Downsizing, revamping Roush Fenway could help bring it back

Back in 2010, Roger Penske went through something very similar to what Jack Roush is doing right now.  They were running three cars in the Sprint Cup Series but were struggling to get more than one car going in the direction and Team Penske went to two-cars the following season with Kurt Busch and Brad Keselowski.

There are some advantages to running just two cars in the shop and while people keep posting the organization is killing itself doing this, it just maybe the cure to their issues altogether.  Roush Fenway began at the end of the season making moves to reposition personnel for 2017.  They started first by moving Robbie Reiser out of the Competition Director position and was replaced by Kevin Kidd.  In my opinion this was something that needed to happen almost two seasons ago, the organization had become stale with Reiser as its CD.  The organization's communication stand point just wasn't where it needed to be at to go any further with Reiser as its lead man.

I have felt that Kevin Kidd since the first time he really began to speak up in 2015 was going to be the person to lead this team if he was given the chance.  I think there is a strong point to having someone who came from another organization see what has happened for the past two seasons and now he's taken over as the team's Competition Director.

To be the director I feel there are a lot of things that need to come into play for the entire organization.  He needs to have better communication with the entire team than Reiser did, he needs to be able to know the current rules package that keeps changing every time we turn around, and he has to be very open minded and keep a good relationship with his team in order for them to go forward in the future.  Then there is the factor of going to two drivers and their relationship.

There's a lot of people on social media that want to bad mouth the two drivers Roush Fenway Racing has on board but these two drivers can race.  There is a factor in the cars the past few years that fans aren't considering when they've seen Bayne and Stenhouse have incidents on the track.  Trevor Bayne is a very talented young driver, he showed it coming up through the NASCAR Xfinity Series and his first years with the Wood Brothers.  Trevor Bayne is one of the most positive people I've listened to in the garage area, but it's hard to remain that way when you are driving a car that hasn't been able to turn through the corner for the past few years.

He and Stenhouse both have been driving mid pack cars since the 2012 season at Roush Fenway Racing, some don't want to see that but the facts are there.  That is why there are so many changes going on in the off-season.  Take for instance the race at Dover earlier in 2016, Bayne was able to climb his way into the top-10 because the car began to get better and he started to have the drive off the corner.  However it will not stop with the cars, the drivers are going to have to do exactly what the duo at Team Penske has been able to do and work together with one another and not be a rival with  one another.

We all know that these two had a solid relationship with one another in their earlier days in the NASCAR XFINITY Series when Stenhouse won back to back titles.  There was the Ricky Vs Trevor YouTube videos that gave fans a good laugh, and their chemistry was very good with each other.  The drivers have to go back and find what they had years ago to help bring the organization back to what it was.

The two drivers finished neck and neck in the standings this past season in the NASCAR Cup Series.

With Matt Puccia and Roman Pemberton returning to work with Trevor Bayne next season on the No. 6 AdvoCare team, I think that it brings a little more confidence by having the same two voices on the radio next season that he was able to hear in 2016.

Bayne picks up some insurance sponsorship from Liberty National in 2017

On Wednesday morning, Roush Fenway Racing announced a partnership with Liberty National Life Insurance Company, that will will have the leading health and life insurance company serve as the primary team partner on Trevor Bayne's No. 6 Ford Fusion.  Liberty National will also serve as well  as major partner in multiple races during the 2017 season.

"We are excited to have Liberty National on board next season," said Bayne.  "They are an extremely well respected brand that has been providing valuable services since 1900.  It's the kind of brand that are proud to have an association with and I can't wait to see the No. 6 Liberty National Ford on track.  Our Goal is to put our car up front and compete for race wins."

The No. 6 Liberty National Ford Fusion will make its debut on the track at Atlanta Motor Speedway in March.

"Liberty National views this new partnership with Roush Fenway Racing as the opportunity of a life time," said Liberty National President Steve DiChiaro.  "We look forward to cheering on Trevor Bayne as he drives the Liberty National car to victory lane in 2017."

This will be the first time Trevor Bayne has had someone other than AdvoCare on his No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion in the Sprint Cup Series as they have been the only major sponsor in the series for the Knoxville, TN native.

Kevin Kidd, Tommy Wheeler take over as leaders at Roush Fenway Racing

Roush Fenway Racing has announced its lineup for the 2017 season with numerous changes made to its organization.

Kevin Kidd will take over as Competition Director

Kevin Kidd will resume his role as the Sprint Cup Series Competition Director and Tommy Wheeler will serve as the team's Operation Director in 2017.  The team announced that it will be leasing its charter from the 16 car and loaning driver Chris Buescher to JTG Racing in 2017.

"We have been able to shore up our plans for 2017 and we feel that this will continue to move us in a direction that will yield improved performance and results," said owner co-owner Jack Roush.  "We say improvement in our cars and made substantial gains in our performance at times last season, and we will continue to build on that by maintaining a robust engineering group in order  to take the next step by consistently running up front."

Matt Puccia who led Trevor Bayne last season on the No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Racing team will return

Puccia will remain crew chief for Trevor Bayne in 2017

to duty as the leader of the team in 2017.  It will be the first time that Bayne will have the same crew chief for consecutive seasons while at Roush Fenway Racing in the Cup Series.  Brian Pattie, who was the crew chief Greg Biffle on the No. 16 Cup Series team, will take over as the crew chief of the No. 17 car and Ricky Stenhouse Jr., as Nick Sandler who was the crew chief of the team will be moved to the role of Director Of Engineering.

Robbie Reiser who was moved from his position last week, will remain with the organization in a yet to be determined position.

Kidd who moved to Roush Fenway Racing in 2015, served as the team manager of the Cup Series teams after coming from Joe Gibbs Racing where he worked as a crew chief for several seasons.

Wheeler has been on board Roush Fenway since 2009, he has 20-plus years of experience in the sport, he served in many positions for the team, including the team's production director since 2011, overseeing the building and production of all the organization's Cup and XFINITY cars.

This will be the first time since 1995 that Roush Fenway less than 3 cars in the Cup Series.

Reiser moved from general manager position at Roush

It's that time again.  The carousel of changes in the NASCAR world is happening once again right after the season has ended.  Once again Roush Fenway was in the news yesterday afternoon with a huge announcement.

Greg Biffle and Robbie Reiser both are out at RFR

Long-term Roush Fenway member Robbie Reiser has been relieved of his general manager duties after serving the role since the 2008 season when he stepped down from being the crew chief of Matt Kenseth.  Reiser won Roush Fenway's first Sprint Cup (then Winston Cup) with Kenseth in 2003.

Word is that Reiser was offered a position in car production but has yet to decide where his future will be in the sport.  This could be the first of many moves to move Roush Fenway Racing in a different direction since neither Trevor Bayne nor Ricky Stenhouse Jr finished in the top-20 in the points standings and failed to win a race in 2016.

Stenhouse and Bayne have been teammates
Since 2010 in the Xfinity Series

For the last two seasons the organization has made critical hires to try to help the improvement of its cars and the atmosphere of the shop.  While both Bayne and Stenhouse did show improvement on the track in their statistics, the struggles on track were still clear that there needed to be more changes made to the organization to help improve them for the future and possibly get back to 3 cars.

The two drivers finished 10 points apart in the final standings in 21st and 22nd and looked to be making improvements on the season until mid-August when the series left Bristol.  It appeared after Chris Buescher won the race at Pocono for Front Row Motorsports things slid backwards for both Bayne and Stenhouse.  The two drivers did make huge improvements on where they were

Roush Fenway headed to 2 cars in 2017?

It didn't take long for the domino's to begin to fall at Roush Fenway Racing after the season ended on Sunday in Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Many had been hearing the rumors going around, including myself about Greg Biffle leaving the organization at the end of the season to go somewhere else.  On Monday afternoon, Biffle posted on twitter that it was a mutual agreement to part ways that had been in place months ahead for the end of the end of 2016.  Then later in the afternoon news began to start coming out that Chris Buescher would be going to JTG Daughtery Racing on a loan out from Roush Fenway and Ford Performance next season in a second car.

Will Stenhouse(left) and Trevor Bayne be a two-car pair in 2017?

That leaves the obvious out there for fans to really see the true light in this.  Roush is going to be a two-car operation for the first time since 1995 when Mark Martin and Ted Musgrave were in the 6 and 16 cars for Roush Racing.  There is a lot of problems with the organization right now and many speculate that it is the upper deck management group that is running the organization, Robbie Reiser and Steve Newmark.   Two years ago I thought the hiring of Mark McArdle and Kevin Kidd was progress and then Kevin Kidd began to bring in more key people to the organization last December.

In March 2015, Kidd made comments about the progression he felt about the organization and believed that it was going to take several seasons to rebuild things.

"Rome was not built in a day and we're in the process of building Rome back up," told Motorsports.com at the time.  "It's going to take time.  That's the simple truth.  I had some perspective on it this week like when you look at other organizations that are down and trying to build back up - Ganassi comes to mind.  Penske, maybe less so but maybe from a few years back.  It's a solid two to three year process of trying to get back to full form and ultimate competitive level.  I'll stop short of of saying it will take two to three years, but it's going to take time."

"When you look at where we're trying to go with this, we're trying to change the culture of Roush Fenway Racing, how we've done business in the past and wow we'll do business in the future.  Ultimately, that change, more so than nuts and bolts of race cars, but change of our working philosophies, that's what will get us back to a competitive level - and that takes time."

Now we're another year down the road and yes the organization did improve from 2015 but it was the first time since Jack Roush opened shop in 1988 that one of his cars did not win a race in either series in NASCAR.  So now it appears that going back to two cars might be the way to go but why?

There is less information to spread around between two cars than three, the drivers can communicate more freely with each other and so can the engineers and crew chiefs.  While we have not heard if there are going to be crew chief and crew changes to either Bayne or Stenhouse's teams next season we do know they will be the drivers and know that they can work together. I believe that the organization took more of what Biffle wanted than the two younger drivers needed and it wasn't paying its due.

Team Penske has been making it with two cars and drivers that have good chemistry for quite a while in the Sprint Cup Series.  Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski have been able to win races and be competitive as a two-car team up until Team Penske paired with the Wood Brothers to bring up Ryan Blaney in the Sprint Cup Series.

Bayne, AdvoCare one of the few deals that are working off the track

I sat and listened to a lot of people push some rumors in front of my face the past two months, a lot of it was pretty negative towards Trevor Bayne and his sponsor AdvoCare.  AdvoCare and Trevor Bayne have been a solid core since the beginning of the 2014 season when they joined up with one another for Bayne's final Xfinity Series season. AdvoCare won the 2013 championship with Austin Dillon on the No. 3 Richard Childress Chevrolet in the Xfinity Series and had been on his car since 2012, however, AdvoCare liked what they seen in Bayne when he met their lead man at the track.

Understanding a relationship that sponsors and drivers have can sometimes be pretty hard, however, there is a big SPARK between Trevor Bayne and AdvoCare that makes this partnership work out.  He is liked among most of the independent distributors that provide AdvoCare products to people.  This is a well spoken young man that handles himself well in front of the camera, he has a setback with multiple sclerosis and still races. 

It was a couple of weeks ago my elementary school PE teacher gave NASCAR a big shout out for being the only sport that prayed before every event and telling the TV networks that carry them you don't cut the camera.  I brought up the Christian base of the France family, and then I replied on face book about Trevor Bayne.  He researched him and found he had MS.  I explained that Bayne stayed fit with great products from his sponsor and he was a very well recognized face in the sport as the youngest Daytona 500 winner.

I have a friend who is a Jimmie Johnson fan and when she first began watching Trevor that he was the type of person that she would want a daughter to bring home to you an introduce.  Part of that is why AdvoCare really reps the benefits of having him as one of their Sports Endorsers.  From 1993-2000, Mark Martin had sponsorship from Valvoline Oil and they shared a very similar relationship with one another.  Sponsors and drivers sometimes have that working relationship together that sometimes it isn't always about on track results. 

Bayne keeping solid deal with AdvoCare a plus for Roush

Yesterday in the midst of an announcement many were eased of some rumors that had been spreading around that Roush Fenway was trying to outs Trevor Bayne as a driver.  The team announced that AdvoCare and Bayne had renewed their deal with the organization for three more seasons, through the 2019 season.

There have been driver/sponsorship pairings that have blossomed throughout the years, look at how long STP stuck by Richard Petty, Miller with Rusty Wallace, Dupont with Jeff Gordon, Valvoline with Mark Martin, or Lowe's with Jimmie Johnson.  The fact is AdvoCare and Bayne have really had a good pairing together, even though they have yet to find their way into victory lane together in NASCAR.  They did win the ARCA race at Pocono in 2015 in a unique designed car.  Their relationship goes far more than just the sponsorship, Bayne is an avid user of their products and he is an Independent Distributor for the company, along with his wife Ashton.

What many fans hate to admit is NASCAR is a big a business in itself and it is driven by sponsorship.  When all these rumors came up there were fans that expected AdvoCare was going to ditch Bayne because of the performance, but what many don't understand is there is always another side to the story we're never told.  It's not always on track performance that gets a sponsorship out there, it takes a solid spokesman for that company to go to the meet and greets.  I don't think I've read a negative thing from an AdvoCare rep yet that has seen and met Trevor and Ashton, and now little Ellie at their meets during race weekends. 

There are just some sponsors that are made for the driver and vise versa.  The big thing is Roush Fenway really needed to push to keep this deal in their organization for a major reason, they are struggling to keep sponsorship on the other two cars and it's why the big rumor of switching to two cars is really the biggest rumor coming up now.  Like Trevor or not, he is solidly the only guy at Roush that can provide the team with major sponsorship for the entire season.

Done Deal: Bayne, AdvoCare sign multi-year agreement with Roush Fenway

Roush Fenway Racing announced this afternoon that they have signed a new three year renewal with AdvoCare to continue to be the primary sponsorship on Trevor Bayne's No. 6 Ford Fusion in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. 

The company has been a partner with Trevor Bayne since the opening of the 2014 NASCAR Xfinity Series season and moved up with the 2011 Daytona 500 champion to the Sprint Cup Series in 2015. 

"AdvoCare has been an outstanding partner to work with, and I am really excited to continue this relationship and represent AdvoCare for three more seasons," Bayne said.  "It's a top notch organization with a great group of employees and Independent Distributors who share our core principles of hard work and determination."

"For me it's more than a sponsorship," the 25 year old Knoxville native stated.  "I regular use their products to stay in top form on and off the track.  My wife Ashton and I are also Independent Distributors for AdvoCare, as are several other Roush Fenway employees."

This weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, Trevor Bayne will be sporting a new paint scheme in honor
of the Seal Legacy Foundation.

 The Seal Legacy Foundation is dedicated to providing support, including financial assistance and educational assistance to families of wounded and fallen United States Navy SEALs, and other charitable causes benefiting the SEAL community.