2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Stock Watch: Week 13
Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards were the Sprint Cup stars during 10 days of racing at Charlotte Motor Speedway, with Hamlin capturing the non-points Sprint All-Star Race and Edwards coming back eight days later to lay claim to the Coca-Cola 600 points event at the 1.5-mile track.
Obviously, that sent their stock soaring.
That Hamlin won mostly because of the stellar performance of his pit crew and Edwards won because of a clever fuel-mileage strategy employed by crew chief Darian Grubb mattered not in the least.
"It may be a fuel-mileage win, but it's still whoever gets from the start-finish line to the start-finish line over 600 miles the fastest," Grubb told ESPN.com. "So it doesn't really matter how we get there. We came out in front."
See who—or what—else has emerged on the buy list, whose stock should be held for further evaluation and whose should be sold, based not only on who's been winning but also team chemistry, fast cars and flat-out common sense.
Miles the Monster
1 of 10
The Sprint Cup Series now heads to Dover International Speedway, or the Monster Mile, so named for its rough, one-mile stretch of concrete racing surface.
No venue on the circuit has a better mascot than Miles the Monster, who looms large outside the Turn 4 entrance to the track and is an obvious fan favorite (judging by all the folks who want their pictures taken with him). The statue outside the track stands 46 feet tall, weighs 40,000 pounds and holds a full-scale Sprint Cup car in his right hand far above the crowds who frequently circle at his mammoth feet.
Simply put, Miles is cool. Very cool.
And a smaller version of the statue serves as the centerpiece for the trophy handed out each race to the driver who emerges as the winner. Every Cup driver desires one in the worst way.
Verdict: Buy
Kyle Busch
2 of 10
Kyle Busch is back, and that's a great thing for not only the driver himself and his No. 18 Toyota Joe Gibbs Racing team but also for the sport itself.
Busch raced in the Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte for the first time since suffering a compound fracture of the right leg and a mid-foot fracture of the left foot during the season-opening XFINITY Series race on the eve of the Daytona 500 last February.
Then he also participated in his first points race in the Coca-Cola 600, where the fact that he completed NASCAR's longest race without the need for a relief driver was impressive enough.
But he also ran in the top 10 for most of the 600-mile event before being forced to settle for an 11th-place finish.
Now comes an even more difficult physical test before Busch can be proclaimed all the way back. Dover arguably is the most physically demanding track on the Sprint Cup circuit, because of all the bumps the cars hit that can literally send them flying a few inches in the air as they dive into the corners that are banked 24 degrees.
"The Dover race is more taxing on your body. I feel like it beats you up a bit more, and it being 400 laps, it's a tough stretch," Busch told FoxSports.com. "It's maybe not 600 miles, but 400 laps there is certainly a long time at Dover."
Verdict: Hold
Danica Patrick
3 of 10
Danica Patrick moved all the way up to 13th in the points standings after registering two top-10 finishes in a three-week stretch earlier this season.
But after a seventh-place run at Martinsville and a ninth-place effort at Bristol (a pair of short tracks), Patrick hasn't finished better than 21st in any of the last four races. She's 18th in points now and seemingly headed the wrong way fast.
Furthermore, her longtime primary sponsor, GoDaddy.com, announced it will not be coming back in that role again next year (per FoxSports.com). With Patrick in the final year of her driving contract at Stewart-Haas Racing, it's essential that she brings in sponsorship dollars to replace the departing ones.
All in all, it was not a good month of May for racing's prettiest face and most famous female driver.
Verdict: Sell
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Jeff Gordon
4 of 10
What a day Jeff Gordon had last Sunday, which started for him by driving the pace car to kick off the Indianapolis 500 and then flying to Concord, North Carolina, to drive his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in the Coca-Cola 600.
Yes, Gordon's day in the Coke 600 did not go as planned. He finished just 15th.
But as far as his farewell tour goes in what is his last full-time Sprint Cup season, Sunday's double duty was difficult to beat. Gordon moved from California to Indiana when he was 13 to pursue his racing career, which he thought at the time would lead him to open-wheel racing and ultimately the Indy 500.
He fell in love with stock-car racing instead and has gone on to become a four-time champion and winner of 92 races, third all time behind only NASCAR Hall of Famers Richard Petty and David Pearson. The sense is that race win No. 93 lurks just ahead, around one of his next left turns, and now he's off to Dover, where he's visited Victory Lane five times in his storied career.
Of driving the pace car at Indy, Gordon told FoxSports.com: "I expected it to be a cool experience, and it was that and even more. To be standing out there on pit road on the day of the Indy 500—there was so much going on it was a blur, going by very fast. You want that moment to slow down and take it all in."
Verdict: Buy
Martin Truex Jr.
5 of 10
Martin Truex Jr. keeps hovering right on the edge of joining the elite (re: fastest) Sprint Cup teams from Hendrick Motorsports, Stewart-Haas Racing and now Joe Gibbs Racing.
But he's not quite there.
He was disappointed to finish fifth in the Coca-Cola 600 after leading a race-high 131 laps. It was the second consecutive race when he had one of the consistently fastest cars, but could not get to Victory Lane (he led 95 laps before finishing ninth at Kansas).
But that's the bad news. The good news is that the Charlotte finish was his third top-five and 11th top-10 finish in 12 points races this season.
Plus now he goes to Dover, the site of one of his two career Cup wins. This could be the week he breaks through.
Verdict: Hold
Kyle Larson
6 of 10
Kyle Larson began the season as a hot pick to win a few races, make the Chase for the Sprint Cup and contend for the championship.
Now he's struggling to finish inside the top 25 in many races. In the last seven he's run (he missed the Martinsville race after fainting during an autograph session the day before and having to undergo tests, after which doctors blamed the incident on dehydration), Larson has finished 25th or worse four times. That includes a 42nd at Talladega after crashing.
He finished 25th in the Coca-Cola 600 and has now slipped to 22nd in points in a season in which he hasn't been able to climb higher than 17th.
The 2014 Sprint Cup Rookie of the Year seems to be undergoing a severe sophomore slump, with no discernible end in sight.
Verdict: Sell
Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the No. 3
7 of 10
Dale Earnhardt Jr. and crew chief Greg Ives rolled the dice on a calculated fuel-mileage gamble that paid off in a third-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600.
Maybe it's the fact that Junior's dad, the late Dale Earnhardt, rode the No. 3 Chevy all the way into a spot in the inaugural NASCAR Hall of Fame class, but Earnhardt Jr. obviously has a thing about finishing in the No. 3 spot this season. The Charlotte effort was his third race in a row finishing third, and his fifth third-place run in 12 races on the season.
It also means Earnhardt Jr. is running well enough to contend for more wins. He already has one this season, which came at Talladega.
Next up is Dover, where he's won once in his career, and then it's on to Pocono, where he swept both races last season.
Verdict: Buy
Greg Biffle and Roush Fenway Racing
8 of 10
Remember when Greg Biffle and his No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing Ford were relevant most weeks in Sprint Cup?
Well, Biffle hopes his second-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600 is an omen that those times are about to return. It was only one race, for sure, and it might not mean as much in the long run as The Biff woud like.
But it obviously was a huge step in the right direction for a team and an organization that has struggled mightily for two seasons now. And even though they were one of the teams that gambled on fuel mileage at the end of last Sunday's race, Biffle said the most encouraging sign was that the No. 16 car ran in the top 10 virtually all night.
Of the runner-up finish, he told FoxSports.com: "It was a big boost for the team, but probably the bigger boost for the team was how well we ran."
Time will tell if Biffle and RFR can keep it up.
Verdict: Hold
Pocono Raceway
9 of 10
Why, oh why, does Pocono Raceway have two Sprint Cup dates every season?
It's a question many involved in the sport have been asking for a long time. Even the fact that the sport's most popular driver, Earnhardt Jr., swept both races at the 2.5-mile "Tricky Triangle" doesn't change the general opinion that one race per season at this NASCAR outpost would be plenty.
It's an odd configuration and an odd place. It has only three turns, for goodness sakes.
Asked upon his first visit to Pocono last year what he thought of the place, Kyle Larson, supposedly joking, told the Morning Call: "Pennsylvania definitely has the weirdest race tracks, that's for sure, and I think there's a bunch of weird people who come to tracks like this."
The races generally are on the boring side. Although it supposedly draws fans from places such as New York City, it's more or less in the middle of nowhere in Long Pond, Pennsylvania, and not the easiest place to get to. Many media members stay an hour away in Scranton, of all places.
So if NASCAR ever decides to shorten its ridiculously long season schedule, here's hoping it does everyone a favor and start by doing away with one of Pocono's two races.
Verdict: Sell (one of the track's two race dates)
Joe Gibbs Racing
10 of 10
Charlotte Motor Speedway was very good to Joe Gibbs Racing the last two weeks.
First, Hamlin won the Sprint All-Star Race and the $1 million prize that went with it. Then Edwards finally put one in the win column by claiming the Coca-Cola 600, his first trip to Victory Lane in the No. 19 Toyota he now drives for JGR in his first season with the organization.
For JGR founder and owner Joe Gibbs, it was a hopeful sign of what he believes will be better days ahead at tracks such as the 1.5-mile intermediate layout at Charlotte. That looms as particularly important once the Chase for the Sprint Cup commences over the season's final 10 races, because half the tracks in the Chase are 1.5-mile intermediates.
"We've been way off on intermediate stuff," Gibbs told FoxSports.com. "It's really been a disappointment for us for quite a while. We've worked extremely hard. It shows you how hard our sport is because we've had a hard time catching up. I'm not saying we've caught up, but for the last two races here it's a big deal for us for all those reasons."
Verdict: Buy
Unless otherwise noted, all information was obtained firsthand.
Joe Menzer has written six books, including two about NASCAR, and now writes about it and other sports for Bleacher Report as well as covering NASCAR as a Digital Content Producer for FoxSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @OneMenz.
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