Bayne quietly leading Roush Fenway in 2016

Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse seem to have found some
of the chemistry they had back in the Nationwide Series

Going into the Charlotte's All Star break this weekend, Trevor Bayne has been the highest finishing Roush Fenway Racing driver in 4 of the last 6 races this year, scored two top-ten finishes in the last three events and led 34 laps so far this season.  He is the most improved driver at Roush Fenway so far during the 2016 season coming into the break.

Last weekend's 10th place finish was his third top-ten finish which already has broken last season's mark of 2 top-ten finishes.  But here is where the big improvement's are showing up.

When you look at the two big averages on Bayne's record this season they've made a huge turn around this season.

His average start is 16.75 compared to a dismal 27.91 last season, while his average finish is 18.25 compared to 25.80 in 2015 throughout the entire season.  Also there is a big Easter Egg on the DNF statistics for Trevor Bayne this season compared to last season when he had 3 last season,   Also Bayne has finished on the lead lap 8 times so far this season,  while all of last season the 6 team had 13 lead lap finishes.

Bayne could have very easily been
caught up in Sunday's wreck

The one major change is the team's intense persuasive attitude to not give up when they are down in the dirt and to get the car better.  A good example was this past weekend while racing at Dover, Bayne could have very easily been caught up in the huge wreck and finished back in the 20s and 30s, instead they dodged a huge mess and got a top-10 finish but that was not before they got back on the lead lap after losing it early on and getting the car better late in the race.

The team has a different will to succeed this season than they did in 2015 and maybe it has given Trevor Bayne a little more confidence that he needed to race more competitively this season.  On Sunday, Jeff Gordon made a statement for that last few years that he felt that the talent of the Roush Fenway drivers were better than the cars that they were provided and the cars are finally catching up to the drivers.

A lot of fans put the bad finishes the past few years on Bayne and Stenhouse, but when you have cars that are handling terribly each week it is hard to throw hail mary after hail mary at it to get the car right and expect the driver to finish well.  The big problem is, even when Bayne was with the Wood Brothers, many people don't realize this he was racing the same equipment as the Roush Fenway drivers, and its much different than what Ryan Blaney has at WBR now.  So since 2012 probably, Bayne has been dealt a bad deck, and this year he's finally getting a few good cards out of it.

When you aren't fast and unload slow constantly it makes it very hard for the driver and it puts him a predicament.  I feel Trevor now has a lot of the right combinations this season working in his favor, the crew chief, the spotter, the engineers on the team, his crew that makes the pit stop, and the atmosphere within Roush Fenway Racing has changed altogether.  For many years, RFR had a battle among its own teams; where sharing just didn't seem like an option and one team had to better than the other.  Now it seems that team has made it where all the teams are equal and the drivers are on equal equipment and they share information if one is better than the other.

That in itself will go a long way in making the team better.  Bayne is just quietly leading the surge back.