Darlington offers that throwback appeal with Trevor Bayne in a Mark Martin scheme

Mark Martin ran the paint scheme that Trevor Bayne will have on his No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion this weekend at Darlington Raceway from 1996-1997 and was able to win four races at Sonoma, Talladega, Michigan and Dover in 1997.  This is the second season that Bayne has been able to honor Roush Fenway's long-time driver, last season Bayne ran Martin's 1998-1999 scheme with the Flying A paint scheme. 

What makes this car even more special was in 1996, Martin went on a long losing streak and ended it in this paint scheme with back to back wins at Sonoma and then set the record for the fastest ever race at Talladega Superspeedway in a caution free event. 

"It's an honor anytime you are mentioned alongside Mark Martin, " Bayne said back in April when the paint scheme was released.  "He obviously contributed a lot to Roush Fenway and this organization, so to carry a paint scheme that he ran for the second year in a row is really cool.  Our team has been working really hard and running well this season, so I'm hopeful that we can make Mark proud."

Mark Martin will be one of the Hall of Fame drivers on hand for the event, which for the second year is back for Labor Day weekend.  Earlier this year Martin was voted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame by members of the committee and fans. 

"It's going to be really cool to see that car on the track again at Darlington,"  Martin said.  "It's always been one of my favorite paint schemes and we had a lot of good times taking that car to victory lane and leading a lot of laps during that time.  I look at it as a tribute to all the guys that put the hard work in on those cars and gave us the opportunity to go out and compete each week."

Here is the original car that Martin drove to victory lane 4 times.

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.

Bayne surges from 32nd to finish 9th at the Glen

Trevor Bayne used some experience he gained racing in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race on Saturday afternoon at Watkins Glen International to help him out in the Sprint Cup Series Cheez It 355 At The Glen on Sunday. 

Sporting two similar paint schemes for the two events to announce AdvoCare's new Blue Raspberry flavor of Spark, Bayne finished fifth on Saturday in the Zippo 200 in the No. 60 AdvoCare Ford Mustang after being spun early in the event by Brad Keselowski.  Bayne qualified his No. 6 in 32nd on Saturday just before the Xfinity Series race began, so it would seem the Sprint Cup team was well off what the Xfinity team ran.

Bayne patiently worked his way up on Sunday afternoon.  He quickly reported to crew chief Matt Puccia that his No. 6 AdvoCare Spark Ford Fusion was very loose, especially through the Esses.  Bayne maneuvered himself up to 23rd before the first round of green flag pit stops began on lap 23, as he was up to 21st before the caution flag fell on lap 48.  In the past several weeks, Bayne had issues with the 47 of AJ Allmendinger on the track, when the 47 went to make a pass midway through the race, Bayne gave him a nudge as spotter Roman Pemberton quickly came over the radio "I saw what you did with your buddy with that free shot there Trevor."

Puccia decided to bring Bayne in for four tires and fuel.  Four laps later a caution flag gave Matt Puccia the chance to make a call and keep Bayne out on the course as many of the race leaders were making their stops. 

The decision had Bayne up in fourth position before a caution flag shuffled Bayne back on a restart as he was continuing to battle for position inside the top-10.  Caution flags kept coming as Bayne maintained his position inside the top-15 on the track and on the final restart he lined up 11th.  He was able to get around Matt Kenseth for 10th and with a late race wreck by Kyle Larson, Bayne was able to move into 9th. 

After the finish Bayne is now 8 points outside of the top-16 in the points standings with four races remaining at Bristol, Michigan, Darlington and Richmond.  If Bayne's Roush Fenway teammate on loan to Front Row Motorsports Chris Buescher is able to get into the top-30 in the points, he would be 38 points behind Jamie McMurray.

"This is a good weekend.  A fifth and a ninth," said Bayne after the race. "That is a good road course weekend for me considering I am not a road course ace.  The thought was to try to get better and I think we did that this weekend.  We made progress and that is really good.  We are excited.  Hopefully we can keep getting better at these and contend for a win one day."

Bayne quietly leading Roush Fenway Racing through the first half of 2016

Before this season started you heard a few things like 'Trevor Bayne can't race at the top level, he doesn't have the talent, he doesn't have what it takes to be a contender for the Chase,' but we are half way through the year and we're seeing something much different this season out of the driver from Knoxville, TN.

Many felt that Ricky Stenhouse Jr., would be the leader for Roush Fenway this season with more experience and more time with crew chief Nick Sandler but quietly and patiently, it has been Trevor Bayne and Matt Puccia leading the way for Roush's team with the best average finish of anyone there (17.3) and they are only 10 points out of being in the Chase going into this weekend's race at New Hampshire.  Bayne probably has shown the most improvement of any driver this season in the first half of the season as he has been able to improve on every number except for adding a victory to the win column. 

Bayne has scored more top-five finishes (2), more top-tens (4) and his average finish has improved by 8.5 positions this seasons.  Bayne also has led more laps this season with 34 than he did all his years combined before this season.  As of right now he is the only driver at Roush Fenway Racing with a legitimate shot at making it into the Chase on points going into New Hampshire after his teammate Ricky Stenhouse Jr., finished in 40th last weekend in Kentucky. 

Matt Puccia has helped give Bayne better cars and confidence

The key for the remainder of the season is to be able to have speed in their cars so fuel mileage won't have to be a factor in getting a good finish.  When this season began there was also a lot of questions put on a decision RFR made putting Matt Puccia with Bayne.  Puccia had very little success with veteran Greg Biffle in their term together; only winning three events together.  However, Bayne and Puccia have found a lot that they are in common together and have formed a core bond that has helped them work together on and off the track. 

There is more a more confident Trevor Bayne this season as many people have caught on.  Trevor Bayne told Claire B Lang on her show a couple weeks ago it is all about the opportunity and being confident in his crew chief and spotter.  There's a big difference in the cars that this team had year ago compared to this season and in my opinion, I hear a difference in spotter Roman Pemberton compared to last year with Freddie Kraft who is now on the 16 team.  Bayne needed a spotter he could feel confident that if he tells him the leaders are running this line, he can move up there and it work.  I just didn't hear that last year, and it worked the same way with the crew chief as well when he had Bob Osborne.

I've talked to many people that have been around Trevor Bayne for a good amount of his career.  He hasn't change, he's still the same driver he was when he competed in Michael Waltrip's cars and sat on poles and looked like a stellar young star.  The difference is Roush Fenway's cars took a fall off for several years and they're finally beginning to show a sign of performance turn around this season and you are seeing that confidence come back to Trevor this season.  When he made that move in the Sprint All Star Show Down back in May, it showed he had a lot of what people have not seen over the last several years while he raced for the Wood Brothers and his first season with RFR. 

Those that want to think Bayne doesn't have talent need to go back and look at a few races where he did have decent cars through the years and see solid finishes.  Bayne won the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Iowa a few years back in a fierce battle with Austin Dillon and he did the bump and run on Dillon.  A year later he gave Kyle Busch all he wanted at Dover in the Xfinity Series race there, and this year he has slowly began to show he isn't afraid to race against the Sprint Cup Series biggest stars. 

When you give him good race cars Trevor Bayne will perform.  Plain and simple. That is why he is leading Roush Fenway this season!

Bayne continues to eat away at Chase deficit

It may not have been the prettiest way to plug away at a margin in the points standings but with an 11th place finish at Kentucky Speedway last night, Trevor Bayne is now only 10 points away from being 16th in the Chase Grid Standings.  Bayne continues to show improvement with crew chief Matt Puccia and spotter Roman Pemberton through the first half of the season and lead the Roush Fenway organization this season when many people doubted their talents.

Trevor Bayne passes Kyle Busch early on at Kentucky Speedway

Last night, the No. 6 AdvoCare team stretched their fuel mileage and was able to make it the final 71 laps on the tank of fuel his team put in the car on their final stop and was able to finish 11th in the Quaker State 400 but it didn't come without a few challenges through the night.  Bayne first avoided the huge accident earlier in the night on lap 94 that took many cars out of the field, and then had a little bit of a run in with the No. 38 of Landon Cassill that put some damage on Bayne's left rear quarter panel before Cassill eventually went for a spin on lap 195 that was the final caution of the night.

Now the team goes on the long summer stretch that will be the tall order to see if they can make it into the Chase.  The series will travel to New Hampshire this coming weekend then Indianapolis, and then they return back to Pocono for the second time this season to end the month of July.  Then they will go to Watkins Glen for the final road course race of the season and finally catch a weekend off before going to Bristol where Bayne finished fifth earlier in the season.

Bayne made a statement to his crew chief Matt Puccia at the end of the race on Saturday night, "I don't care how pretty it is, as long as we keep getting these good finishes."  The one key thing is the 6 team has yet to have a race this season where they've failed to finish.  A big improvement from the 2015 season a year ago.

New Hampshire has not been one of Trevor Bayne's best tracks in either division that he's competed in, however, in the NASCAR Xfinity Series he did have a fifth place finish early on in his career, along with two more top-ten finishes; while leading 58 laps.  With the Roush Fenway team finding some momentum lately this might be a good chance for them to eat away even more of McMurray's margin in the standings and get themselves into Chase contention.

New Aero Package in place at Michigan for FireKeepers Casino 400

This weekend the Sprint Cup Series goes to Michigan for its 15th race on the schedule and once again they'll be racing with a new aero package this weekend at the two-mile speedway.  Last season fans didn't care for the high drag package that NASCAR implanted on teams at the track, but this season many drivers and crew chiefs feel that the racing will be better with the lower down force package.

NASCAR will make changes to the rear spoiler, front splitter and rear deck fin for two upcoming races to see how it plays out with the first being at Michigan this weekend.  It is a proposal to continue to lower the aerodynamic downforce and the sideforce in an effort to make the competition closer the intermediate race tracks.  The changes are similar to what the teams ran at Charlotte in the Sprint All-Star race. 

Michigan has had some snoozefest races in the past few years and NASCAR is hoping that this weekend the package will make the racing much more competitive.  Last season, Trevor Bayne finished 9th in the rain shortened event at the track.   The race only had 17 lead changes throughout the event in 2015.

The changes for this weekend's race consist of of a reduction in spoiler height from 3.5 inches to 2.5 inches, a splitter reduction of two inches and a re-sizing of the rear deck fin to complement the spoiler change.

There's 14 down and there's big signs of improvement with Team AdvoCare

There's still the occasional fan from another driver that has something negative to say about Trevor Bayne but the proof is in the pudding this season that he and his No. 6 AdvoCare crew have made huge strides to improve this season.

Matt Puccia been a big part of the improvement in 2016

Daytona wasn't much improvement, they jumped two positions to 28th from a 30th.  In Atlanta they took a drop off of last season's 19th place finish and took home 22nd, but had some adversity with tire issues after starting 3rd that afternoon.  Las Vegas was a big improvement, jumping up to 17th from 28th a year before on the 1.5 mile track.  At Phoenix, Bayne finished 23rd, an improvement off the 28th place finish place in 2015.  Also Trevor Bayne had made a jump up in the series points standings to 21st from 26th.

The No. 6 AdvoCare team really began to show some stride at Fontana and had a tire not gone down on the car, Bayne might have gotten a top-ten finish.  He still rallied back to finish 20th which was much better than 2015's 29th place finish.  The team struggled at Martinsville and didn't improve as they finished 27th compared to 18th a year before.  At Texas, crew chief Matt Puccia was going for the win with fuel mileage and a late caution backfired on them, but they were still able to get back on the lead lap and finish 15th, 3 positions better than 2015.

The season's best race so far came at Bristol.  Bayne's home track where he took home a fifth place finish and improved his finishing position by 23 positions from 2015 (28th).  It was the start of some momentum for Bayne and his crew.  They finished 17th at Richmond, a seven position improvement from the year before on the 3/4 mile.  Bayne was in contention throughout the entire race at Talladega Superpseedway, he was pushed out of the lead draft lead and still finished 10th, 31 positions better than 2015.  At Kansas another tire issue gave them trouble and they finished 25th, still an improvement from last season's 31st place finish.

Another top-10 finish came at Dover, when Bayne finished 10th, 33 positions better than last season.  In Charlotte, Bayne and the team just struggled throughout the night with the setup on their car and finished 25th, two position improvement from the year before.  Last weekend at Pocono, Bayne was able to use a little bit of fuel mileage strategy from his crew chief Matt Puccia to get a 13th place finish which helped him improve last season's finish by 11 positions.  Also at this point last season, Bayne was sitting 30th in the series standings and now sits 20th, a 10 position jump.

Their average finish last season for the entire season was a dismal 25.8, this season it has improved up to a 18.4. The other big number to look at is there is also a big Easter Egg in the DNF column this season with Trevor Bayne's numbers.  He's been able to keep the car out of trouble and survive.

This weekend the series goes to Michigan and will run a similar package to what the teams ran at Charlotte in the NASCAR All Star race and Trevor Bayne ran very well with it at Charlotte.  So we'll see if the improvements keep coming.