NASCAR Drivers with the Most Work to Do in the 2014 Offseason
Only one driver in the Sprint Cup Series in 2014 got to have his photo taken at the top of the Empire State Building with the champion’s trophy.
To the winner goes the spoils, or so they say.
Kevin Harvick beat the best in NASCAR to win the championship in a tough battle that went down to the final laps of the final race of the season—just as NASCAR execs had hoped it would.
As for the rest of the Sprint Cup field, after some time off to regroup, recharge and spend some long-awaited weekends at home with their families, the drivers and teams that didn’t fare so well in 2014 will take the first steps toward the 2015 championship.
Some did well in 2014, winning races and making the Chase. They’re not the topic of this slideshow. Instead, we’re focused on 10 drivers who didn’t quite make the grade in 2014, or who came close but missed and with just a little work might be genuine contenders again in 2015.
First up, a trio of juniors.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
1 of 10
For nearly the entire 2014 season, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. raced around the middle to rear of the Sprint Cup field, as if to keep tabs on his girlfriend, Danica Patrick.
Yes, it’s time to call him on it. Stenhouse Jr. has far more talent than his finishes in 2014 showed.
Admittedly, there were the two top-10 finishes at Bristol—second in March and sixth in August—but the rest of the season, it was as if Stenhouse Jr. was phoning it in. His history in a stock car includes back-to-back NASCAR Xfinity Series titles (2011-12). There is some real talent in Stenhouse Jr., but he’s got some issues with either the equipment or with his crew chief, Mike Kelley, as he should be outperforming his teammates every weekend.
With the departure of Carl Edwards and the arrival of Trevor Bayne in 2015 to Roush Fenway Racing, Stenhouse Jr. moves up the ladder at the organization and finds himself with a secure seat at Jack Roush's big kids' table.
Many thought that Stenhouse Jr. would be more like Kyle Larson behind the wheel of a stock car than someone riding around with an average finish of 22.4.
This racer needs to show the world that he’s a real contender for the 2015 title. Funny thing is, that seat at the big kids' table was always there for the taking.
Martin Truex Jr.
2 of 10
After being caught up in the Michael Waltrip Racing scandal of 2013 that cost him his job and his sponsor, Martin Truex Jr. found a home with Denver-based Furniture Row Racing for 2014.
He was paired with veteran crew chief Todd Berrier, who has worked with a myriad of drivers, though he’s known for his years with Kevin Harvick when the 2014 champion was at Richard Childress Racing. Berrier tried to use his magic with Truex Jr., but he was unable to give the New Jersey-born driver the kind of race car he wanted and needed to go fast.
For whatever reason, the crew chief that took Kurt Busch to the Chase in 2013 was unable to get the two-time Xfinity Series champion in a competitive position. It’s unknown whether there will be changes made at Furniture Row, but something needs to give. In these kinds of situations, it's not the driver who gets changed. It’s the support team.
A crew chief change would mean that the candidate would have to relocate to Colorado. Not a bad assignment, but it narrows the list—if that is the direction this team takes.
Truex Jr. is capable of winning races at the Cup level. He has two career Cup wins, and it could be that all he needs is the right support team around him to increase that number.
But a few more seasons with just one lap led, like in 2014, and this former champion could be looking for a ride. Here's one driver who really needs a breakout season in 2015.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
3 of 10
Dale Earnhardt Jr. has much to be proud of.
2014 was one of the best seasons of his NASCAR Sprint Cup career. And despite not winning the championship, his passion for the racing was recharged, which may help tack on an extra few years to his career.
The 40-year-old made it through two rounds of the Chase before being eliminated. Then came a bittersweet victory at Martinsville, the win he'd needed to move on to the next round of the Chase. But it came a week too late.
Junior has lost crew chief Steve Letarte, who did more than help the veteran driver reignite his passion—he also proved to him that he still had the chops to win races and be a serious contender.
Earnhardt Jr. faces a difficult challenge in 2015 of adjusting to a new crew chief—a new person to have to teach his little idiosyncrasies. That said, Greg Ives is a very talented crew chief, and he should find his driver ready and willing to both teach and learn from him.
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Clint Bowyer
4 of 10
Another driver hit with the fallout from the Waltrip scandal, Clint Bowyer had the kind of season in 2014 that could best be described as “character building.”
After being a somewhat regular fixture in the Chase for four years, Bowyer wasn’t even close to that kind of performance this season. Not in points, and certainly not with a win.
His No. 15 Camry was uncompetitive at most tracks. Much of that was due to the lack of speed that all the Toyota teams suffered from for much of the season. He and crew chief Brian Pattie apparently were unable to adjust to the new ride-height rule. However, even the tracks where Bowyer has shown strength in the past were a struggle for this veteran driver.
He did, though, end the season at Homestead with a solid top-10 finish (eighth).
Add Bowyer’s name to the list of drivers missing from this year’s Chase lineup who are sure to be there again in 2015.
Tony Stewart
5 of 10
"Forgettable" might be the best word to describe the kind of year Tony Stewart experienced.
Unfortunately, events on that hot August night in upstate New York won’t let Stewart or the family of Kevin Ward Jr. forget anything about 2014.
Stewart smartly withdrew from competition and the public’s view for just long enough. Once he returned to Sprint Cup competition, his performances were good, but not great.
Much has been written and said about what happened to Stewart this year and the effects it may have on both his driving career and his race team. He had already been recovering from a serious injury that came as a result of his participation in a sprint car race in 2013.
How many more years of racing does the three-time Sprint Cup champion have left? No one knows. But if there's a smart move to be made by the very savvy Stewart, it would be to give up his seat in the next two to three years to one of the new young guns who have entered the sport. Not all of them are Chase Elliott, but there are potential champions racing in both the NCWTS and NXS who could blossom under the kind of tutelage Stewart and his organization could offer.
Much will depend upon what kind of season Stewart has in 2015. It would be a real surprise if he's not in the 2015 Chase field by the way of several wins.
Kasey Kahne
6 of 10
Kasey Kahne and longtime crew chief Kenny Francis never found the sweet spot Kahne needed in 2014. The ride-height rule changes may have caught this duo off guard, and all the horses and all the king’s men at Hendrick Motorsports couldn’t make the No. 5 Chevrolet go fast and make Kahne comfortable doing so.
It took a dramatic victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway to secure Kahne's spot in the 2014 edition of the Chase. He made the best of his opportunity, taking a somewhat dysfunctional team past the first round of the Chase, before eventually being eliminated following the Contender Round.
Kahne and Francis had been together since the end of the 2005 season. For 2015, Kahne has a new three-year deal with Hendrick Motorsports, which is surprising given his performance since joining the organization.
In an all-out attempt to give the driver every advantage possible for 2015, he’ll also have a new crew chief. Keith Rodden comes over from Chip Ganassi Racing, where he worked with Jamie McMurray.
Aric Almirola
7 of 10
If there was a Cinderella story in the 2014 Chase, it surely belonged to Aric Almirola. The Richard Petty Motorsports driver, a product of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program, was a chance entry when he won a rain-shortened Coke Zero 400 at Daytona in July.
Almirola knew going in that keeping up with the heavyweights in the Chase would be a steep mountain to climb. The famous No. 43 Ford didn’t make it past the first round of the Chase, but even so, it made for a terrific story for team owner Richard Petty, who lost wife Lynda to cancer earlier in the year.
The 30-year-old Almirola will begin only his fourth season as a full-time Cup driver in 2015. Each year he’s been in the series has been better than the one before it. Almirola’s Richard Petty Motorsports team benefits from being a Ford team, able to share some technical data with powerhouse teams like Team Penske and Roush Fenway. That means the Petty cars will be even better in 2015. Also, new teammate Sam Hornish Jr. will be a strong addition to the Petty stables.
Almirola is a tough competitor who has the talent to take the Petty organization to the next level. His continued success would be a huge shot in the arm for NASCAR’s efforts to attract a more diverse (Hispanic) audience.
There's not much this NASCAR feel-good story has to do next season aside from doing what he's been doing.
Early prediction? Almirola ends up back in the Chase for 2015, possibly due to a win at one of the restrictor plate races.
Greg Biffle
8 of 10
Greg Biffle’s Sprint Cup career has been one of many highs and many lows. Unfortunately, the past season was one of the lowest.
His 13-year NASCAR Sprint Cup career with team owner Jack Roush has seen more "close but no cigar" moments than perhaps anyone else in the series.
Biffle is a tough racer who grew up racing on the short tracks of the Northwest, where he plowed down the competition and made it to the big time in a true rags-to-riches kind of story. But since coming to the Sprint Cup Series, he has had one thing or another keep him from becoming the first driver to win a championship in all three of NASCAR’s national touring series. Biffle was the Camping World Truck Series champion in 2000 and the Xfinity Series champion in 2002.
He finished the 2005 Sprint Cup season as the runner-up to Stewart. And again in 2008, he made a serious bid for the title, only to fall short (finishing third) after winning the first two races of the Chase.
In 2014, Biffle struggled (as did the other two Roush Fenway Racing drivers, Edwards and Stenhouse Jr.) with bad race cars and faulty setups. He ended up finishing 14th in points, only the second time in five years that he ended the season outside the top 10.
In addition, Biffle pairing with crew chief Matt Puccia was expected to pay dividends for the driver. It hasn't.
He’s been a regular fixture in the Chase (six of his 13 years in Cup), and it's likely Biffle will be back in familiar territory come postseason 2015. No changes have been announced for this team.
With Edwards gone to Joe Gibbs Racing, Biffle becomes the unquestionable leader in the RFR garage for younger teammates Stenhouse Jr. and Bayne. But he faces a 36-race season and a Cup field that gets younger (he’s 44 years old) and more competitive every year. Let’s hope he’s up for it.
Danica Patrick
9 of 10
When Danica Patrick’s Stewart-Haas Racing teammate, 2014 Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick, made comments about her not being "a top-level driver," as reported by Motorsport.com, the comments were definitely warranted.
She doesn't have the experience driving a stock car that many of her peers have. But that shouldn’t be a measure of her talents.
I was not a big fan of Patrick the IndyCar driver. I felt that much of her success was due to her racing clean and waiting for attrition to move up through the field. I also felt she had far too much attention placed on her by the fans and the media.
When she came to stock cars, it was as if Patrick suddenly became a different driver. She was aggressive, willing to take chances and ready to get up on the wheel when the occasion called for it.
She has gotten better with each year she’s been in the Sprint Cup Series. Admittedly, she just completed her second year, but there have been times when the driver of the No. 10 Chevrolet has led laps (15 this season) and looked very racy.
Patrick needs to continue on the path she's on. She gets better with every green flag she takes. And if she can cut the invisible cord that ties her to boyfriend Stenhouse Jr. when both are on the race track, she just might finish in the top 10 a few times in 2015.
Is she a candidate for the Chase anytime soon? I’m predicting she’ll win a restrictor-plate race in the next year or two. That would put her in the Chase.
Does it give her a chance at the championship? Stranger things have happened. This is auto racing, after all.
Jimmie Johnson
10 of 10
Last but certainly not least, for just the third time in nine seasons, six-time champion Jimmie Johnson will not begin next season as the defending champ. Whether that means there will be major changes to the existing team remains to be seen.
There are no obvious reasons for major changes to the No. 48 squad. There were no recurring issues or faulty pit stops, problems that have plagued other teams in the series and could be a cause for concern. However, one would expect that crew chief Chad Knaus will go over the entire 2014 season and pick apart the bad races as well as the good.
Johnson’s problems this past year may have simply been that the new ride-height rule forced him into learning how to drive a car that felt very different than the kind of race car he was used to.
Johnson is one of a handful of drivers who likes a loose race car when appropriate. Loose is fast in NASCAR, and both Knaus and Johnson know that. It is a big part of the "secret of their success," so to speak.
This team has work to do, but it's more about fine-tuning than a major overhaul.
Expect Johnson, Knaus and the rest of the Lowe’s team to be back in the thick of things come February 2015 and the Daytona 500. JJ wants that seventh title. And he’ll take an eighth one and a ninth one too.
All quotes are taken from official NASCAR, team and manufacturer media releases unless otherwise stated.
Bob Margolis is a member of the National Motorsports Press Association and has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, the NHRA and Sports Cars for more than two decades as a writer, television producer and on-air talent.
On Twitter: @BobMargolis
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