An Explanation For NASCAR's Open Wheel Influx

We've discussed to death the recent exodus of open-wheel drivers into NASCAR. We've discussed whether they've been good career moves for the many drivers to make the leap. We've discussed how long they'll last before being shuffled out of the series.

But never have I heard anybody discuss why the owners covet these drivers so much.

Today, as I was pondering the future of Hendrick Motorsports' No. 5 car after Mark Martin leaves in 2010, I realized that they have two future aces in the hole. Brad Keselowski and Landon Cassill both appear to be future Sprint Cup drivers at this point—almost sure bets to take over for Martin and Jeff Gordon in the future.

Then I realized something—it's been quite a while since NASCAR's had a sure bet for a development driver.

I think that lack of sure-fire talent, especially in the 2005 Busch and Craftsman Truck Series, is the main reason why owners have been going after open-wheel stars. I say 2005 because a driver entering his rookie Busch or Craftsman season that year would have three years' worth of experience under his belt this year, and be well prepared for Sprint Cup right now.

Certainly, some drivers who debuted full-time in those series in 2004 or 2005 became great drivers—Denny Hamlin, Clint Bowyer, and Martin Truex Jr. among them. But compared to the number of successes, the number of failures was much greater. This is where the open-wheel drivers came in.

Simply put, the owners needed the open-wheel drivers. Not only did they possess marketability that the mediocre development drivers didn't have, they were supposedly going to be better in the stock cars. I mean, surely their Indianapolis 500 wins would carry over into the taxi cabs, right?

It sure would've been nice if they had.

Chip Ganassi's been the biggest supporter of the open-wheelers in the sport, and for good reason. Ganassi's been an IndyCar Series champion, a CART champion, an Indianapolis 500 winner, and has sent many drivers off to Formula One.

But if Kevin Hamlin and Joel Kauffman had proven themselves the way Reed Sorenson had, would he have brought in Dario Franchitti and Juan Pablo Montoya in the first place?

A.J. Foyt IV would have made a nice fit in the No. 10 car for Gillett Evernham Motorsports, or perhaps the No. 19 when Jeremy Mayfield was fired. Granted, Foyt IV was an open-wheel driver before his NASCAR experiment, but the key difference is that he didn't attempt to make the jump to Sprint Cup with very little stock car experience. Foyt IV attempted to develop in the same way an ASA or ARCA driver would, by making his next stop the Busch Series.

Timothy Peters and Erin Crocker weren't exactly great drivers in the Craftsman Truck Series, either. Paul Wolfe made a decent crew chief for Fitz Motorsports, but as a driver he left plenty to be desired.

Surely, if one of the Dodge development drivers had panned out, we wouldn't have seen Sam Hornish Jr. in a Penske stock car, right? Or Franchitti and Montoya in Ganassi stock cars? Or Patrick Carpentier driving for Ray Evernham?

There's a good reason why the Dodge teams have relied so heavily on open-wheelers—despite Dodge's best efforts at putting together a top-notch, manufacturer-supported driver development program, none of its picks from the past few years have really panned out.

Then again, Chevrolet teams didn't do so well either. How about Blake Feese, Boston Reid, and Kyle Krisiloff at Hendrick Motorsports? Although Hendrick wouldn't have had room for any of them, certainly some other Chevrolet team could have swung a deal to pick one of them up for a few years. Maybe Haas CNC could have brought up one of those guys in the wake of Justin Labonte's failure to assert himself as a top-notch driver.

Brandon Miller never proved himself at Richard Childress Racing the way Clint Bowyer did. Kertus Davis, when given a chance at Kevin Harvick Inc., failed to capitalize.

In the Craftsman Truck Series, Sean Murphy, Chris Wimmer, Jarit Johnson, Ken Weaver, and Tracy Hines failed to show enough potential to merit serious consideration from Cup teams. David Starr and Matt Crafton, while decent drivers, are nothing more than Truck lifers at this point.

Toyota teams, while only in the Truck Series in 2005, didn't exactly produce any Cup-worthy drivers either, save David Reutimann. Joey Miller, Reutimann's teammate at Darrell Waltrip Racing, failed to impress. Miller might have fit well alongside Reutimann and Michael Waltrip at Michael Waltrip Racing, had he shown what it takes to compete at NASCAR's top level.

Bill Lester would've been a great fit over the long run at Bill Davis Racing—affable, marketable, a great PR fit for NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program (although to pigeonhole Lester as such would be to insult his driving talent) - but things didn't quite work out. Lester wouldn't have been the next Jeff Gordon, but he could've at least kept BDR a top-20 team or so.

Instead, BDR took on Jacques Villeneuve, a move that looked much better on paper than it actually was.

Ford teams had some of the biggest disappointments of all, however. It's sad that Jon Wood hasn't shown what it takes to lead the Wood Brothers back to NASCAR prominence, because the Bill Elliott who currently drives the No. 21 is not the same Bill Elliott who won the Winston Million back in the 1980s.

The failure to launch of Todd Kluever at Roush Fenway Racing, after his flip in the ARCA Re/Max Series and subsequent mediocre performances for the team in Busch and Craftsman rides, as well as Danny O'Quinn's mid-pack performance in 2006 (so I'm cheating a little date-wise), meant that Roush needed to dig a little deeper for a replacement for Mark Martin in the No. 6 car.

Granted, David Ragan's done a heck of a job for the team, but imagine if the driver had been Villeneuve.

If any of the drivers I mentioned above had panned out, the Sprint Cup series would be buried in an influx of talent. Sprint Cup owners wouldn't have needed any open-wheelers to fill seats for their teams. The older drivers in the series would now be running Craftsman Trucks, making the series a cheap and entertaining way to relive the Winston Cup series of the 1990s.

Most importantly, the IndyCar Series would benefit from having Franchitti, Hornish, Montoya, Carpentier, and perhaps Villeneuve in its cars, further increasing car counts and helping open-wheel racing return to its pre-split levels of popularity and quality.

Thankfully, the development drivers running Nationwide this year are all can't-miss talents, right?