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.

How do you not consider Trevor Bayne's 2016 not to be a success

Last weekend at Watkins Glen International, Trevor Bayne scored his fifth top-ten finish of the season in the Sprint Cup Series and his first career top-ten on a road course venue.  Bayne's five top-tens already have amassed the equal amount of top-ten finishes that he did his first few years with the Wood Brothers and Roush Fenway last season.  So how would you go and say Bayne's season is not a success?

Sure there is a chance that Bayne may miss out on making the Chase this season but who can say at the beginning of the year that they even had Trevor Bayne in the picture to be a contender to one of the top-16 finishers?  All I heard at the beginning of the season was that Jack Roush needed to find someone else to be in this car and replace Trevor Bayne.  Yet there was this mixture of chemistry that happened this season between driver and crew chief.

Trevor Bayne meets with fans at Watkins Glen during
the weekend

Trevor Bayne and Matt Puccia clicked this season. Even though they've not won a race this season I've seen a huge difference in Trevor Bayne this season, a lot of things many people said was missing inside of him.  One was a major boost in his confidence this season, the cars have gotten better and the team has not made the same mistakes that were made last season.  With four races remaining at Bristol, Michigan, Darlington and Richmond, Bayne still has a small chance to make it into the Chase this season but with Chris Buescher winning at Pocono it was a hit on them if Buescher is to make it into the top-30 in the points standings.

While there are a lot of fans suffering with disappointment I understand that Trevor Bayne's season has been a true mark of success compared to year's past.  Bayne has more top-five finishes (2), more top-tens (5), more laps led (34), however where Trevor Bayne's numbers truly made a huge increase were in average start and finish.  Last season Bayne's average start was 27.0, this season it is down to 19.1, his average finish last season was 25.8; this season it is 17.8 in the first 22 events of the season.  Throw in the fact that Bayne only had 13 lead lap finishes last season and he's finished on the lead lap 16 of the 22 events this season that is truly a huge improvement on himself and his race team.

Bayne also gained an experienced spotter with Roman Pemberton this season that who in my opinion has kept Bayne out of a lot of trouble on the track this season that his spotter last season did not.  Roman combines a lot of spark and confidence on the radio during the races, something I believe was really lacking last season. When someone gets into Bayne, he's told them several times not to take their bullying and go get them.

Through it all Bayne has been leading his Roush Fenway organization in most numbers this season and looks to be the only one from Roush with a justified chance to make it in on points without winning a race, unless you count Chris Buescher who races for Front Row Motorsports.  Bayne has some good tracks coming up that he ran well in the spring, Bristol in the Spring he finished, Michigan has been one of his strongest tracks overall, Darlington is still a big question mark and Richmond Bayne finished 17th in the Spring.