Winners and Losers from the 2014 NASCAR Season
Man, what a long season. It started way back in February when Dale Earnhardt Jr. took the Daytona 500, and it ended with the Ford EcoBoost 400 with a championship run by Kevin Harvick, the 2014 Sprint Cup Champion.
It was a season that had its ups and downs for many drivers. The new Chase format begat a Chase Playoffs that made the best stock car drivers in the world squirm under pressure.
Before we know it Daytona will be here, and we get to do it all over again and watch Harvick defend his title. That's still months from now. There's still a 2014 season to rehash and relive.
Read on to see this year's winners and losers, starting with none other than...
Winner: Kevin Harvick
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What an up-and-down season for Kevin Harvick. For so much of the year he had one of the fastest cars. According to the ESPN broadcast, he led over 2,137 laps on the season, won five races, had 20 top 10s and eight poles. Many of those races fell short with a poor pit stop or a bad wreck late.
Harvick put all that behind him and won when he had to.
"I don't even know what to say," Harvick said during the ESPN broadcast. "I was just holding the pedal down and hoping for the best. I've been trying for 13 years. This racing format has been so stressful. I'm going to sleep for a week!"
Harvick made a big leap by joining Stewart-Haas Racing and was essentially given carte blanche to build a winning race car. It didn't win much until late, but when it got rolling, it was a championship car.
Harvick held off all the contenders late and is the last-man standing after a blood pressure-rising run through the Chase.
Loser: Joey Logano's Slipped Jack
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Joey Logano, a driver whose looks would suggest a young man late for biology class, won five races in 2014 and was in position to strike at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Then a botched pit stop in the final stages of the race cost the No. 22 and Team Penske a Sprint Cup.
While getting tires Logano's car slipped off the jack, and the entire pit crew needed to hoist the car up on its side so that tires could be installed. During the caution lap he slammed his fists on the steering wheel. That said it all.
"We were having a great season up until the final 20 laps," Logano said during the ESPN broadcast. "We had the mistake on pit road, but we still had a great season."
The ESPN commentators spoke about the pressure and wondered when that pressure would catch up to a driver or the pit crew. In this case, it was the pit crew that slipped up and cost Logano valuable seconds, and it ultimately cost him a shot at the Sprint Cup.
Winner: The Chase Playoffs
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NASCAR put an emphasis on winning in 2014. It expanded the Chase to 16 drivers and said if you win a race, you make the playoffs. Of course if more than 16 drivers won a race then it would have come down to other tiebreakers, but 16 different drivers winning a race was never a threat. Only 13 won races in 2014.
The new format was great for two parties: those who routinely win (think Hendrick Motorsports and Team Penske) and those who win by a fluke finishes. Win a race, baby, and you're in the Chase.
Then there's the Chase itself with its layered rounds that cull the field from 16 to 12 and then eight to four. We saw the pressure ratchet up to where every lap meant something in those elimination races. Drivers shuffled along a cut line. There were races within races that meant Ryan Newman needed to bounce a fellow driver into a wall to earn one valuable point to vault into the finals.
Per Michael Tomsic of WFAE 90.7, former CBS Sports president Neal Pilson said:
"The premium has been placed again on winning, and I think that is the most critical new element in this format and the most easily understood: win, and you advance. That's NCAA basketball. It's NFL playoffs. Win and you advance, and I think that's important.
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Going all the way back to February, the drivers were excited.
Jeff Gordon tweeted (via Fox Sports), "Winning has always been important in NASCAR Sprint Cup but wow just became THE way to win championship! Exciting!"
And rookie Kyle Larson added, "All the changes NASCAR is making is really exciting. I think it's going to make all the teams/drivers step up even more. Will be fun to see!"
It has been especially fun to see the best stock car drivers squirm over the course of 2014.
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Loser: Hendrick Motorspots
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Rick Hendrick was, at one point, in the enviable position of starting four drivers in the Chase. His stable of Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne earned spots in that Challenger Round.
Hendrick's team was so strong that all four advanced to the Contender Round. He started the Chase with 25 percent of the field and then had a killer 33 percent percent of the contenders. Then things fell apart. The 11 races his garages won in 2014 were, in the end, nothing but window dressing.
No Johnson (last year's champion)? No Gordon (a four-time winner)? No Junior (the Daytona 500 winner)? Big problem.
By most standards 2014 was a success with all those wins. At some point, winning races simply isn't enough. The New York Yankees aren't satisfied with a wild-card birth. Same for Hendrick Motorsports. Starting with so much and ending with nothing makes the team's season a loss by its lofty standards.
Come 2015, at least one of the HMS drivers will be favored to reach the final leg of the Chase Playoffs. That's the nature of this beast. HMS will rise.
Winner: Winless Ryan Newman
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Ryan Newman made it all the way to the Championship Four without winning a single race, this in a year where NASCAR strongly emphasized winning above all else.
And as the final four drivers fired up their engines at Homestead, Newman only had to beat the other drivers in the Chase. Newman didn't even have to win the race. That would be the most fitting end to this season and the most unintentional middle finger to the new establishment.
Richard Childress, the owner of Newman's No. 31 car, said in The New York Times:
"He races every lap like it’s the last lap, and that’s what I look for in a driver, is someone that races as hard as they can all day long. I always use this old saying that Dale Earnhardt gave us: ‘It’s not always the fastest car that wins. It’s who wants it the worst.’ And I think Ryan wants that championship the worst.
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There's no doubt Newman wanted it "worst," all drivers do. The fact that Newman was able to reach this far into the Chase without a single trip to Victory Lane speaks to his steady hand—about never getting too high or too low. And in a moment of survival of the fittest, Newman went full contact with Larson at Phoenix International Raceway to sneak into the Championship Four.
If we’re second, I’m still going for the win,” Newman told The New York Times. “If they’re third, fourth and fifth or ninth, 10th and 11th, we’re still going for the win. I still want to win. Everybody wants to be a winner. At least, I want to be a winner, and that’s what matters to me.”
And to think he nearly won without winning once.
Loser: The Also-Winless Matt Kenseth
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Matt Kenseth made it as far the Eliminator Round in 2014 without winning a race, this after a 2013 where he won seven races.
The No. 20 was winless for the first time since 2010. He won three races in 2011 and 2012 then blew up for seven in 2013. Kenseth was steady in 2014. He earned two poles, had 13 top fives and 21 top 10s with an average finish of 13.4.
Yet despite all that (and despite NASCAR's emphasis on winning races to get into the Chase) Kenseth still managed to be one of eight remaining drivers with a chance to advance to Homestead with the Cup on the line. At least Kenseth snagged a win in the Nationwide Series race.
Per Jay Pennell of FoxSports.com, Kenseth said:
"It's been a long time since I won a race in anything. Just happy for Kevin (Kidd, crew chief). He's been trying to get a win over here for a long time and he's going onto something different next year. Happy to send him off with a win here—that was pretty cool.
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Kenseth, as well as Newman, is an anomaly who somehow advanced deep into the Chase Playoffs without a win.
He should be commended for getting as far has he did, but given how well he drove in 2013, 2014 was a big, big disappointment. Expect Kenseth to have a bounce-back year in 2015. He has a lot to prove, mainly to himself.
Winner: The Wildly Polarizing Brad Keselowski
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Brad Keselowski showed NASCAR fans how fearless he was on the track this season. He won six races, good for tops in the sport, none more pressurized than his do-or-die win at Talladega Superspeedway in the Contender Round of the the Chase.
BK has shown the ability to compartmentalize pressure. He doesn't fly off the handle. Anyone who watched the post-Texas melee after Keselowski and Jeff Gordon exchanged pleasantries had to be impressed by Keselowski. When interviewed afterward he was cool and collected, this in juxtaposition to the surfacing blood on his mouth.
Keselowski has all the pressure of a newer generation on his back too. He's the poster boy of the new guard. Take last week at Phoenix. Newman was lauded for ricocheting Larson into the wall to gain a point and thus advance to the Championship Four. BK made a similar move when Gordon opened a seam in Texas.
The difference was that Gordon was still in the hunt. Gordon wrecked. Gordon flew off the handle (with help from Kevin Harvick).
Keselowski was grilled for his move; Newman was heralded for his. Per Jordan Bianchi, Keselowski said in SB Nation:
"Clearly, the standards are different across the driver platforms. I think we all can see that. I can either sweat that or I can sit here and point out that I'm still the youngest one of the guys that has won a championship in the last decade, which kind of makes me the newest guy in the circle and I'm a threat to those that are established in the sport.
I understand that. I accept that. And they're going to try to put a double standard on me to try to hold us back. I'm not going to stand for it.
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He's undeniably fun to watch compete, and with so many drivers clearly taking a stand against Keselowski, it's Keselowski's stand against them that makes him one of NASCAR's best and most entertaining drivers.
Loser: The Drive for 5
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Jeff Gordon had a terrific regular season. He won three races and led in points. At age 43, his 2014 season was, by most accounts, a total victory. Yet it all came apart in the final two races of the Eliminator Round.
Well, Texas, really. Gordon did finish second to Phoenix-loving Kevin Harvick in the season's penultimate race, but it was the fallout from Texas that starved Gordon's Drive for Hunger 24 car.
Gordon went loose into a turn at Texas, and the always-aggressive Keselowski raced hard for the spot. The move slashed Gordon's rear left tire and wrecked his car. He lost several crucial points that ultimately cost him a chance at the Sprint Cup.
Gordon promptly mouthed off toward Keselowski and got involved in a skirmish after the race.
"He's just a dips--t," said Gordon of Keselowski in the post-race broadcast. "I don't know how he ever won a championship."
"There was a hole and I went for it," Keselowski said after the race. "It closed up and we bounced off each other and kept going. It was just a battle for the win."
If Gordon didn't wreck would he have been as heated? Probably not. Yet Gordon understood Newman for catapulting Larson into the wall at Phoenix to earn a crucial, ultimately season-changing point.
Gordon, one of the elder statesmen in NASCAR, should understand that there are no free passes and that this new format encourages aggressive racing.
Winner: The Rookie of the Year
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By year's end Kyle Larson didn't feel like a rookie anymore. He raced well beyond his experience, and he was rewarded for that performance by being named NASCAR's Rookie of the Year after the race at Homestead.
"The first half of the season, it took me time to get over those little rookie curves and things," Larson said in USA Today. "But then the second half, I felt like I'm pretty comfortable in the Cup Series and ran really well. I feel like I belong here."
Jeff Gluck, USA Today's NASCAR writer, at one point thought Larson was all hype and no substance. Larson even called out Gluck, using his words as motivation.
Gluck wrote:
"How did I blow it? Well, it had been awhile since anyone was able to climb into a car as a rookie and immediately perform so well. I figured no one—no matter the talent—could quickly master stock car racing without the proper experience.
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Larson notched eight top fives (double that of Newman) and had an average finish of 14.2 (better than Denny Hamlin). All that is just evidence Larson will be a force in the coming years.
Loser: Drivers with AARP Membership
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Let's get something straight. This isn't ageism. These are tremendously fast race cars that need the reflexes of a young Anakin Skywalker. As people age, memory, eyesight and reflexes lose sharpness. Morgan Shepherd, 73, raced twice in 2014. He started 43rd and 42nd and subsequently finished 39th and 43rd.
This isn't competition; this is dangerous. Airline pilots are forced into retirement at age 65. Forced. Reflexes aren't as sound as we age. Now put a driver born during World War II in a 200 mph stock car, and that's a recipe for disaster.
At New Hampshire, Shepherd's car was trailing the field by some 15 laps. Joey Logano, a driver who would reach the Championship Four and had a live car at that New Hampshire race, got tied up with Shepherd late in that race. Logano was running second at the time.
"I feel like there should be a driver's test before you get out in a Cup car and make sure you know how to drive before you drive one," Logano told ESPN.
NASCAR had no issue with Shepherd gearing up.
NASCAR official Robin Pemberton said on ESPN.com:
"He met everything he needed to meet. He was above minimum speed. He pulled over to let Joey go by and it's a responsibility for all competitors. Everybody has a responsibility to lay off each other. It's an accident. Those things happen. It could happen to anybody. It could happen with any competitor.
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NASCAR should waste no time implementing an age restriction before someone gets killed.
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