.

Keselowski stumped hard for NASCAR to help Ford after claiming Toyota got too much help with its new nose this season.

If you missed it, here are his comments:

“When that car (the new Camry) rolled out at Daytona and I think we all got to see it for the first time, I think there were two reactions. One, we couldn’t believe NASCAR approved it, and, two, we were impressed by the design team over there.

“With that said, I don’t think anyone really ever had a shot this year the second that thing got put on the racetrack and approved. It kind of felt a little bit like Formula 1, where you have one car that kind of makes it through the gate heads and tails above everyone, and your hands are tied because you’re not allowed to do anything to the cars in those categories that NASCAR approves to really catch up.”

Keselowski concluded by saying he assumed Chevrolet “would be allowed to design a car the same way Toyota was” in terms of the new Camaro — and Ford doesn’t have any plans for a redesign.

“If that’s the case, we’re gonna take a drubbing next year,” Keselowski said.

Honestly, I don’t have any problem with what Keselowski said. He’s very calculating and certainly knows his words will get picked up and echo around the garage.

He also knows he’s going to get criticized for whining or being a loudmouth, but he’s willing to sacrifice that in order to get his point across.

If it helps, and the talk somehow generates rule changes in Ford’s favor, then it will all be worth it.

5. Thoughts on 2018

There’s going to be plenty of time to reflect on this season and what next year might bring, but here are a few thoughts on what lies ahead.

The biggest storylines heading into Daytona next year will be NASCAR’s new identity — Life After Dale, so to speak. The hype and marketing push for the young drivers will be even bigger than this year, and the pressure will increase on the likes of Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney to produce.

On the track, there will be much talk about whether the new Chevrolet nose with the incoming Camaro can somehow help the manufacturer gain on Toyota. If not — and with only minor changes to the 2018 rules package — there’s no reason to think Truex and the JGR drivers can’t dominate again next season.

Overall, the goal for 2018 should be to determine a floor for NASCAR’s long slide. Attendance and ratings will almost certainly be down every week — a natural side effect of the most popular driver leaving — so that’s just going to be a fact of life. But the sport should look at that and say, “OK, this is the low point; now we rebuild.” Use it as a launching point for a new era and get on track toward strengthening NASCAR’s health for the next generation.