Trevor Bayne scores first top-five since July of 2016 at Michigan

Bayne challenged late for a top-3 finish in the Pure Michigan 400

Trevor Bayne gave Kyle Larson a little help on the final restart of the Pure Michigan 400 on Sunday to help him him win his third straight race at Michigan Speedway but it also propelled Bayne to his first top-five finish of the 2017 season in the Roush Performance Ford.

With the race restarting in over-time, Bayne would restart behind Larson on the outside line in the fifth position and gave the driver of the 42 car enough of a push to get around two Furniture Row Toyota's in the end.  Bayne also made a daring move to get around Erik Jones and Matt for third and fourth before hitting a patch of oil dry in the turn 3 section of the track that sent him up the track but he would rally back around Austin Dillon for fifth place. 

It was his only top-five finish of the season, in what has been a season filled with tough finishes for Trevor Bayne and his team.  After the finish, Bayne moved up to 19th in the points standings but with just three races to go before the playoffs begin, it will take a victory for Bayne to get in. 

Even if Trevor Bayne does not make it in, he's out to make a statement the remainder of the season with his team.

"We're still not in the Chase yet and we have to keep pushing and making our cars faster and for Ricky's sake, who's in the Chase," said Bayne after the race.   "We have 13 races left with or without the Chase to go make a statement, win races and run well.  It feels good to be in contention.  We still aren't the fastest race car.  We can't beat them on raw speed, but we can put ourselves close with fuel strategy, tire strategy and trying to be in the mix at the end.  And that feels really good from what we're used to."

Bayne had a fast car in the first stage of the event as he was turning laps as quick as the race leaders and making gains on the top-10 pack of cars.  After the end of the first stage the team made adjustments that didn't sit well with the car and Bayne began to fall back in the field.  It would take until the final run of the final stage for Bayne to show up when crew chief Matt Puccia made the call to go to the end on fuel.

Once again it seemed like Indianapolis all over again when the caution flag came out on lap 185.  Bayne's team took the chance with two tires and came out first in the pits, however, four cars remained on the track.  With nine laps remaining in the race, Bayne seen himself back in the same position he was in at Indy, he was in fifth place and on older tires.  Another caution fell on lap 195 that would red flag the event and Bayne would restart in 6th place behind Kyle Larson. 

He would eventually give Larson the push to win the race and make the move through to get into the top-five. 

"That's what we needed," said Bayne after the Michigan event.  "Man, if it stayed green we had another shot like Indy to hold off that 78, but we had a caution at the wrong time.  I got a great restart and pushed the 42 to the lead.  I went for it in turn three and it didn't stick.  It got massive loose and ended up fifth.  Third and fifth, that's not a big difference.  If I went home thinking I should have gone for it in three, I would be kicking my butt.  But it's a great day for our team.  We needed this to recover a little bit."

After being wrecked on the restart at Indianapolis, Bayne took the chance at Michigan and came home fifth.

"It's refreshing.  We've had a tough couple of months not getting the results we thought that we deserved.  Today, to get a result feels really good.  We had fast car early on.  We had fuel strategy at the end.  Probably gonna have a shot to beat the 78 if it stayed green.  Got a caution and I was like 'Oh man, here goes Indy again.'  We had a good first restart.  The second restart was even better.  We were able to push the 42 up to the lead and getting into (turn 3) I tried to go for it from the top and hit the Speedy Dry, and got loose, and came home fifth.  Cost us a couple spots.  Man, when you're in that position you have to go for it.  I wouldn't have slept good at night if I didn't stuff it in there and try something.  It just didn't stick.  It feels really good for our team."

Performance Plus Motor Oil on board for the first time at Vegas

After representing Liberty National Life last weekend in Atlanta, Trevor Bayne will have his third sponsor in as many weeks on the No. 6 Roush Fenway Ford Fusion this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Performance Plus Motor Oil will be the primary sponsor for Bayne and his No. 6 team this weekend for the Kobalt 400 at the 1.5 mile track in Las Vegas.  Las Vegas is the last 1.5 mile track that Trevor Bayne scored a top-ten finish on, back when he was driving the No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford in 2012.   This will be the seventh event that Trevor Bayne has taken part of at LVMS in his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career.

After their performance in Atlanta, Trevor Bayne and the team should be looking forward to another intermediate track as they were heading to a competitive top-ten finish before the final caution flag took any chance of that way.

"I'm fired up to get back to the track this weekend in Las Vegas.  We had some really good speed last week in Atlanta and I'm excited to see how that will transfer over to this week.  Vegas has always been a really fun track to race on and I'm confident (crew chief) Matt (Puccia) will give me a solid Ford Fusion that will unload just as fast as last week.  I also want to thank everyone at Performance Plus for coming on board.  This is the first race of the season with these guys on our Roush Fenway Ford and I hope that we give them a great show on Sunday."

Bayne, Roush Fenway show improvement at Atlanta

There were a lot of questions going into Sunday's Fold's of Honor 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway where Roush Fenway Racing was concerned.  It was the first race on a mile and a half venue this season where the organization has struggled for the last few seasons.

Trevor Bayne and teammate Ricky Stenhouse Jr., were competitive for much of the 500 mile event and ended up finishing in 12th and Stenhouse ended up finishing 13th.  The No. 6 Liberty National Life Ford Fusion started from the 15th position and the driver and crew chief had a plan from the start of the race to conserve their tires for the start of the race.

The No. 6 Liberty National Life crew complete a stop

Spotter Roman Pemberton reminded Bayne not to really go forward until he got about 15-20 laps into the run where the tires on his no. 6 LNL Ford Fusion would last through the first run.  The first 85 lap segment was ran on Friday's qualifying tires, so the team remained content to settle into the top-20 early on as Pemberton reminded Bayne to stick to their plan.

Bayne began to pass cars about 20 laps into as Pemberton told Bayne "Keep that rhythm going," and crew chief Matt Puccia came over the radio "Don't get anymore than that out of it."

Bayne was up into the top-ten when the first round of pit stops began under the long green flag run on Sunday.  His No. 6 Liberty National Ford needed a slight adjustment made to help tighten his car up.  After the stop, Bayne was running inside the top-10 once again with a strong car through the long run.  He finished the first stage in 13th after falling back late in the run on the older tires, trying to get his car to the finish of the stage without having a tire go.

The Liberty National Life crew was able to get Trevor Bayne out in the top-10 for the second stage of the 500-mile event, as Puccia did an air pressure adjustment and wedge to help during the long run and forward drive.  Bayne remained steady through the second stage of the race and very competitive as he battled to get a top-ten in the second stage of the event.

Crew chief Matt Puccia came over the radio and asked Roman Pemberton how they looked on the track, as Pemberton replied "Really, Really good.  We just have to get ourselves in a hole where we can place ourselves with the leaders."

Bayne would finish tenth in the second segment of the event that setup the final stage, the green flag dropped at lap 178 would be a run of  147 laps on the 1.54 mile track.  Bayne and his crew worked to conserve tires through the run but several caution flags late in the event hurt their finish at the end of the event as they settled for 12th after being a strong contender for a top-10 before the No. 3 of Austin Dillon had battery issues and brought the yellow flag on lap lap 311.

"Today was a solid day overall," said Bayne after the Folds of Honor 500.  "We had some good speed right off the truck with our Liberty National Ford and were able to make good adjustments throughout the day today that kept us in the game.  I can't thank these guy's enough of this team for their hard work on this team for their hard work.  Today was a good step in the right direction and we're ready to build off of this next week in Vegas."

Liberty National Life will be on the No. 6 for the first time at Atlanta

Since Trevor Bayne has been running full-time for Roush Fenway Racing at the upper level when he moved up in 2015, AdvoCare has been the only sponsor that has adorned his No. 6 Ford Fusion.

That is about to change this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Liberty National Life Insurance will be on the No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford for the first of multiple races this season for Trevor Bayne.  In November, RFR and Liberty National Life announced their partnership that would begin with the Folds of Honor 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend.

Trevor Bayne is coming off a 10th place finish in the season opening Daytona 500 and hopes to carry that momentum over to Atlanta where he started third last Spring in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.

Why Roush needs to get rid of leadership role among drivers

Yes I've seen this go on since 1992 Roush Fenway Racing became a multi-car operation with Mark Martin and Wally Dallenbach in the premier series of NASCAR.  The team has always had a leader among its operation in the drivers and I am already hearing the media giving that title to Ricky Stenhouse Jr., where it doesn't even need to be placed.

Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse Jr will become a
two car operation in 2017 with Roush Fenway Racing

While it has been a busy off-season full of changes at Roush Fenway Racing going into the Holiday season there needs to be some comprehension brought up about why this isn't a good thing to give someone such as Stenhouse that "lead dog" role.  Both Stenhouse and Bayne have pretty much the same amount of experience in the top series in the sport, and both need to share the same role of providing the team with good information to go in the right direction for the future.

In the past it was Martin, Carl Edwards, or Greg Biffle that had that lead role in the organization in giving the team the information that they needed to get the cars prepared to run up front.  Now the organization goes back to two cars in 2017 with the younger duo of Bayne and Stenhouse Jr., and there lies a lot of questions on whether or not the team will be able to get back to where it came from.  Next season the two need to work closer together and give the team the solid feedback it needs to get the two Fords at the shop back in contention every weekend.

For much of these two's careers they have been driving cars that haven't handled well and are pretty much mid-pack cars.  I believe that the two have been misbranded as mediocre drivers in the sport because of the results that they have had on the track.  All you have to do is look when the two do have better race cars where they are running on the track.  There is a conception that these changes that are going on within the organization are going to make the team a much tighter core group and strengthen the team.

There was a time when Roush had two drivers that worked whole hearted to make sure that the organization got what it needed.  Martin and Jeff Burton were very competitive but they knew how to work well with one another as equals.  Back then the words jealousy, animosity, or arrogance didn't fit into organizations mold with the two drivers.  I think that now is a time for Bayne and Stenhouse to go back about 17 years and see how these two worked so well with one another to make sure they won and competed every weekend.  They were just as much friends as they were teammates and knew how to work together.

I believe from how Bayne and Stenhouse performed with one another in the NASCAR Xfinity Series years back they can have that same role together.  Yet I believe those three words I mentioned before need to be left out - jealousy, animosity and arrogance.  The reason I say this, one driver can't think he's above the rest or deserves better cars than the other.  I believe that was the problem having someone like Edwards and Biffle, they had many years on drivers like Bayne and Stenhouse that they would over ride what the youth thought about needed to go into the race cars.

Now these two need to work together like Martin and Burton and bring RFR back to it's winning ways.

What attracts the sponsors eye to Trevor Bayne

Today's fans have this thing about a driver having a relationship with a sponsor and some believe if there is no success on the track, there is going to be no success with the partnership.  There are some, however, that truly can see how a partnership like Trevor Bayne and AdvoCare have worked out for as long as it has.

Bayne signs memorabilia for fans at the AdvoCare Booth

When you look at what Trevor Bayne has done off the track at AdvoCare's independent distributors at meet and greets and speak of their products and his off the track style has helped garner the reputation for his sponsor.  AdvoCare is part of Bayne's regiment for performance with their many products in his corner.

"That relationship has been one of the best relationships, if not the best relationship; that I've had in all my career with a partner and a sponsor for more than one reason," Bayne said.  "They've committed to sponsor every single race, which is incredible at this level.  But beyond that, the people in that company and the distributors, they are all super fit people, and it motivates you to keep fit yourself and keeps you accountable."

It was late in 2013 when AdvoCare began their partnership with Bayne after they decided not to move to the Sprint Cup Series with Austin Dillon and Richard Childress Racing.  The partnership started when Bayne began to use their products after he was diagnosed with MS in 2011, so Bayne knew if he wanted to keep going further into his career he needed a change and AdvoCare was the company that took him in the right direction.

"The product is incredible, and it's been really good for me to take it to keep me fresh and hydrated before the races.  It's been a big part of my routine and helps me in the car.  Also being around fit, like the distributors, you can't be an overweight race car driver and out of shape if you're going to work for AdvoCare."

Roush has had to support its other 2
cars in Sprint Cup for 2 seasons

Next season, Bayne for the first time will have someone other than AdvoCare on his No. 6 Ford Fusion.  Liberty National Life will be on board for several races and as a major associate sponsor on the car for the 2017 season.  There have been fans question why these sponsors wanted to be on the 6 car and possibly not with Greg Biffle, Ricky Stenhouse or even Chris Buescher, however, the posture that Bayne brings to the table for sponsors is different on and off the track.

He's very composed behind the camera when he is interviewed by the media, he is able to keep his cool even through the lows of the season and thanks the sponsors he has every race.  Bayne has been the only one at Roush Fenway Racing to be able to fill a complete season with sponsors since coming on board, as teammates Ricky Stenhouse and Greg Biffle had support from Roush Performance and Ford on their cars at time that brought little to no revenue to the team.

AdvoCare re-upped through the end of the 2019 season with Trevor Bayne and Roush Fenway back in November.  The partnership that started back in 2014 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series (then Nationwide) has grown into one of the healthiest in the sport between the driver and the sponsor.

Bayne's results on the track may not weigh in to many fans on social media but his off the track performance with his sponsors has repped the results for the company that has backed him.  I have seen many AdvoCare Independent Distributors discuss Trevor Bayne's meets and all have positive reaction to the driver that their company backs.  It helps when the athlete that company backs uses their product on a regular basis.  Bayne is able to speak out to these people and what they do.

Maybe it's time the fans that question sponsors realize there's positives that outweigh the negatives.

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.

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.

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.