Bayne has taken a longer path to Sprint Cup than expected

This past Sunday, Trevor Bayne completed his 67th career Sprint Cup Series start when he crossed the finish line 24th at Richmond.  The 24 year old Knoxville, Tn. native has not come to an easy start in his career as many things have stood in his path of making it to the top tier series in stock car racing.

Winning the pole in Iowa 2010

Bayne has been facing a lot of critics the early part of this year, but what many don't comprehend is the fact he is only 24 years old (former Roush Fenway teammate Carl Edwards was 24 when he first debuted in Sprint Cup in 2004).  Not many drivers are getting started in the Sprint Cup Series level at this point, and he won his first race when he was only 20 years old and it was the biggest of them all, the Daytona 500.  So when you look at how Bayne has made his steps to the top level go back to when he first got a true shot in NASCAR with Michael Waltrip Racing in 2009, it wasn't a fully sponsored car, and the following year things didn't come into place either and he parted ways and went to Roush Fenway Racing where he has been ever since. 

Bayne seemed to have found the right road to success with Roush Fenway at

Youngest Daytona 500 winner in History

the end of 2010.  He scored a top-five finish at the season finale for the then NASCAR Nationwide Series at Homestead, he had made his Sprint Cup Series debut at Texas a few weeks before and finished 17th for the Wood Brothers Racing Team, and it was later announced he would drive the famed 21 car in 2011.  Then there it was the one race that seemed like the career starting burst for Bayne, the 2011 Daytona 500.  He was in an odd position when David Ragan was penalized for moving out of line too quick and Bayne had the fend off challenges from many veterans before winning the race.  As he crossed the finish line his remark will always be remembered by his fans "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"

Winning at Texas in 2011

However, winning the 500 didn't get sponsorship on his No. 16 Fords for Roush Fenway Racing in 2011.  The team struggled to find sponsorship and then in April, Bayne became ill with what some thought to be Lyme's disease.  He missed several events in 2011, but finally broke through and beat Denny Hamlin to the finish line for his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series win at Texas Motor Speedway where he made his Sprint Cup Debut in 2010.

The Bayne's Celebrate at Iowa Speedway

The following year, Roush Fenway would run him the first 5 races but with no sponsorship they would have to sit him out of the Nationwide division.  The Wood Brothers would still run Bayne in their No. 21 Ford Fusion part time.  He would run his home race in honor of legendary University of Tennessee Womens Basketball coach Pat Summitt at Bristol Motor Speedway winning the pole but finishing 16th.  Bayne finally was able to return full time in 2013 when teammate Ricky Stenhouse Jr., moved to Sprint Cup racing, and Cargill Beef stepped up to remain the sponsor on the No. 6 Ford.  Bayne would score his second career win at Iowa Speedway that season in a stellar show with Austin Dillion the same week he and long time fiance Ashton Clapp were married.

Then in November, Bayne announced he had been diagnosed with what would be his biggest challenge:  Multiple Sclerosis.  However, Roush finally had a sponsor that would be willing to take the chance on Trevor Bayne.  Advocare announced that they would be sponsoring Bayne full-time in 2014.  While all of the rumors of where his teammates might be going at the end of the season, Bayne and Advocare made an announcement at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May that they would be bringing back Roush Fenway's famed No. 6 to the Sprint Cup Series.  He couldn't find victory lane but came close at Dover against Kyle Busch and Chicagoland Speedway racing Chase Elliott to the finish.  Ending the season 6th in the standings.  Roush Fenway announced in the off season that Bayne would be paired with veteran crew chief Bob Osborne who had been in hiatus since 2012. 

That puts us here.  These first eight races of 2015, where Bayne sits 27th in the series points standings and even though fans don't see him as one of the younger drivers in the field he still is and has a lot to learn.  He finally has a crew chief that is working with him, willing to help him learn the ropes in Osborne.  The two have gelled well with one another in the early stages of the season.  Bayne knew this season was going to be a challenge with Roush Fenway in a rebuilding stage.  But he has thanked car owner Jack Roush numerous occasions for sticking by him through the long roads that they've faced together.

It's taken that long road to get to where he is today but Bayne feels he wouldn't be as appreciative of his chance if he had gotten it earlier in his career.   He remains healthy and will continue to stay on top of multiple sclerosis.

Bayne gets his first go at Richmond in Sprint Cup

It's hard to believe that with Richmond being so close to the Wood Brother's home the team never tried making the trip to the 3/4 mile Richmond International Raceway while Trevor Bayne was behind the wheel of their car.  This weekend will be the first time that the Knoxville, Tennessee native has gotten behind the wheel of a cup car at the short track.

Bayne has ran 8 events at Richmond in the NASCAR Xfinity Series since 2009, with his best career finish being 3rd in 2010 with Diamond Waltrip Racing in the No. 99 OUT! Pet Care Toyota.  Bayne has one more top-five finish in 2013 with Roush Fenway Racing.  Bayne suffered from an engine issue last weekend in the race at Bristol, the team told him they would not be able to diagnose the issue until they returned to the shop. 

Fellow Roush Fenway Racing driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr., stated last night while on Claire B Lang's Dialed In that the RFR team will not be running the newer chassis's at Richmond this weekend and from what I gathered Talladega will be ran with the older chassis as well.  The team apparently wants to take the time to make the car better for races at Kansas and Charlotte in the coming weeks. 

Osborne's Impact

I have been observing for the first six races of the season on how Trevor Bayne has worked with new crew chief Bob Osborne compared to his past two crew chief's Donnie Wingo and Chad Norris.  Osborne is a very different guy, all together he is very technical and he lets the driver give some input before deciding on the final change with the race car.

Bayne and Osborne talk in the garage at Atlanta

So after these first six races I took down some key things that were very different.  Osborne isn't negative towards Bayne on the radio, he and spotter Freddie Kraft have keep the radio waves positive with Bayne compared to Norris and past spotter Jason Hedlesky.  That in itself is a very good thing in my opinion, because a driver does not need to hear the crew chief and spotter blabbering on the radio about everything he could do better.

Osborne won 19 races as a crew chief with Carl Edwards and he knows his way around NASCAR.  The Penn State graduate went away for a few seasons after some health issues, but with his return he told Clare B Lang during an interview earlier this season that he was looking forward to working with another young, up and coming star.  Bayne had never worked with someone like Osborne before, considering that Osborne is an engineer turned crew chief, he likes to do things a little bit different than most crew chiefs.

Osborne and Bayne worked together on Saturday night to get the handling fixed on the No. 6 Advocare Ford Fusion and in the end they found a result of 18th.  No this isn't the results that Roush has expected but it was a building block with a new chassis that they say is the future of the organization.  I've always taken notice to something with Osborne, his cars rarely start up front but the longer the race goes, he seems to find a way to make the race cars better.  The feedback that Bayne gives him will pay off as the season goes on.  A driver can't win without a good crew chief impacting his results on the track.

In a way a crew chief is like a coach and cheerleader all in one.  He has to keep everyone on the team under control and make sure to keep the driver going in the right direction.  I've seen a lot more of that from Osborne this season so far that with Bayne's past two guys on top of the box.  Chemistry between the crew chief and driver make a world of a difference, and if it isn't there; there is going to be a lot of negative commotion going on.

From what I have heard on the heard I have seen a very big impact that Bob Osborne has played in keeping Trevor Bayne on the track and the last two races they've found a way to maintain lead lap contention, even if it meant getting two lucky dogs last weekend.  The two have worked it out well to find the fixes during the race to make the car get better.  Every race this season, the team has finished higher than the position they started in.

Bayne was asked on Saturday if he felt his team was on the right track after the race.

 “Yeah, you have to get that little momentum every now and then. Momentum isn’t gonna make faster race cars, but it just gives the guys that have been working their butts off for the last two years a little bit of hope. We need that, so it’s really good for us. AdvoCare was here this weekend, so they got to hang out with us and we had a decent run, so we’ll take it and work with it. Obviously, 18th isn’t where we want to be at this point in the season, but for where we’ve been it’s an improvement and we’ll keep getting better.”

The next two races are on short tracks in Bristol and Richmond.  

Roush Fenway will debut new chassis at Texas

We've all heard that Roush Fenway Racing will have a new chassis coming to the track in 2015, well the answer is it will be at next weekend's Duck Commander 500 at the 1.5 mile Texas Motor Speedway.

There's been no clear cut answer on why RFR waited this long to debut the car this season, yet there still is no guarantee that it will fix all of their handling issues that have been a burden on them for the past few seasons. 

“In the last three years, we’ve had three iterations of new car and every one is a small improvement is somethings that are known to be significant,” Jack Roush said. “We’re past coiled-bound front springs for the first time which was an advantage we had for a while. We’re past the skewed rear axle which you can have for a while until everyone else figures it out.

“NASCAR has the rules tightened up so much and the cars are so similar that it’s a matter of picking the right aero platform in terms of balance of front to rear. It’s a matter of picking the right springs for the right chassis platform for the ride for the roughness of the track. And it takes a good simulation to do that. There’s more left in the decisions we make about the car than there is room for improvement to make the car better.

“The Texas car I’m hopeful for. It’s not a panacea. It won’t offset the good judgments of the car that we got for springs, bars and shocks. It won’t require something different than the car we’ve got.”

Texas in the past has been one of the team's strongest venues.  Roush has nine wins at the track, 38 top-fives, and 59 top-ten finishes in the 28 races at the track spread around all of their teams cars.  Texas also is the site of Trevor Bayne's first career NASCAR Xfinity Series win for the team in 2011.

Trevor Bayne's teammate Greg Biffle is optimistic about bringing the new car to Texas. 

“We’ve been working on that car since the end of last season and through the winter,” Biffle said. “We’ve already had one test with it at Charlotte and I know there weren’t fireworks going off after the Charlotte test, but still this car is our next version of what it needs to be or where we feel like we need to go.

“So I’m excited to get to Texas and get driving this car, so we can start working on it.  Certainly, the first time you have it out of the shop and on the race track you may not have everything right on it, so with three or five of us, or however many we’re gonna have at Texas over the next couple of intermediate tracks hopefully we can dial that thing in.”