2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Stock Watch: Week 17
As expected, it was a wild affair on the road course at Sonoma Raceway last weekend.
Now, with the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series headed back to a series of more traditional ovals for its next five races, it's time to take stock in which drivers are on the rise, basically treading water or so far on the decline that there will be little need to pay attention to them for at least the next couple of weeks.
Obviously one of the drivers whose stock is on the rise is Kyle Busch, who won at Sonoma to move one big step closer to the Chase for the Sprint Cup despite missing the first 11 races of the season because of leg and ankle injuries suffered during a wreck in the season-opening Xfinity Series race at Daytona International Speedway.
He still, however, has some large leaps to complete to make it happen, as Tom Jensen of FoxSports.com explained when he wrote:
"To make the Chase, a driver has to do two things: 1. Win one of the 26 Sprint Cup regular season races, which Kyle now has obviously done; and 2. Finish the regular season in the top 30 in points. Because he missed 11 races with injuries, Kyle is only 37th in points, even after his Sonoma triumph.
Right now, Cole Whitt is 30th in points, 136 ahead of the younger Busch (brother). Essentially, that means that over the next 10 races, Busch has to finish, on average, 14 positions per race ahead of Whitt.
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Regardless of what happens, it will be interesting to watch. See, then, what the rest of the Sprint Cup stock market looks like in the wake of Sonoma as the superspeedway that is Daytona beckons.
Our ratings are based on who is carrying the most momentum, best (or most troublesome) chemistry within a team and what the prospects are for imminent success or failure, according to all of that plus past history at the upcoming tracks.
The Busch Brothers
1 of 10
Not only did Kyle Busch win the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma, but his big brother, Kurt, finished second.
It was the first time in their long Sprint Cup careers that the brothers finished one-two in a Cup race.
Remarkably, both are now in position to claim compelling roles in arguably the best storylines of this season. Neither has raced the full season, with NASCAR suspending Kurt for alleged domestic abuse involving his ex-girlfriend. (It dropped the suspension when the state of Delaware elected not to pursue criminal charges, but by then Kurt had missed the first three races.)
So Kurt missed the first three races, and Kyle missed the first 11, meaning the season-opening Daytona 500 was the first race at that 2.5-mile superspeedway since 2001 that didn't include at least one of the two Busch brothers and the first one since 2005 that didn't include both.
This time, they'll both race under the lights at Daytona. Both could be in contention for the win too.
Verdict: Buy
Joe Gibbs Racing Drivers Not Named Kyle
2 of 10
While Kyle Busch was establishing himself as king of the road at Sonoma, the rest of the Joe Gibbs Racing drivers continued their own up-and-down seasons by struggling.
Denny Hamlin finished 18th. Matt Kenseth was 21st. Carl Edwards, who won the Sonoma race a year earlier while still driving a Ford for Roush Fenway Racing, finished 40th after causing a wreck that ended not only his day, but the day of fellow Toyota driver David Ragan as well.
None of these guys is in danger of missing the Chase because each has already won a points race this season. So that's good.
But now Kenseth is ninth in points, Hamlin is 13th and Edwards 17th. The JGR Toyotas should be better than that, but only time will tell if they can be this season.
Verdict: Hold
David Ragan
3 of 10
Speaking of Ragan, he says he's hopeful of staying on with Michael Waltrip Racing after this season whether or not Brian Vickers returns to the seat of the No. 55 Toyota that Ragan currently is driving.
"I feel like I control my own destiny with this program and going forward," Ragan told Jared Turner of FoxSports.com. "I think if David Ragan puts in 100 percent, if he drives and races smart and doesn't have a lot of mistakes, if we have some good race cars, I think everything's going to be perfectly fine, and certainly from a team standpoint it could be a very good thing if Brian could come back. I know MWR would love to be a three-car team again."
Maybe so, and maybe David Ragan is confident David Ragan is the best driver MWR could find if that were to happen.
But the fact is that he's had his chances in top-notch rides, first with Roush Fenway Racing earlier in his career, then filling in this season at JGR for the injured Kyle Busch and now at MWR for Vickers, who is sitting out because he is suffering from recurring blood clots.
And despite the fact that he's been able to drive decent equipment, Ragan hasn't been able to make much of a positive nature happen this season, with an average finish of 25.0.
Verdict: Sell
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Kevin Harvick and Rodney Childers
4 of 10
Just a couple of weeks after Childers received a multiyear contract extension from Stewart-Haas Racing to continue plotting top finishes for defending Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick, he also became the first recipient of The Byrnsie Award presented by Fox Sports.
According to Fox Sports:
"In honor of late FOX NASCAR broadcaster Steve Byrnes, whose nickname was 'Byrnsie,' the award was established to celebrate an individual in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series who embodies principles Byrnes portrayed daily in his personal and professional life -- preparation, teamwork and family within the garage area. Childers was voted the recipient by Byrnes' colleagues on the FOX NASCAR broadcast team.
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Byrnes died in April after fighting a long and courageous battle with cancer.
Meanwhile, Childers not only is very deserving of the award, but both he and his driver continue to pile up impressive finishes. They fought hard themselves to earn a fourth at Sonoma, where Harvick often has struggled in the past. It was his 11th top-five finish in 16 races this season, largely because of the fast cars Childers consistently puts under him.
Verdict: Buy in large volume
Clint Bowyer
5 of 10
This hasn't been a very fun season for Clint Bowyer. But he had a blast at Sonoma, where he finished a season-best third.
Now Bowyer wants to build on it with his No. 15 Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota team.
"It was fun to come out here in wine country and be able to compete like that," Bowyer told Jim Utter of the Charlotte Observer after the Sonoma race. "This is where we need to be running. We need to be able to go to these regular race tracks and keep this momentum and confidence level up that we have when we come out here."
Daytona is a place where they should be able to accomplish that. Prior to Sonoma, his best finish of this otherwise disappointing season came when he finished seventh in the season-opening Daytona 500, so let's see if he can indeed start turning his year in the right direction.
Verdict: Hold
AJ Allmendinger
6 of 10
AJ Allmendinger looked the part of the top road-course racer in NASCAR when he won pole for last Sunday's Toyota Save/Mart 350 and ran near the front for the much of the first half of the race.
But he ended up needing to go to the garage for repairs because of a mechanical issue, and even though he got back on the track, it was way too much to overcome. He ended up finishing 37th, completing just 98 of the race's 110 laps.
This was one of Allmendinger's two best shots to win and earn a place in the Chase for the second consecutive year. His stock won't be worth much until August, when the series visits its only other road-course venue at Watkins Glen International, where he won a year ago.
Verdict: Sell (at least until the Sprint Cup Series visits The Glen)
Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus
7 of 10
The strategy employed by crew chief Knaus and his driver, Johnson, did not work out in the closing laps at Sonoma.
But Johnson said he would gladly do it all over again, pointing out correctly that if it hadn't been for a late caution with 10 laps to go, he and Knaus' No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team would have snared their series-high fifth win of the season.
Johnson was leading and decided to stay out on old tires on the final caution while all the other top contenders (indeed, nearly the entire rest of the field) came in to grab fresh rubber for the stretch run. It took Kyle Busch only two laps to chase down Johnson and take the lead for good after the final restart.
"Tires were definitely the call, but we had a strategy that we were going to stick to," Johnson told Jared Turner of FoxSports.com. "We were one caution away from it working out just right."
Now they head to Daytona, where Johnson has won three times in his career. This dynamic duo will be just fine and likely will end up competing with the garage's other top power couple, Harvick and Childers, for the championship when all is said and done this season.
Verdict: Buy in large volume
Tony Stewart
8 of 10
Stewart's season has been pretty much a disaster. He admitted as much in an interview with the Associated Press (via Fox Sports) last weekend.
"I don't have any confidence," he said.
Maybe his run at Sonoma will give him at least a little. His 12th-place finish is deceiving because he was running near the front much of the day, even late, when there was an 18-second pit stop where his crew ran around like the Keystone Cops and the jack fall sealed his fate.
If his pit crew can get it together and keep it together, Stewart might yet turn this season around. It seems doubtful, but Daytona could reveal a whole lot. Although Stewart has never won the Daytona 500, he's won the July race at the superspeedway four times.
Verdict: Hold (for maybe one more week)
Jeff Gordon
9 of 10
An otherwise fantastic weekend for Gordon turned sour at Sonoma when a member of his crew violated a little-known rule by tossing a piece of equipment (in this case, a spring rubber that had been removed from Gordon's No. 24 Chevy) from pit road over the pit wall.
This was supposed to be a special season for Gordon, who already has announced he will not ever run a full Sprint Cup schedule again and likely will be finished with driving for good after joining the Fox Sports broadcast booth next season.
Instead, it's been a season where one thing after another has gone wrong. If it's not Gordon getting caught speeding on pit road, which has happened more than once, it's something crazy like what went down at Sonoma.
"That's a new one on us," Gordon told Jared Turner of FoxSports.com about the latest costly mistake, the penalty on the crew member which required him to restart at the tail end of the longest line and contributed to his 16th-place finish after he had been running third.
Verdict: Sell (at least until we can see if the karma is going to change)
Daytona 500 Winner Joey Logano
10 of 10
Logano hasn't won anything since capturing the Daytona 500 to open the season.
But he continues to rack up top-five finishes, with his fifth at Sonoma being his third in a row, fourth in the last six races and ninth in 16 races overall this season. He's also finished in the top 10 in 12 of those outings.
Now it's back to the scene of the season-opening conquest. And if that isn't enough to give Logano all the confidence he and crew chief Todd Gordon need, the next track the Sprint Cup circuit visits after that is Kentucky Speedway.
Logano has never won at Kentucky in the Cup, but he used to dominate races there in what is now the Xfinity Series. And guess what? Under the current rules package, the 2015 Cup car drives a whole lot like the old Xfinity cars.
Just ask Stewart, who has been complaining about it since early in the season. Logano, on the other hand, has found that it's working to his advantage.
Verdict: Buy
Unless otherwise noted, 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 while also helping cover NASCAR for FoxSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @OneMenz.
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