2014 Stock Watch for Drivers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Week 10 Edition
With seven different winners in the first nine races, but repeat winners in the last two, some drivers are moving up this season, others are scuffling to hang onto what they have and some seem out to lunch altogether.
The popular new rules for qualifying for the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup that determines the season's champion were changed by NASCAR prior to the season-opening Daytona 500 and have had a dramatic impact on how the drivers conduct their business on the track.
It has produced some exciting racing and surprising results over the early part of the 2014 campaign. Heading into the ultimate stock-car crapshoot this Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway, see whose stock is on the rise, who is in the hold mode and which drivers need to be dumped—figuratively, if not on the track itself.
Jamie McMurray
1 of 10
There was a time not all that long ago when Jamie McMurray seemed to have revived his stalled Sprint Cup career.
That was in 2011, as McMurray came off a promising 2010 season during which he won two of NASCAR's biggest races (the season-opening Daytona 500, the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis) and three overall (he also won the fall race at Charlotte). Team owner Chip Ganassi said prior to the next season that he wouldn't even care that much if McMurray didn't make the Chase—as long as he kept winning big races.
Well, McMurray didn't make the Chase that year. He didn't win any races, either, during that season or the next one.
In fact, despite driving full time in the Cup Series since 2003, he's never made the Chase. Even in 2010, he finished just on the outside of it. This year, with it expanded to 16 drivers, it seemed it was well within his reach—but after nine races, he's 19th in the points and has only two top-10 finishes.
It used to be that you figured he'd at least rise up to challenge for a victory on one of the superspeedways. But this year, even that seems highly in doubt as the series heads to the site of his only victory last season in the last race run at Talladega.
Verdict: Sell
Carl Edwards
2 of 10
Carl Edwards owns one victory this season, winning at Bristol. But he's still looking for more speed in his No. 99 Ford and more consistency overall.
He finished ninth in the last race at Richmond, marking his first top-10 finish in more than a month. Not only that, but his string of consecutive races without leading a single lap is now up to five. He hasn't led anywhere since Bristol.
Edwards has a crafty old crew chief in Jimmy Fennig, who likely will get this figured out. And Edwards hasn't forgotten how to wheel it.
But if the guys back at the Roush Fenway Racing shop don't soon get caught up with the rest of the heavy-hitting teams in Sprint Cup, there is only so much the Edwards-Fennig combination can do on race weekends at the track.
Verdict: Hold
Jimmie Johnson
3 of 10
It is time.
Actually, it is past time for Johnson to put his No. 48 Chevrolet into Victory Lane for the first time in 2014.
The last time he went this long without a victory at the beginning of a season was in 2012 when he went 11 races before winning at Darlington. For the record, the six-time Cup champion did not win the title that year, going on to finish third in the final points standings.
He has won twice each at Talladega and Kansas—the next two stops on the Sprint Cup circuit. The odds that he will win at one of those two places or at least run well enough to contend for a win seem very much in his favor.
Verdict: Buy
Denny Hamlin
4 of 10
Since he opened the season displaying remarkable speed at Daytona, where he won everything but the Daytona 500 and finished second in it, we've been waiting for Denny Hamlin to deliver.
It hasn't happened. And despite the fact that he was super-fast at the last superspeedway stop, Talladega has never really been his bag. He's never won there and has only three top-five and five top-10 finishes there in 16 career starts.
Something seems off with his No. 11 Toyota team, and it has seemed that way since he was forced to miss a race at Fontana earlier in the season because a piece of metal was lodged in his eye. He hasn't finished higher than 13th since returning from that mishap.
Perhaps more telling is the fact that he visited two of his favorite race tracks in the four races since Fontana—but the best he could manage was 19th at Martinsville and 22nd at Richmond without leading a single lap at either place.
Verdict: Sell
Jeff Gordon
5 of 10
Jeff Gordon is technically the points leader after nine races, but he recently told Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip, now a television analyst and columnist for Fox Sports, that he would rather have two wins and be 22nd in the points right now.
That's because Gordon knows it means absolutely nothing to be leading the points right now without at least one victory. The way the season is going, it is going to take one win and possibly even two to make certain you are among the 16 drivers who make the new Chase cutoff.
Gordon has yet to win, but his 2014 season has been pretty remarkable in every other way. He has four top-five and seven-top 10 finishes in the first nine races and hasn't finished worse than 13th. He has finished second twice, including last Saturday night at Richmond.
A win—or more likely the wins, as in plural—can't be far behind.
Verdict: Buy
Tony Stewart
6 of 10
There have been a few sightings of the old Tony Stewart this season, but not many.
He finished fourth at Bristol and fifth the following week at Fontana. He won the pole for the race in Texas and led 74 laps before fading to 10th by the finish.
But in the majority of the races, his day or night could be best described as forgettable. He did finish ninth at Darlington, but he never led and was not a serious threat to contend for the win. In fact, he has led laps only in the one race at Texas all season.
No one is saying it, but many are thinking it: Is Stewart, at age 42, the same driver now he was before the terrible sprint-car injury he suffered last summer? Perhaps it's only because he's not yet fully recovered or he tried to come back too quickly, but right now the answer is a resounding no.
Verdict: Sell
Matt Kenseth
7 of 10
For Matt Kenseth, this actually is more like it.
By this time last season he already had won two races and was about to win a third en route to a career-high seven wins on the season.
He has not won yet this year, but he has been remarkably consistent. His fifth-place finish at Richmond in the most recent race was his fifth finish of seventh or better in a row—and he hasn't finished worse than 13th all year.
Furthermore, Kenseth is starting to run up front and lead more laps again. He has led 12 or more in five of the last six races, indicating that some wins can't be too far away.
Solid, consistent finishes are fine, and Kenseth's career has been marked by that kind of quiet, unassuming style of racing where he doesn't get the other drivers all hot at him very often. But he knows what wins mean now under this new format and did everything he could to get one at Richmond, infuriating Brad Keselowski in the process (even though upon further review, Kenseth did nothing wrong). The 2003 Cup champion will continue to push hard to wheel his No. 20 Toyota back into Victory Lane.
Verdict: Buy
Brad Keselowski
8 of 10
Keselowski called the block that Kenseth threw on him late in the Richmond race "mind-boggling" in a Fox Sports television interview afterward, but TV replays revealed that Kenseth probably did no more or less than Keselowski would have done himself if in the same position.
And that's what the 2012 Cup champ needs to understand: He isn't always right.
Since winning the title, Keselowski has seemingly spent as much time trying to tell everyone what the sport needs to improve as he has trying to figure out how to win races with crew chief Paul Wolfe.
In the case of what happened at Richmond, where Keselowski ran his No. 2 Ford into the No. 20 Toyota of Kenseth and caused a chain reaction that also produced the unintended collateral damage of tearing up the race cars of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and AJ Allmendinger, Keselowski simply lost his mind.
He will need better focus on what really matters going forward for his team to reach its full and still-promising potential.
Verdict: Hold
Marcos Ambrose
9 of 10
Holy Vegemite sandwich, Batman! Can this Australian throw a punch or what?
Since coming over to the United States and pursuing his NASCAR dream, Marcos Ambrose hasn't had much success outside of road-course racing, where he is terrific. Unfortunately for him, they don't race on road courses very often in Sprint Cup and he's never won on an oval.
Maybe the frustration of all that built up in him, or maybe the more diminutive Casey Mears just pushed him too far in the aftermath of an emotional evening at Richmond last Saturday night. Whatever the case, Ambrose delivered a hard right cross to Mears' face during an altercation after the race. It was impressive enough that you had to wonder how many times the otherwise seemingly affable Australian has pulled that sucker-punch move Down Under.
Unfortunately, Ambrose's performances on the race track haven't matched his punching prowess of late. He and Mears, sadly, were arguing over who did what to whom as they battled for 18th place at Richmond. That's about where Ambrose usually finishes on an oval.
Verdict: Sell (as a race car driver); Buy (as a boxer)
Joey Logano
10 of 10
In winning his second race of the season at Richmond, Joey Logano joined Kevin Harvick as the only other driver with two Cup victories in 2014.
That is especially important because those two are the only ones who can truly rest easy about being assured a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. The other six drivers with one win apiece almost certainly will still get in, of course, but they can't be sure when there are still plenty of top drivers out there vying for that first victory—guys who go by the names of Johnson, Gordon, Kenseth, Hamlin and Stewart, just to name a handful.
Logano has never looked more smooth as a driver in this series, where he finally seems to be comfortable with all his surroundings. He even seems to like and relate to Keselowski more than most of the other drivers, which is good because they are teammates.
It helps that Team Penske is consistently delivering fast race cars to both Logano and Keselowski. Lately it has been Logano who has done more with them.
Verdict: Buy
Unless otherwise noted, all information was obtained firsthand by the writer for all slides.
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