Why Roush needs to remain two-car team in 2018

Yesterday I wrote about Steve Newmark's comments on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio about the Roush Fenway Racing organization remaining a two-car operation in 2018.  Today is my day to put it all in my perspective on why it is the best thing for this organization at the moment.

Trevor Bayne talks with car owner Jack Roush at Michigan

The starting point here is, Roush Fenway is still searching for more speed on intermediate tracks after a lot of changes that were made to the team.  While Ricky Stenhouse Jr., has been able to win on restrictor plate tracks this season, the team is still looking for the speed with both drivers at other places.  So to add a third car one year after dropping down to two just isn't a smart move when the organization has not completely gotten the speed back into their race cars.

To justify staying this way just look at what Team Penske did back in the late 2000s.  They ran three race cars and struggled with them.  They switched back to two cars in 2011 and a year later were about to win a championship with Brad Keselowski in 2012.  Penske has remained a two-car team since and helped back the Wood Brothers to keep their third driver on the track in the 21.  I believe that Roush has taken this same road to bringing themselves back up the ladder.

Sponsorship is also a major effect on the organization.  Where the two years prior, AdvoCare completely backed Trevor Bayne they are not this season.  Once again this weekend Roush Performance Parts is on Bayne's Ford Fusion at Kentucky Speedway.  So here is that little issue that fans of Bubba Wallace keep wanting to gripe about when he got dropped after Pocono.  Wallace has not won a race since he first arrived at Roush and the sponsorship didn't come with him.  So with issues going on to keep the two primary cars in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series going forward they had no choice but to drop the 6 Xfinity program out.

Years ago unsponsored cars were white and black on the track but around Roush's 25th anniversary in the sport, they started to change that.  Bayne ran several events in a 25th Anniversary Roush Fenway car in 2013, a Roush CleanTech car and other Roush related products but here is the problem with that; when those companies are on the car it was what we used to call a 401K sponsorship on the car.

That meaning that the money is coming straight from the organization and not from a corporate organization like AdvoCare or Liberty National Life.  The same goes for when Ford Performance is on the cars as well, instead of running a blank car it is a way for the team to advertise for the manufacturer or the car owners main company.  Sponsorship is the driving point of this sport, and the company needs more of it to fill some of the holes for 2018.  Fans want to have this little debate about the organization asking too much for sponsorship, however, since Newmark came in, I have heard all that changed when Geoff Smith parted ways as the Team President. 

Smith in my opinion was responsible for the big split between Mark Martin and Valvoline back in the early 1990s because he wanted too much from the sponsor.  I believe now Newmark is smarter about getting sponsorship for the cars and takes what they can get for the cars. 

The one thing that RFR did not downsize was its engineering department last fall.  While going from 3 cars to 2, the team kept it's engineering core the same and added to it.  Roush still has work to do in getting their chassis's better but they're finding speed as the season goes on. The goal is to get back to a three car organization but not until they have speed back in the main two cars for the organization. 

Newmark: Objective is to stay two cars in 2018

Stenhouse and Bayne will remain the two-car duo at RFR

Roush Fenway Racing President Steve Newmark stated on Tradin' Paint on Tuesday afternoon that the intent was for the organization to remain a two-car Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series team in 2018 and remain with one NASCAR Xfinity Series program as well. 


The team began this season with two cars in each series but last month but with the lack of sponsorship on Darrell Wallace's No. 6 car, the team was forced to shut down the cars program after Pocono.  There are many who believe that owner Jack Roush should have kept Wallace's program floating with his own funding, however, with the sponsorship issues on the Cup Series side as well it wasn't possible.

"I think our objective right ow and plan is to stay two (cup) and one (Xfinity)," Steve Newmark said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.  "On the Cup side, that's clearly our direction.  I think even if sponsor came for the third team, I think right now we feel this process has worked." 

"We made a very painful decision to cup down to two this year, and we had the option to stay at three but decided that the most important thing is to put our cars in the best position to win.  To do that, we thought that it was best to consolidate to two teams but maintain the same size engineering staff and R&D and laser focus that on the two cars." 

This season Ricky Stenhouse has found victory lane twice (both on restrictor plate events) and the organization as a whole has turned the corner with their program.  It would be hard for them to add a third car for 2018 so quickly, as Newmark stated even with the aid of sponsorship on the table.  That leaves Chris Buescher out in the wind once again.  He will likely be staying at JTG Daugherty for next season.

"Chris has done a great job.  We fortunate that he and Tad (Geschickter, owner of JTG Daugherty) have struck up a great relationship and he's getting some great experience there."

 There is an option on the table if Roush doesn't want to sell it's charter for the No. 16.  They can lease the charter from the 6 or 17 cars out to JTGD for another year to keep Buescher going as well. 

Daytona is Bayne's best shot on the schedule to win before the playoffs

After a dismal finish at Sonoma Raceway that was brought on by overheating issues with his No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion the driver will now go to one of his best tracks on the circuit and try and do what his teammate Ricky Stenhouse Jr., did in May at Talladega. 

Bayne finished 10th in February at Daytona

Daytona International Speedway has been one of Trevor Bayne's strongest points in his career.  He won the 500 in his first try and he's been very strong in the past at plate racing when he hasn't been taken out in the huge multi-car incidents.  Last July, Bayne drove the No. 6 AdvoCare Ford to a 3rd place finish in the Coke Zero 400 at the track and was right in contention for the victory the last few laps of the race.

Bayne has scored 2 top-fives and 4 top-ten finishes in his career at the track, and if the team is going to push to make it into the Playoffs off of a victory this will be the place that they have their best chance at doing so.  Bayne finished 10th in the Daytona 500 earlier this season after being involved in several incidents and still kept his car up in the race for a solid finish. 

With Stenhouse, Ryan Blaney and Austin Dillon now winning this season it pretty much has made it a situation where the No. 6 team has to win to get in now.  They are 18th in the standings, Dillon is 22nd but with a win.  Bayne is now 86 points behind Matt Kenseth who is 12th in the standings and the first driver without a victory.  So to make up those points is pretty much going to be out of question. 

The strengths of the Roush Fenway Racing restrictor plate program is where the fastest cars at.  Former crew chief Jimmy Fennig has been the head of the program since stepping down as the crew chief in 2015 and he's kept the Roush plate cars up to par with everyone else.  Stenhouse's win at Talladega in the May event was proof of that.  Now it's time Bayne gets that win at Daytona.

Danica Patrick needs to take a lesson from the past on how to treat fans

The King started the trend in the 70s

I heard about the incident that happened last Friday at Pocono with Danica Patrick before most fans on social media did because a facebook friend posted her video and it wasn't even everything that was said.  Danica did get booed by a couple of fans, and had she just keep on walking I wouldn't have even thought about writing this article today.

Reading comments from fans the past I seen some think that getting an autograph is not in the driver's job description, however, I want to go back about 45 years to when Richard Petty really began this trend in this sport where drivers sign for fans and don't even think a second about it.  The King's autograph is probably the least rare of any driver in the sport but it is because he took the time and energy throughout the years to spend time and give fans the respect to sign a shirt, maybe a diecast, or a piece of paper from the local news where he won the week before.

This is the man that led NASCAR from being a moonshine stream to being mainstream.  There is a story of Richard Petty that has been told where he sat in the heat in the 1970s and signed for every race fan until everyone left.  He was who changed the sports fan cultural around and made it different than Major League Baseball and the NFL where most athletes charge you for their John Hancock.

So here is where we are with Danica Patrick.  I think that every driver in the garage area has been booed at one time or another and they just keep on walking and ignore the fans that did it.  She came back to the group of fans that had one or two men that did the booing and gave them all a lecture, as I said the friend of mine was part of this group and she had nothing in this.  Instead of signing a few autographs to people that didn't make the gesture she goes and gives everyone a lecture on her feelings being hurt.

"Since I'm old, instead of taking the booing, I want to tell you guys...I do the best I can.  I mean, if you're a real fan you know that I'm not just -- my job is not to sign autographs right?  My job is to drive a car and to tell the crew chief what's going on."

"I don't appreciate the booing.  It hurts my feelings I'm a f'n person, you know what I mean?  I'm a person too.  I have feelings."

To me she should have just walked away if she didn't want to sign autographs for the group of fans that was standing there instead of lecturing fans about her poor feelings.  I seen several people tweet over the weekend about meeting Trevor Bayne and what kind of a great person he was to meet.  There are some fans that think you aren't a true fan if you don't agree with what Danica did on Friday afternoon, however, I can tell you; as a fan and a former crew member fans shouldn't have to listen to a driver cuss them.  It's one listen to hear it on TV or on the radio, however, she stepped over the line when she did it in their face.

You can defend Danica Patrick but her actions this past week was not a solid representation of what drivers in this sport should be like.  What makes it worse for her is that she is fighting for sponsorship and if I were a sponsor I certainly wouldn't want a driver that makes that kind of a statement to fans at the race track.

Richard Petty set the prime example.  If you look at the man's signature today, I still don't think it has changed at all in the last 50 years.  It's why he is the most respected man in this sport.  Maybe Danica Patrick should take a lesson from the KING!

Wallace not the first to have a door closed due to sponsorship dollars

If you are a Trevor Bayne fan and been following him for quite sometime, you definitely remember 2012; don't you?  Yeah Trevor Bayne started off that 2012 NASCAR Nationwide Series season, as it was called back then, now the Xfinity Series with five top-15 finishes and was sitting in the same place Darrell Wallace Jr., is currently in right now in the standings 4th.

Roush Fenway Racing had to pull the plug on it's No. 60 program that season because of a lack of  sponsorship funding after the fifth race of the season at Auto Club Speedway when Bayne finished 14th.  Luckily for Bayne he had a part-time gig with the Wood Brothers team at the time in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series to run the No. 21 Ford that season in 16 races.

Bayne had to compete part-time in 2012
In the Wood Brothers No. 21

Roush Fenway Racing's going through this once again with Wallace.  They were able to stretch the amount of races a little further than they were with Bayne and make it to the 12th race of the season, but it is still something that has fans wondering about the posture of the marketing crew at RFR right now.  I have read numerous remarks from fans about Roush asking too much money for a sponsorship, however, I believe that was back in the day when Geoff Smith was the president of the organization.  I believe that the company has since learned to take what they are able to get for sponsors to go on their cars.

Just like with Bayne, Wallace lucked up and there was an open seat in the upper ranks of the NASCAR world.  Richard Petty Motorsports decided that they would give him a chance to go forth and debut this coming weekend at Pocono Raceway.  This season Globe Life and Leidos stepped up to sponsor Wallace in several races but it just wasn't enough to keep the train going on the right track.

Back in 2012, Roush was in a similar situation as they are in this year.  Their MENCS teams were not fully funded and the could not fund two competitive NASCAR Xfinity programs.  Steve Newmark, at the time knew that it was not a reflection on the driver, but how the team was that season.  In 2013, Matt Kenseth moved on to Joe Gibbs racing allowing Ricky Stenhouse to go full-time in the No. 17 Cup car, which put Trevor Bayne in a car that had major funding by Cargill.  Eventually he would pick up a major deal with AdvoCare that would become his leading sponsor in Cup.

This year, you are seeing the samething.  So far in 2017 on the Cup level, Trevor Bayne has had three races with cars that were unsponsored, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., has had one event so far.  Whenever you see Roush Performance or Ford EcoBoost on one of these cars, it is what we considered back in the day to be a 401K sponsorship, meaning the money was coming from the company and it's employees.



You might question the move by Roush but the importance is to get their Cup program back into full speed.  So the funding that they were putting into the 6 Xfinity program will likely go into the MENCS for the rest of the year.

NASCAR makes major swing to change schedule for 2018

NASCAR announced on Tuesday, May 23, that the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule would have a significant change next year.

It will start with the "Great American Race" being moved back to its old traditional date on Presidents Day weekend on February 18th.  It will be the start of a swing of changes to the schedule revamping for next season.

The three-quarter mile Richmond International Raceway will move from being the last race before the playoffs to being the second race in the playoffs next season.  It's spring event in April will also have another change returning to being a night race on April 21.

Chicagoland Speedway will be moved from being the first race in the playoffs in the past to being July 1st right before the historical July Speedweeks Coke Zero 400 at Daytona.  Making a solid start to NBC Sports run on TV next season with two huge events.

One of the more noticeable moves on the schedule is Indianapolis Motor Speedway taking over the cut off race before the playoffs begin next season. But even bigger is the move that Charlotte Motor Speedway has coming for 2018.  It's October race that is traditionally a 500 miler on the 1.5 mile oval will now be on the track's road course in the infield.  It adds all types of tracks to the playoff scenario for 2018.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway will also host two events next season starting with its traditional date in March and then another race to kick off the Playoffs.  

2018 MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES SCHEDULE
Feb. 11: Daytona International Speedway (Clash / Daytona 500 Qualifying)
Feb. 15: Daytona International Speedway (Duel)
Feb. 18: Daytona 500
Feb. 25: Atlanta Motor Speedway
March 4: Las Vegas Motor Speedway
March 11: Phoenix Raceway
March 18: Auto Club Speedway
March 25: Martinsville Speedway
April 8: Texas Motor Speedway
April 15: Bristol Motor Speedway
April 21: Richmond International Raceway
April 29: Talladega Superspeedway
May 6: Dover International Speedway
May 12: Kansas Speedway
May 19: Charlotte Motor Speedway (Monster Energy All-Star Race)
May 27 : Charlotte Motor Speedway
June 3: Pocono Raceway
June 10: Michigan International Speedway
June 24: Sonoma Raceway
July 1: Chicagoland Speedway
July 7: Daytona International Speedway
July 14: Kentucky Speedway
July 22: New Hampshire Motor Speedway
July 29: Pocono Raceway
Aug. 5: Watkins Glen International
Aug. 12: Michigan International Speedway
Aug. 18: Bristol Motor Speedway
Sept. 2: Darlington Raceway
Sept. 9: Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Sept. 16: Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Sept. 22: Richmond International Raceway
Sept. 30: Charlotte Motor Speedway
Oct. 7: Dover International Speedway
Oct. 14: Talladega Superspeedway
Oct. 21: Kansas Speedway
Oct. 28: Martinsville Speedway
Nov. 4: Texas Motor Speedway
Nov. 11: Phoenix Raceway
Nov. 18: Homestead-Miami Speedway

Stenhouse's win at Talladega was "wind in Roush's sails"

It had been 101 races since a Roush Fenway Racing car had visited victory lane in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.  It went back to Sunday, June 22, 2014 at Sonoma when Carl Edwards won the race at the road course out in California.

Jack Roush was all smiles on Sunday

So when Ricky Stenhouse won the Geico 500 on Sunday afternoon it really did throw wind to the sails in the organization at Roush Fenway Racing.  There are a lot of team members that have stuck through the grit and grind since that last win happened at Roush, they've heard all that talk that they were not capable of winning ever again; and the doors were ready to close on the organization.  Yet everyone of these guys that worked to get back to victory lane held through and have been able to see this organization turn around in just the last 9 months. 

It started from the top. 

Robbie Reiser was moved from being competition director after holding the position for almost ten seasons.  Kevin Kidd and Tommy Wheeler came in and have made swift changes into the organization that have seen much better results on the track this season than in the last few years in the MENCS. 

Jack Roush has hope that the win on Sunday is a solid impulse for even more victories this season.

"It gives us fresh wind in our sail," said the 75 year old car owner.  "We've got over 300 victories in NASCAR.  The number that I hold dear is 40 years of racing, drag racing, road racing and NASCAR.  I've won over 450 national events, and it puts another chapter in that record."

It was not long ago that Roush was the flagship organization for Ford Performance in NASCAR.  All around the board, they were a force in NASCAR's top tier division all the way down to the truck series and then something took a major change.  Around 2012, Roush Fenway Racing began to take a slide backwards and veteran drivers Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards parted ways with the organization within three years of one another to go to Joe Gibbs Racing. 

It was then late in the 2016 that a decision was made for Roush's last veteran driver Greg Biffle to part ways with the team.  Both Roush and Biffle mutually agreed that it was time for a change for both parties and it left the team with two cars and systematically in a position to improve. 

At the heals of the decision, it left the team in a position to do much needed work in their management department.  Robbie Reiser as I said was replaced with Kevin Kidd and Tommy Wheeler was put into a management role as well.  New roles were giving to younger members and the team freshened up the way that their cars were built within. 

Many questioned Bayne and Stenhouse when the decision
was made to go to two cars

Then there was one other little thing.  The team was left with two very young drivers that many people considered underachievers in the sport.  The only one to win a race was Trevor Bayne in his second start in the 2011 Daytona 500, so many were questioning how this would work out.  On Sunday when Stenhouse won, Bayne congratulated his long-time teammate on social media, even after being involved in the huge wreck late in the race. 

While it is only one victory for the organization, the team owner still believes that there a lot more to come for his drivers. 

"We'll win a race with Trevor before this year is over unless I miss my guess," Roush said.  "But honestly we can get ourselves ready for the last 10 races to make a championship run."