Something Fans Need to Know: There's a reason Trevor Bayne isn't in the 21

It's a constant comment I see as an admin and page owner on facebook "I wish Trevor Bayne was still in the 21."  Or "Trevor should have stayed with the Wood Brothers and he'd be doing much better."

Here is a little piece of the puzzle many fans know but some do not.  Back in 2010, Jack Roush signed Bayne after he was let go by Michael Waltrip Racing with about 10 races to go.  He really didn't know where to put him into the puzzle at Roush Fenway because of already having Ricky Stenhouse Jr and someone else at the time.  Bayne ran the final events on the Xfinity Series schedule that season and also ran 1 event for the Wood Brothers at Texas Motor Speedway finishing 17th.

Here's that little piece to the puzzle I mentioned.  Bayne was signed on with Roush Fenway Racing

Bayne ran the 21 from 2010 to 2014 part-time

when he was driving for the Wood Brothers.  I'm not going to take anything away from the Wood Family because they've been around a long-time but what many fans need to get the conception of when he drove that car he was pretty much driving another Roush Fenway Racing car that was sent over to the Woods.  He won the Daytona 500 in 2011 as the youngest driver ever in the sport, which was one of the biggest upset victories in our sport with the team.  The alliance with Roush and the Wood Brothers went on for many years until Bayne signed with AdvoCare to move to go full-time in the Sprint Cup Series and the Wood family then formed an alliance Team Penske and their young driver Ryan Blaney.

Here is the catch in all of this people.  Yes you are seeing the 21 car run a lot better but remember they have support from Team Penske right now, where when Trevor Bayne ran the car it was with Roush.  Since 2010, Bayne was setup to go into a Roush car in the Sprint Cup Series, it was a matter of finding sponsors and the right leverage to get him there to make it happen.  AdvoCare made the deal happen in 2014, and he parted ways with the 21 team. 

The deal with WBR served its purpose to get Bayne much needed experience but fact of the matter is, he was meant to be part of Roush Fenway from the start.  I look back at what Bayne has gone through since joining this organization and many car owners would have given up on him, so I think there is a sense of loyalty on both sides between Jack Roush and Trevor Bayne. 

Trevor Bayne, wife Ashton expecting their second child in June

The second baby Bayne is on the way.

On Monday night, Ashton was the first to reveal on her instagram account that she and Trevor would be adding a baby boy to their family next June.  The news comes a day after Ellie Kate, their first child's first birthday, Ashton posted that the two children would be 18 months apart.

Trevor went on facebook and posted for the first time in almost 6 months with his unique way of revealing the babies gender to the family. 

" 6 months without a post on here, but I feel like this is worth breaking the streak for. We are having a baby boy! Blessed to have a great wife who let me blow stuff up at the gender reveal "

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.

Trevor Bayne 2016 Year In Review

In 2016, Trevor Bayne seen improvements in his numbers from the year before in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in all categories on the track.

After having a very dismal first season with Roush Fenway Racing in 2015 in the No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion with only 2 top-ten finishes and finishing 29th in the series standings, Bayne stepped up in 2016 with new crew chief Matt Puccia and spotter Roman Pemberton. Puccia took over the crew chief roles after a hard season with former driver Greg Biffle in 2015, and appeared to be heading to the NASCAR Xfinity Series to work with Bubba Wallace, however, Osborne was moved to Front Row Motorsports when Chris Buescher moved in under an alliance.

Bayne posted his first top-five and top-ten finish of the season in his home state of Tennessee at Bristol Motor Speedway when he finished in fifth place in the Spring event at the half-mile track, two weeks later Bayne finished 10th at Talladega.  As it appeared the team was on its way to having found some speed in its cars through the early part of the season.  Bayne went on a stretch of finishing in the top-ten in 3 out of five events from Bristol through Dover in June.

The team's strongest showing of the season came in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona.  Bayne looked to have himself right in line to make a move to win the event but would have to settle for third place in the event.  The team's last top-ten finish of the season came on the road course at Watkins Glen in a special paint scheme for AdvoCare's new Blue Raspberry Spark flavor.  Bayne would finish 9th in the event after finishing 5th the day before in the Xfinity Series race.

The last portion of the season was a struggle for Bayne and his crew as they did not score a top-ten finish for the final 13 events of the season and finished 22nd in the final points standings.  Bayne, however, improved his numbers solidly from first season with Roush Fenway Racing.  He had a better average start 20.4 compared to 27.9 in 2015.  His average finish was 19.9 compared to 25.8 in 2015, and he led 34 laps compared to 0 the year before.  Bayne also scored 21 lead lap finishes compared to 13 the year before.

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.