NASCAR's Back-Breaking Mid-Season

NASCAR's  2017 season is the debut season of Monster Energy Drink sponsorship and in its first eleven races the season has seen a plethora of surprises, not all of them positive.   The Kansas 400 Winston Cup race was the second win of the season for Martin Truex, but the story of the 400 was Aric Almirola, who suffered a compression fracture in his back in the most vicious crash seen in a long time.  

Almirola's injury puts a scary damper on what was developing into a promising season after a very frustrating 2016 season.   Fourth-places at the Daytona 500 and Winston 500 and a strong ninth at Richmond indicated the beginning of a turnaround; working with the Roush organization, Richard Petty's team has benefitted, and the Roush fleet's renaissance - following the promotion of younger, engineering-oriented personnel after years under former crew chief Robbie Reiser - has become one of the stories of the season.

Almirola's injury has brought out stories about how safety has improved in NASCAR the last sixteen seasons, and that's certainly true, as is that racecar safety has been excellent for decades - yet overlooked has been the close calls in that span.

Sterling Marlin's near-disastrous neck injury from - ironically - a crash at Kansas happened in 2002.

The next season Jerry Nadeau was gravely injured in a crash at Richmond, a crash some data indicated was one of the hardest hits ever recorded - greater than on superspeeedays.  

In 2013 Michael Annett suffered a serious sternum injury after blasting the SAFER barrier in Daytona's Busch Series 300 - in a twin irony, he was driving a Richard Petty car and Aric Almirola subbed for him at Phoenix.  

The crash believed to have given Dale Earnhardt Jr. the concussion that ended his 2016 season - and whose lingering effects will see his retirement after 2017 - happened in the 2016 Michigan 400. 

Eric McClure suffered serious injury in 2012 at Talladega, blasting through the track's enormous paved runoff area and hammering the SAFER barrier. 

Denny Hamlin suffered a compression fracture in this vicious 2013 melee at Fontana.


Almirola's Kansas injury came in a race that saw an eye-popping fifteen yellows, most of them for crashes that involved some eighteen cars - and writer Mike Mulhern rightly asks about why brake rotors are exploding as happened to Logano that triggered the wreck.   Related to this is the trap speeds in the Almirola wreck measured some 215 MPH.   Why racing ostensibly needs speeds that high is puzzling, especially when speeds below 200 should suffice, especially for a track like Kansas.

Kansas was also a bitter pill for Ryan Blaney, who led 83 laps in the Wood Brothers #21 yet could not hold off Truex in the race's late showdowns.   He has led 233 laps so far, by far the most by the Woods' #21 in decades, and it's a sign winning is in the #21's future.

With so many yellows, restarts made for some good racing, highlighted by Brad Keselowski's nifty three-wide pass on the outside of the trioval on the final lap.   Keselowski's runner-up finish, Kevin Harvick's third, and Blaney's fourth further the progress of a season where Ford's competitive depth has exponentially grown with wins by Stewart-Haas, Penske, and Roush - it adds further bitterness to Aric Almirola's injury with a return to victory by Petty's team a real prospect.  

The win by Truex was his second of the season with a whopping 536 laps led to date; he was one of just three Toyotas in the top ten, and his Toyota benefactor Joe Gibbs Racing remains winless.   It raises anew concern that Toyota has not invested sufficiently in competitive depth.

Competitive depth has been a problem for Chevrolet since the halcyon days of Hendrick vs. the RAD Alliance of RCR, DEI, and Andy Petree Racing, yet so far in eleven races Chevy has won with Hendrick, RCR, and Ganassi Racing, a greater depth by the Bowtiers than seen in several years.


The big picture takeaway going forward is 2017 is not your typical recent Winston Cup season - there is clearly new energy and new competitive depth (nine different winners among eight different teams in eleven races so far) and the meat of the season for the first time in a long time holds actual promise of something special for racing.    Getting Almirola back will help.

2016 Toyota Truck 250

Kansas Speedway from 2013 onward has seen some of the most viciously spirited Truck Series races ever seen, and 2016's Toyota Truck 250 at Kansas had perhaps the wildest finish of the season as Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch Truck teams squared off against veteran Johnny Sauter.

Racing's Bang-Up Mother's Day Weekend

It was a bang-up Mother's Day weekend in racing and thus is accelerated the motorsports Mecca that is the month of May.    Some takes on the varied racing efforts seen this weekend -


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Maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all - The first Grand Prix of Indianapolis added a new wrinkle to Indianapolis Motor Speedway but also showed some nastiness as Sebastian Saavedra won the pole, then gagged entirely on the start and got creamed by Carlos Munoz, driving one of Michael Andretti's cars,  and Mikhail Aleshin in Sam Schmidt's car.   

And that was just the first wreck - later on Scott Dixon and Will Power renewed Penske vs. Ganassi acquaintances in Turn Three, then in Turn Seven Michael Andretti and A.J. Foyt's teams said a rude Hello between Franck Montagny's #26 and Mike Plowman's #41, and finally Juan Montoya, unable to find a jet dryer to destroy, instead encountered Graham Rahal.

With nine road course cars (out of a 25-car field) thus dispatched, an interesting subplot involving rivalries may have been added to the 500 in two weeks.   Certainly Sam Schmidt and company got something big out of the GP - Simon Pagenaud won it, completing a nice sweep as Sam's Indy Lights driver Luiz Razia led wire-to-wire in the Indy Lights portion of the day.



The contrast of Trucks and Cup at Kansas continued - Last season the Truck 250 at Kansas proved to be a very exciting affair and 2014's running also had very memorable racing.   Kyle Busch won the Truck 250 after battling Brad Keselowski's two Ford trucks most of the night and battle is the operative word here - Busch and Joey Logano got into several nice sidedrafting bouts for first, illustrating again the striking and downright baffling contrast of the Trucks and the Cup cars here and elsewhere - the ability of the Trucks to have the draft mean something where it still hasn't for the Cup cars.  




Some Truck shout-outs - Jeb Burton's season hasn't been much, but he got a solid sixth with Duke Thorson, his second top-ten in three starts and his season now looking optimistic after all.   Also looking great was Taylor Malsam, making his season debut in Steve Turner's Chevrolet and finishing fifth.

While she doesn't get the publicity of Danica Patrick, Jennifer Jo Cobb has posted some decent efforts in anonymity, including a respectable 13th at Kansas.




Chevrolet bounces back - and so does Hendrick - Jeff Gordon got a huge pitstop late and got an ugly handling issue for Kevin Harvick at the end to grab his first win of the season.   Harvick nonetheless led 119 laps and showed anew he's for real for the whole season.   It was point for a huge bounce back for Chevrolet as the bowties took six of the top nine spots while Ford grabbed three top tens and Toyota was largely MIA - only Matt Kenseth in 10th wound up with anything.   It was also another big night for Hendrick as all four Hendrick cars were in the top nine.  

Given he's the focus every week, it should be noted Dale Junior's fifth was an especially solid bounce back after a dismal effort at Talladega, and it's his fourth top-seven finish in his last six outings.  

It was a more mixed bag for Stewart-Haas as Tony and Kurt Busch had another forgettable night while the shocker of the night was Danica Patrick's seventh.     

Continuing to fall back are the RCR Chevrolets, with Ryan Newman salvaging 11th as his season continues to be unimpressive while Paul Menard had a Menard-esque night a lap down and Austin Dillon keeps losing the rookie race to Kyle Larson.




Richard Petty's team on the rise - Though he lost seventh at the end to Danica Patrick, Aric Almirola was very solid all night en route to eighth in Petty's #43.   His third top-ten of the year, it also gave Petty's organization its fifth top-ten (three of them top-fives) between Almirola and Marcos Ambrose.   The nit to pick is the Petty cars need to go for the lead harder, especially in the restrictor plate races; overall, though, it's no longer implausible to expect a win for The King.




Pal Joey - If you thought there might be a chance Joey Logano could slide a bit down the Penske totem pole, it's getting more and more obvious that won't happen after leading 63 laps at Kansas on top of his great sidedraft fight with Kyle Busch in the Truck 250 the night before, and steadily showing he's for real after all - and I doubt anyone had that in the office pool the previous five seasons watching him.    One has to see if Brad Keselowski can get anything going again with a mediocre 13th at Kansas and the wound still raw from his Ernie Irvan imitation at Talladega.



Speaking of which.......... - Keselowski was asked about that Talladega gaffe before the Kansas race and he answered, "I wasn't ready to give up."   One has mixed feelings here - racing insane when six laps down is not smart and we all saw what resulted.   Yet Keselowski's go-for-the-win approach is fundamentally the right one - especially in contrast to Junior quitting on the win in that same Talladega race.



And so the month of May marches toward Ten Days Of Bruton Smith at Charlotte as well as an Indianapolis 500 where the competitive expectations have now hit 68 lead changes based on 2013's running.

Some Questions Post-Talladega and Pre-Kansas

With the Aarons 312 and 499 weekend at Talladega wrapped up NASCAR shuffles to Kansas for the Trucks and Cup cars.   In this interregnum between the Winston 500 and the Kansas 400, some questions worth asking -


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Is the season now seeing disincentive to win? - Dale Junior's acknowledgement after the Winston 500 that the reward of going for the win was not worth the risk has several angles - one of which was his 2012 crash where he suffered a concussion as well as "I've been in too many late-race wrecks"; he also noted "We already got a win." 

The striking number of winners so far this season may continue this weekend, but overlooked has been that we're starting to see the disincentive to win that Brian France's Chase-oriented points seeding was bound to produce.   The emphasis on winning has received the publicity, and overlooked has been that this emphasis is solely in the context of the Chase.  

It is impossible to see a scenario where in a non-Chase points format a greater emphasis on winning would not see Junior or anyone else race harder.   Incentive to win doesn't grow when the true emphasis remains on a notional playoff lock.



Will Ford and Toyota start surging to legitimately challenge Chevrolet? - We can legitimately claim yes here.   Before the Talladega race Ford had won four of the previous seven races and Joe Gibbs' Toyota won at Fontana before Hamlin's Talladega triumph.   The Chevy program has started to look overrated between Hendrick Motorsports struggles, decidely poor showings for RCR, and the up-and-down showings of Stewart-Haas Racing.  

It would appear Joey Logano and the JGR Toyotas are the ones to topple Chevrolet going forward - a Toyota darkhorse, though, may be the tandem of Brian Vickers and Clint Bowyer, who've quietly put up respectable runs, enough that Bowyer, crew chief Brian Pattie, and their sponsor re-upped with Michael Waltrip for three additional seasons past 2014.



Speaking of Logano, what's up with Brad Keselowski? - Joey Logano has clearly usurped Keselowski as Penske Racing's top dog and the way Keselowski raced everyone at Talladega - it was Ernie Irvan-esque - combined with the collapse of his season after winning Vegas (just one finish higher than 14th in the last seven races) one has to wonder if it is getting to him.   He's generally run well at Kansas, and if he can get back into contention for the season he needs to strike at Kansas.



Has the rookie race realistically been decided already? - Kyle Larson keeps making the case that it has.   It's obvious Austin Dillon is missing something as a racer and it's also obvious Larson is better than a lot of us thought he was.  



What drivers who went to different teams may be on the chopping block down the road? - The one that comes to mind for me is Ryan Newman at RCR.   He's managed four top tens so far but has shown little in the way of muscle doing so, and bailing out on the lead draft at Talladega and then crashing into Carl Edwards late in the race showed a cowardice in his racing that nobody should be happy with.



So it goes as the sport enters Kansas.

Kansas Whips Up The Action

The repaved Kansas Speedway whipped up the action starting with its 200-miler for the Truck Series, a race where the draft kicked in like the series hasn't seen on an intermediate in years and passing up front was heavy, but so were the wrecks, notably Todd Bodine's nasty melee.

That the Trucks saw a drafting effect kick in showed anew what is missing from modern NASCAR and what makes the intermediates better racetracks than the short tracks or dirt ovals such as what the Trucks will race at Eldora.   It is an even more pronounced problem with the cars; where back in the day the draft meant something even on intermediates and flat superovals like Pocono, Michigan, and Ontario, it has been almost entirely MIA in Cup for over a generation.

The Truck 200 at Kansas also showed anew the other big problem the sport has - the speeds are too fast.   The Trucks run tapered spacers so that helps, but it didn't work for them at Kansas; it indicates a need for more restriction. Certainly the Truck racing was very good and has been for the Trucks on the much-maligned intermediates, notably with memorable battles for first at Texas and Atlanta last season and this Kansas shootout, and what made it good - the above-mentioned draft - is what the sport needs along with reduction in horsepower to get back.  It's a fact the Cup Series still hasn't gotten right. The 400-miler saw its own share of hard crashes - highlighted by Kyle Busch's ugly ricochet into Joey Logano - and also saw a dearth of passing. The repaved Kansas track showcased a bizarre problem - for all the talk about downforce (shown in Todd Bodine's silly post-wreck rant) the Kansas track was criticized by several drivers for not having any grip with some criticism also aimed at the matchup of the car, the track, and the tires.

The 400 showed anew the loss of competitive momentum that has hit the Generation Six racecar after encouraging races in March. Given NASCAR's seemingly desperate push to promote the Generation Six (their earlier citation of scoring loop data showcasing an increase in lead changes, official and otherwise) it's bad news that passing has dropped since the Fontana melee.

The Gen-6's next test is Richmond Saturday night, but Talladega at the start of May will be the true next big test - Daytona was a fiasco for the Generation Six, and for the Winston 500 the excuses about lack of parts causing conservative racing won't apply.   If the Gen-6 produces another Talladega thriller then NASCAR will have turned a corner.