Tony Stewart transitioning to ownership? Jeff Gordon looking at retiring after the 2010 season? Jimmie Johnson admitting he won't race much longer after Gordon retires?
Three of NASCAR's top stars could be out from behind the wheel by 2015 if the right cards fall into place.
Combine that with the recent retirements and part-time schedules of Mark Martin, Rusty Wallace, Dale Jarrett, and Bill Elliott, and teams' needs to replace top drivers are at all-time highs.
Sure, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. will still be around.
Plenty of top drivers will continue to make the rounds in NASCAR's top series long after the combined 147 wins, 565 top-10s, 89 poles, and eight championships (and counting) of Stewart, Gordon, and Johnson are nothing more than statistics.
But which driver will be the next Stewart, or Gordon, or Johnson?
This is where teams' development programs come into play. They're usually hit-or-miss, with some drivers becoming stars (Joey Logano) and far more drivers becoming forgotten (Blake Feese, Boston Reid, Joel Kauffman, Todd Kluever... the list goes on).
However, NASCAR's teams have currently scouted out plenty of drivers who have the prerequisite skill to dominate the Sprint Cup Series in a few years, when the series' top stars start retiring.
This list contains brief profiles of the ten drivers I have judged to be most capable of bringing a Sprint Cup to their respective teams in the coming years.
In order to be on this list, the driver in question must never have won a Sprint Cup Series race, attempted more than two full seasons in Sprint Cup, or won a Nationwide Series race prior to 2007.
Without further ado:
10. Michael Annett, Bill Davis Racing
Davis' latest hot property currently drives the No. 22 Toyota Tundra in the Craftsman Truck series in a part-time schedule.
Consistently performing well in Truck and ARCA starts is the first step towards gaining a Sprint Cup ride, and Annett's two wins in eight ARCA starts bodes well in that respect.
In his debut in the No. 22 truck, he finished sixth at Milwaukee.
9. Landon Cassill, Hendrick Motorsports
Currently the lead driver of Hendrick's No. 5 Nationwide car, Cassill is potentially being groomed as a replacement for Jeff Gordon.
He hasn't failed to finish a race since his series debut at Gateway last year. Occasionally driving the No. 46 truck for Morgan-Dollar Motorsports, Cassill just finished third at Milwaukee.
Hendrick has enough time to develop Cassill into a top-caliber driver.
8. A.J. Allmendinger, Team Red Bull
Since getting back in the No. 84 Sprint Cup car after being replaced for five races, Allmendinger has kept the car going in the right direction—six straight races running at the finish and a career-best 12th at Pocono attest to that.
His win in the Sprint Showdown, the last-chance race to gain entry into the Sprint All-Star Race, proves that the former Champ Car driver is starting to get the hang of this stock-car thing.
7. David Reutimann, Michael Waltrip Racing
One of the best Nationwide Series drivers currently competing in the series, Reutimann is the de facto lead driver at Michael Waltrip Racing.
12 Comments
Loading more comments...
This comment and all replies have been deleted This comment has been deleted Undo delete