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Friday roundup: Darlington Raceway

By John Haverlin

Here are some of the highlights from Friday at Darlington Raceway:

Gossage rips F1 for scheduling 2019 U.S. date on day of Texas race

This news obviously didn’t break at the track, but it’s still worth mentioning.

Formula 1 revealed its draft of the 2019 schedule on Friday morning, and the series’ date at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin is the same as the fall Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway — a 3.5-hour drive away.

TMS president Eddie Gossage went off on F1, saying fans will now have to choose which race they want to attend on Nov. 3, 2019. He tweeted the decision “is bad for both F1 and NASCAR. That’s a situation that nobody wins and everybody loses because both are less than they could be as a result.”

Does Gossage have a point? Certainly. Having two of the best racing leagues in the world competing in the same state on the same day is definitely a conflict of interest.

“F1 scheduling on top of the NASCAR race at TX Motor Speedway just isn’t good for the fans and forces them to pick one instead of picking both,” he said in another tweet.

Gossage said he would have wanted to attend both races. He tweeted in agreement with SiriusXM’s Dave Moody, who said F1’s decision was an “example of the systemic arrogance fostered many years ago by Bernie Ecclestone.”

Austin Dillon unveils throwback scheme

Austin Dillon’s No. 3 car will don the “Quicksilver” paint scheme Dale Earnhardt Sr. drove in the 1995 Winston Select All-Star Race for Sunday night’s event.

His current team and former members of Richard Childress Racing’s No. 3 crew unveiled the car to the media in the garage on Friday morning. Some of the crew members — including Chocolate Myers, Earnhardt’s former gasman — had never seen the car.

“Dale Jr. and I kind of talked about this car and it kind of came together,” Dillon said. “This is the one that kind of started all the wild paint schemes. I talked to different guys about how special it was, and it was a secret. That’s why we unveiled it the way we did.

“The first person that (asked me about the scheme) was Chocolate, actually. I was on a radio show and he was talking about what we’re going to do for Darlington weekend, and I said, ‘Well, I guess you’ll just have to wait until we get to the track.’”

Dillon said the scheme gives him a little extra motivation this weekend. He has already clinched a playoff berth despite sitting 19th in the standings, but he’ll need momentum if he wants to advance beyond the first round.

“You want to go out there and run well anytime you put a Dale Sr. throwback on the car,” he said. “I’ve got to get my nerves in the right area and we will go out there and log some laps here in the Southern 500 and hopefully put ourselves in a really good position at the end of the night.”

Kenseth’s future with Roush Fenway uncertain

Matt Kenseth isn’t sure what his next career move will be. He hasn’t committed to Roush Fenway Racing for next year, but said 2019 doesn’t concern him right now.

“I’m just concentrated on the rest of this season and trying to get this done, so that’s probably something I’ll talk about at a later date,” he said. “The season has been up and down. I wish the results were better than they are, but on the other hand, I feel like we’ve made a lot of progress. It doesn’t necessarily show in the stat sheet or box score all the time … really just trying to keep moving forward and get more competitive by the end of the season.”

Kenseth wouldn’t budge when asked if he would take an offer from a more competitive team. He was questioned about taking over the No. 41 car of Stewart-Haas Racing, but wouldn’t say if he’d be interested if the seat were to open.

“I still have seven races left this season,” he said. “I have not made the impact at Roush Fenway Racing that — at least in the finishes, the performances — as big as I hoped.

“All I’m thinking about right is trying to get the performance better and try to do a better job for those guys. … I’m not really looking forward right now.”

Bell and Allgaier are cool as the playoffs approach

Christopher Bell and Justin Allgaier have been the class of the Xfinity Series field this season, but they don’t see each other as fierce rivals — yet, at least. Both drivers have four wins and are 1-2 in the standings. Allgaier leads the overall standings by five points, but Bell has a five-point advantage in playoff points.

“I do think Christopher has definitely shown that he’s the guy that we’re all going to have to beat to go for this championship when we get to Homestead,” Allgaier said. “Christopher and I have had our battles on the race track these last five or six races.

“If he and I battle it out for a win, that means we’re doing our jobs and putting ourselves in a good position. Yeah, he is a direct competitor and somebody that I’ll have to beat; we’ve known each other for a long time and we definitely push each other hard.”

Said Bell: “The biggest thing is whenever you get to Homestead, the guy that excels there in practice, that’s going to be your biggest rival and your biggest competitor. We go through these races during the playoffs and whenever it all comes down to it there’s going to be four guys that have no advantage over the other one whenever you get to Homestead. It’s whoever beats who. Those practice sessions at Homestead will decide who your main competitor is going to be.”

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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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Friday roundup: Kansas news and notes

Here are some of the highlights from Friday at Kansas Speedway:

Kenseth returns, but…

Matt Kenseth had a bummer of a first day back in NASCAR.

While Kenseth said it took him only two laps to feel like he’d never been out of a car, the No. 6 Ford itself appears to need some work — maybe more than his fans anticipated.

After Kenseth was only 28th in practice and his car didn’t get on track to qualify due to not passing inspection in time, the 46-year-old acknowledged it was a rough day.

“We didn’t have a lot of speed in practice at all today and we have some work to do to get it driving better as well,” said Kenseth, who will start 35th. “It’s going to take some patience. I’m not a super patient person, but it’s going to take a little time and some patience on everyone’s part to get this rolling in the direction we need it to.”

Kenseth was late starting practice because his car had trouble getting through tech inspection. He then made several short runs in the limited time — some as short as one lap — as he attempted to quickly diagnose the car’s issues.

“I knew what I was looking for and I could get a read rather quickly — at least which direction a change brought us in, whether it was a positive change or a negative change,” he said. “Really trying to get through enough stuff.”

Part of Kenseth’s task in his return to Roush Fenway Racing is to get the cars driving better again, and Friday showed how much work there is to be done.

“I didn’t have a lot of expectations for today (speed-wise),” he said. “I was hoping today would go smoother than what it went. I certainly hoped we would have been faster than what we showed in practice.”

Harvick the destroyer

Kevin Harvick, winner of four races this season and dominator of pretty much every week this season, was asked after winning the pole whether he plans on giving anyone else a chance at Kansas.

“I hope not,” he said. “I have no plans to.”

With apologies to Kyle Busch, the other drivers are well aware of who the top driver is this season so far.

Harvick is “head and shoulders above everyone else right now,” outside polesitter Ryan Blaney said.

“Kevin seems to be by far the fastest right now,” William Byron said.

Harvick now has 23 career poles, and 17 of them have come since he joined Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014.

Bowyer on blame

Clint Bowyer’s rear-window violation at Dover was due to a broken part and wasn’t intentional — at least according to Bowyer.

After his second-place finish was penalized this week, Bowyer said he was certain his crew wasn’t trying to skirt the rules. He said to look at the pictures for proof.

“If we’d have been pushing hard and they were foolish and got caught doing something bad and I felt like that’s how I got that performance advantage and that’s why I ran so good last weekend, you’d feel like you cheated somebody,” he said. “But I looked back at 150 pictures that we have available to us and went back and looked at the other guys that had the same problem — and I just didn’t see the same result.”

Bowyer will be without his usual car chief for the next two races.

Speaking of penalties…

Martin Truex Jr. said NASCAR’s rules are “over-enforced” and fans are tired of hearing about penalties every Wednesday. Dover runnerup Bowyer and third-place finisher Daniel Suarez were both among those to receive major penalties this week.

“(Fans) think everyone is cheating and (say) ‘This is ridiculous,’ and ‘I don’t want to watch racing because these guys are frauds.'” Truex said. “I’ve seen (the penalties) that happened this week, and that’s not why that guy ran third or why that guy ran second. Let’s have some common sense in the way we enforce some of these things.”

Truex said he recognizes NASCAR is in a “tough spot” in search of a level playing field, but is frustrated at the ongoing issue.

“Wednesday inspection, you take four cars (after the race),” he said. “If you took the whole field, 38 of them might have failed this particular week. You had so many that didn’t pass.”

Ryan Blaney suggested NASCAR should still do the penalties but not tell anyone about them in order to keep the conversation focused on the racing each week.

Byron quietly having solid season

The Hendrick Motorsports cars have still been a bit off, but William Byron is measuring himself against his teammates — not the rest of the field. And he feels like he’s making gains in that department.

“I’m running close to where my teammates are and that is always really a reference point for how you are performing,” he said. “I feel like I’m right in the middle of them sometimes. Richmond, we were probably the best of our cars and I was really excited about that.

“I think that I am able to run with them, and if I can do that and continue that progression, once we do get the speed that we need we will all be that much better.”

Byron said at the start of the year, there was a bit of a shock with some races like Atlanta. And when they missed it in those races, it was a big miss. But now, he said, “the misses are a lot better” and are still competitive performances — like a top-15 instead of top-30.

Byron has eight top-20 finishes in his 11 Cup starts and is 17th in the point standings.

Almirola doesn’t care who owns NASCAR

Most drivers didn’t have much to say about the report NASCAR is up for sale, but Aric Almirola said it didn’t matter to him, anyway.

“I just show up every single weekend excited to go race and that’s what I love,” he said. “That’s what I’ve always done, so for me, as long as there’s a platform and a ride available for me to go race, I don’t really care who owns it. That’s just the truth. I know that’s probably not the answer you’re looking for, but I could give a crap less.”

 

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News Analysis: Matt Kenseth returning to NASCAR

What happened: Matt Kenseth will return to the NASCAR Cup Series on a part-time basis, Roush Fenway Racing officially announced Wednesday. As Jordan Bianchi of SBNation.com first reported, Kenseth will split the No. 6 car with Trevor Bayne at Roush, where Kenseth started his career. Kenseth’s first race back will be the Kansas Speedway race in May.

What it means: Roush found a new sponsor, and it’s likely any sponsor wants a big-name driver if possible. It certainly makes a deal more attractive. That coincided with an opportunity to improve performance; Bayne’s best finish this season is 12th and he sits 26th in the point standings, while teammate Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is 19th in the standings. At the very least, Kenseth can come in, drive some races and give feedback on whether the problem is the cars or the drivers. He just won his second-to-last start in November and the cars haven’t changed much since then.

News value (scale of 1-10): Uh, 9? Pretty high! As far as driver comebacks, the only thing bigger would be if Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon or Tony Stewart decided to race again for some reason. This is also be significant in the ongoing narrative about young drivers, since it could represent a shift back toward putting value on veteran performance.

Three questions: How will Kenseth perform in what currently appears to be second-tier equipment? How many races will he ultimately drive this season? Is there still time for Bayne to save his job, or is this the beginning of the end?

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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 Phoenix race

Five thoughts after Sunday’s Round 3 elimination race at Phoenix Raceway…

1. That’s why we follow NASCAR

There are times throughout these long NASCAR seasons where we might question our passion for this crazy sport. There can be infuriating decisions, ho-hum races or feelings of discouragement when politics or economic realities creep into what should be an escape from reality.

But days like Sunday? Those are the races that keep us all coming back.

The final stage at Phoenix had so many emotions and so much drama that it almost didn’t even seem real at times.

You had Chase Elliott tapping Martinsville foe Denny Hamlin and eventually putting him in the wall, which led to a cut tire that ended Hamlin’s championship race hopes (which had seemed near-certain just moments earlier).

Then there was Elliott making a bold move to the front, putting himself in position for what appeared to be both a stirring first career victory and a championship berth.

And then, after all of that, there was Matt Kenseth — in likely the second-to-last race of his career — somehow tracking Elliott down despite not having clean air and making a pass for what was probably his final career win.

At the same time, that sequence of events improbably put Brad Keselowski into the championship race despite not having the kind of weekend that normally would advance a driver out of Round 3.

So no matter which side you were on (Elliott fan? Kenseth fan? Ford fan? Somewere in between?), you likely felt some level of both elation and disappointment as waves of excitement rolled through the final laps.

That’s the kind of emotional payoff that makes spending three hours of your Sunday in front of the TV all worth it.  It’s a wacky sport at times, and there can be intense frustrations that come with it.

But when NASCAR is good, it’s really good.

2. A popular win

Obviously, an Elliott victory would have been absolutely massive for NASCAR. The stands might have about fallen down with cheers had the young driver ended up winning the race and moving to Homestead. The marketing department would have had to work overtime all week to hype up a young star going for his first title in Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s last race.

But to see Kenseth win? For the sold-out Phoenix crowd, that might have been the next best thing out of the available options (Earnhardt wasn’t in contention, though he did finish 10th).

The image of Kenseth standing on top of his car, looking to the heavens and then pumping his fist like he won the championship is an image that will stay with everyone long after Kenseth’s career ends. It’s a great final shot for his Hall of Fame highlight reel someday.

It was also somewhat of a cathartic moment — not just for Kenseth fans, but longtime followers of the sport. Like Kenseth himself, many fans have felt pushed out of NASCAR as the sport completely cycles. There’s a different racing format, a different championship format, different rules and now different drivers.

So the idea of Kenseth not being able to exit with what seemed like a proper sendoff? Well, that just wasn’t very satisfying to longtime fans who have continued to stick around.

At least Earnhardt has had a full year to say goodbye and soak up the appreciation — or #Appreci88ion — from the tracks and his supporters.

Kenseth hasn’t. And though it can be argued he wouldn’t have wanted the fanfare anyway, he deserved some sort of ending that would help cushion the blow.

Sunday was it.

Those new guys who have come along and pushed drivers like Kenseth out of the sport? Well, Kenseth tracked one of them down — despite being more than double his age — and made a winning pass late in a crucial race. Some of the young drivers did end up in victory lane at Phoenix, but it was just to shake Kenseth’s hand.

So let the record show the oldest full-time Cup driver could still get it done as his career came to a close. Beating the next generation in the process had to be a pretty satisfying moment for the old guard.

3. What’s next for NASCAR

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing over what will happen after Earnhardt retires next week. Whose sport will this be?

The focus has been so much on the Young Guns that everyone seems to have overlooked the likely reality: The upcoming years will be dominated by drivers who are already regular winners in the Cup Series.

It’s not Elliott or Blaney or Kyle Larson or Erik Jones who are going to fill the shoes of Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart and Earnhardt in the immediate future; they’re not winning enough races to pull that off yet.

The torch has already been passed, and all you have to do is look to three-quarters of the championship field to see where it went.

Drivers in their 30s are ready to feast. Martin Truex Jr. is 37 and could easily race for five to eight more years. Brad Keselowski (33) and Kyle Busch (32) are in the prime of their careers with perhaps a dozen years left. Denny Hamlin is still only 36.

The younger drivers will get there eventually, and certainly the glimpses of speed this season are promising.

But until they figure out how to beat the older drivers in crunch time situations, they aren’t going to be able to truly take over the sport.

4. Championship preview

If you asked me to name the three grittiest, most cutthroat racers in NASCAR, I’d say Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Keselowski. Three former champions and drivers who can capitalize on any sniff of an opportunity to win.

Well, guess what? They’re racing each other for the title and going up against a driver in Truex who has had the most speed all year long.

This is an incredible championship field, to be honest. I’m really excited and anxious to see what happens and how this plays out.

Obviously, the two Fords are going to be at a speed disadvantage to the Toyotas. It’s been a Toyota season — and particularly a Truex season on the 1.5-mile tracks.

But crazy things happen in these races (remember when the fourth-best car of the title contenders won last year?), so it’s really anybody’s race.

That said, I’m going with Busch. The primary reason is I picked him before the start of the playoffs and it would be dumb to switch picks now, but I also think his combination of speed and otherwordly talent could come in handy on a late-race restart that might decide the title.

Between the championship race itself and the final races for Earnhardt, Kenseth and perhaps Danica Patrick, Homestead is going to be a truly memorable day.

I can’t wait.

5. What about Hendrick?

Before we go, let’s put a cap on Hendrick Motorsports’ season.

First of all, Elliott is going to be just fine.

Don’t worry that he’s not closing out races yet. He will figure it out in time, and then the wins and championships will come.

These playoffs have been an incredible stretch for Elliott, and he established himself as a fan favorite during that time. He’s finished second in almost half of the playoff races, emerged as the Good Guy in the Martinsville situation (even though he moved Keselowski), was labeled the People’s Champ at Texas and got his revenge at Phoenix.

Elliott will be the Most Popular Driver after Earnhardt leaves. And really, he was the best Hendrick car all season.

And that’s why I’m not as sure about Jimmie Johnson.

There’s no question Johnson is still an elite driver. But the 48 team looked off for most of the year — Johnson has the worst average finish of his career — despite winning three times early in the season.

And when you think about it, last year wasn’t very good for the 48 team, either — until he came out of nowhere to win the title, which masked many issues.

Johnson never finished a season with fewer than 20 top-10 finishes until last year, when he had 16. This year? He has 11.

The 48 team is headed the wrong direction.

Meanwhile, Johnson is 42 years old and will be the oldest full-time driver once Kenseth and Earnhardt retire.

So if the 48 is going to get back to its winning ways, how much time does it really have before Johnson, Chad Knaus — or both — move on to the rest of their lives.

In some ways, that sets up 2018 as a defining season for the 48 team’s future.

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News Analysis: Matt Kenseth will step away from NASCAR after this season

What happened: Matt Kenseth, in an interview with NBC Sports’ Nate Ryan, acknowledged what has seemed increasingly apparent over the last few months — that he will not race in NASCAR next season, and perhaps never again. Kenseth said there were no good opportunities to race in the Cup Series in 2018 and though he was open to a return, he didn’t “really feel it’s in the cards.” (He said a lot more than that, so you should read the interview — linked above — if you haven’t.)

What it means: This appears to be the unsatisfying end of the road for a future Hall of Fame driver and another big blow to NASCAR. The Cup Series will now have lost Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Carl Edwards, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Matt Kenseth all within a span of three years. It’s an entire generation of star power leaving all at once.

News value (scale of 1-10): Eight. Even though people knew Kenseth was probably going to be the odd man out in Silly Season, it’s still jarring to realize this could be the end. But it’s also a relief, because now Kenseth can be celebrated for the next two weeks and his fans will have at least a brief chance to say goodbye. Although Kenseth is understated and probably doesn’t care much for recognition, it would have been sad for him to step out of the car for the final time at Homestead and just walk away without any fanfare.

Three questions: Can the NASCAR industry scramble to pay proper respect to the 2003 Cup champ in the next few weeks? Will we see Kenseth back behind the wheel at some point, or is this really it? How crazy have the economics of the sport gotten when an elite driver who can still win races can’t get a top ride for next season?