2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Stock Watch: Week 3
Two weeks into the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, it's time to take stock of what's happening.
Looking strictly at drivers for this edition, whose stock is on the rise, whose is worthy at least of holding for the time being and whose already is destined to be dumped?
Based not only on who has won the two races but also on how drivers and their teams have performed, their immediate prospects for success on the track, who is dealing the best with NASCAR's new rules package and which drivers have the best chemistry with their crew chiefs and pit crews, we narrowed the market choices to a total of 10.
These are the guys who bear close watching in the coming weeks, but whose current situations already have made it clear what kind of action their stock deserves at the moment. One who obviously is on the rise is Atlanta race winner Jimmie Johnson, the six-time Cup champion.
Brant James of USA Today wrote: "Johnson's first victory of the season doesn't necessarily signal that his No. 48 Chevrolet team has remedied the ills that plagued it in a frustrating 2014. But it sure felt like the good old days for driver and crew chief. Fast car from (crew chief Chad) Knaus, superlative driving by Johnson, big trophy."
See what should be done to the stock of some other top drivers.
Joey Logano
1 of 10
Joey Logano began the season by hoisting the Harley J. Earl Trophy that goes to the winner of the season-opening Daytona 500, NASCAR's biggest race.
The Team Penske driver followed that up by winning the pole for the Folds of Honor QuickTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway last weekend, and then he led 84 of the first 86 laps before eventually settling for a respectable fourth-place finish.
He appears to be one of the drivers who is very comfortable with NASCAR's new rules package, which has limited the horsepower in the cars and makes them drive more like the Xfinity (formerly Nationwide) Series cars.
"The season is going good so far. We've just got to keep it going," Logano told Jay Pennell of FoxSports.com.
At first glance, it looks as if Logano and Todd Gordon, the crew chief for the No. 22 Chevrolet, are picking right up where they left off last season. Logano was one of the final four drivers who competed for the Sprint Cup championship in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Verdict: Buy
David Ragan
2 of 10
Named the temporary substitute driver for Kyle Busch in the No. 18 Toyota after Busch suffered a compound fracture of his right leg and broken left foot in the Xfinity Series season opener at Daytona, David Ragan finished 17th in the Daytona 500 and 18th at Atlanta.
That's not great, but it's not bad for a guy who had to jump out of the ride he was used to at Front Row Motorsports and into his new, obviously upgraded one for Joe Gibbs Racing on the spur of the moment.
Ragan once was considered an up-and-coming star when he drove for Roush Fenway Racing. But now he's 29 years old and if he's ever going to land another big-time ride for more than a few weeks as a substitute, now is the time for him to show what he can do in top-notch equipment.
This is an important live audition for Ragan and one that bears more close watching.
Verdict: Hold
Kurt Busch and Kyle Busch
3 of 10
The Busch brothers have had better starts to their seasons.
Well, actually, neither of their 2015 Sprint Cup seasons got off to a start at all.
Kurt Busch, the older of the brothers, was suspended indefinitely by NASCAR just before the Daytona 500 after a Delaware judge ruled that it was "more likely than not" that he had committed an act of domestic abuse against his ex-girlfriend, Patricia Driscoll, (via FoxSports.com).
Kurt Busch is beginning the first steps of attempting to make his way back into the driver's seat of the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevy that he had to step out of, but it's likely a long, uncertain road he'll have to travel.
Kyle Busch is out indefinitely after the terrible Xfinity Series accident at Daytona that left him with the compound fracture of his right leg and a broken left foot. Both injuries required surgery.
Verdict: Sell
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Dale Earnhardt Jr.
4 of 10
This chemistry deal between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Greg Ives, his new crew chief on the No. 88 Chevy team, was supposed to take some time.
But in their first two races together, Earnhardt has finished third both times and has been in position to challenge for the win late in both races. Ives, the former lead engineer on the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team when Jimmie Johnson won five of his six championships, also won a title in the Nationwide (now Xfinity) Series last year as Chase Elliott's crew chief.
So Ives obviously knows what he is doing. And Earnhardt is not only excited about it but also taking full advantage of it by driving like someone who is completely comfortable with the car being placed under him.
"Happy with the car. Happy with Greg," Earnhardt told Tom Jensen FoxSports.com after Atlanta. "Greg is great at communicating. Our communication is natural, feels good. He's a pretty decent cheerleader, too, for myself, the team. Man, he's going to be something else for a while around that garage. I'm glad to be able to work with him there."
Verdict: Buy
Casey Mears
5 of 10
It's early. It's very, very early.
But a quick look at the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points standings after two races is sure to produce a double take when folks notice Casey Mears sitting in sixth place.
Mears, driver of the No. 13 Chevy for underfunded Germain Racing, is there mostly on the strength of his sixth-place run in the Daytona 500. But he followed that up with a decent 15th-place finish at Atlanta and might be onto something after producing only three top-10 finishes in 36 starts a year ago.
Like Ragan, Mears once had a top ride at Hendrick Motorsports. But he's now 36, and his star has long faded, so maybe this is his last stand at proving he's a better driver than what his subpar career record so far shows.
Verdict: Hold
Austin Dillon
6 of 10
Austin Dillon has said repeatedly that he cannot wait to get the famous No. 3 Cup car from Richard Childress Racing back into Victory Lane.
Maybe he first ought to set his goals a little lower—like finishing a race inside the top five. He's finished fifth exactly once and never higher since taking over duties of the iconic No. 3 car full-time in the Cup Series, and that was last July at Daytona. That was 20 races ago. And he's finished in the top 10 only once (eighth at Kansas last fall) during that same span.
Dillon was supposed to challenge for Sprint Cup Rookie of the Year honors last year. But he didn't, and now the struggles he went through then appear to be carrying over to this year.
Atlanta was particularly poor for him. He finished 39th after spinning and taking a wild ride through the infield grass, messing up his car to the point that he had no chance to be competitive the rest of the race.
Verdict: Sell
Kevin Harvick
7 of 10
Kevin Harvick, the defending Sprint Cup champion, has finished first or second in his last five Cup points races.
That includes running second in each of this year's two races, offering early evidence that Harvick's driving style fits the new NASCAR rules package better than most. After all, if these new Cup cars are driving more like Xfinity cars now, that's a series where Harvick has excelled for a long, long time.
In Atlanta, in fact, Harvick won the Xfinity race on Saturday before nearly doing the same in the Cup race on Sunday. The driver blamed himself for messing up a late restart in the Cup event, but he shouldn't fret.
Sometimes you have to finish second a few times before you break through in a season and finish first. But if you're consistently running up front with the big dogs, winning is only a matter of time.
Verdict: Buy
Martin Truex Jr.
8 of 10
Martin Truex Jr. finally seems to be having fun again driving in the Sprint Cup Series.
Last year was a rough one all the way around for Truex, who lost his ride at Michael Waltrip Racing through crazy circumstances that were no fault of his own at the end of the 2013 season. He ended up at the single-car Furniture Row Racing team and seemingly out of sorts.
Then, as he struggled to find the right chemistry with his new team, his longtime girlfriend, Sherry Pollex, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer last summer. Furniture Row team owner Barney Visser offered to let Truex take the final three months of the season off while Pollex went through surgery and chemotherapy treatments.
Now Pollex is doing better, and so is Truex, who told Jay Pennell of FoxSports.com: "She has really inspired me to be a better person, to see the things she has been through, to appreciate things more."
So far the inspiration seems to be paying dividends, as Truex currently is fifth in the points after finishing eighth in the Daytona 500 and sixth at Atlanta. Those points-race finishes came on the heels of a second-place run in the non-points Sprint Unlimited and a fifth-place finish in his Budweiser Duel qualifying race at Daytona.
Let's see if he can keep this up.
Verdict: Hold
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
9 of 10
Poor Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Once he was known as an up-and-coming star, a back-to-back champion of what was then the Nationwide Series and a can't-miss prospect in Sprint Cup. Now he's more widely known as Danica Patrick's boyfriend...you know, the guy currently sporting a mullet.
It's not all Stenhouse's fault. He broke into Cup with Roush Fenway Racing right when RFR seemed to take a nosedive in competition level. (It's no coincidence that its top two drivers from the last decade, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards, both have left in recent years to drive for Joe Gibbs Racing instead).
But aside from his success in dating Patrick, very little else has gone right for Stenhouse since he arrived in Cup, and that includes his being involved in wrecks during each of the first two races this season (again, not all his fault). In 78 career Cup starts, he's never won and has only two top-five finishes.
After getting wrecked and finishing 36th at Atlanta, he's currently 30th in the points. That's 14 spots behind his girlfriend. Ouch.
Verdict: Sell
Jimmie Johnson
10 of 10
Last year it took Jimmie Johnson three months, until the 12th race of the season, to win his first race.
This year, it took two weeks. That seems to bode well for Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus, who were disappointed that last year's run at a record-tying seventh Cup championship fell way short when Johnson was eliminated early in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
Johnson didn't think his No. 48 Chevrolet was all that good last Sunday at Atlanta, but he ended up winning the race with it. So either he did a phenomenal job of driving it, or Knaus and the rest of the 48 team did a fantastic job of making adjustments to it prior to the race and during it.
Johnson told reporters that it was more or less a combination of both.
"It is pretty wild after all these years we're able to do that and still impress one another," Johnson told USA Today. "But we did it (Sunday)."
Verdict: Buy
Joe Menzer has written six books, including two about NASCAR, and now writes about it and other sports for Bleacher Report as well as assisting in coverage of NASCAR as a writer and editor for FoxSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @OneMenz.
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