2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Stock Watch: Week 5
As the fifth race of the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season beckons, so does another stock watch of the drivers circling their way through the long, grinding schedule.
No one is hotter than Kevin Harvick, who has won two Cup points races in a row and has finished first or second in a remarkable string of seven such races dating back to last season. That hasn't lessened the pressure being placed on Harvick's capable crew chief, Rodney Childers, at least the way Childers sees it.
"I think at this point everybody just expects you to keep winning," Childers told Fox Sports' Tom Jensen. "That's what makes it hard on all of us. Yeah, I feel like we've got a team that can do that. We have a driver that can do that. We have the resources to do that. The more you win, the more you expect out of yourself and the more pressure you put on yourself."
But whose stock besides Harvick's is soaring or at least seemingly on a slow, steady climb thanks to cunning, courageous, smart driving and not only fast cars, but quick, efficient pit crews—as well as great communication and chemistry between driver and crew chief?
Whose stock should be held, waiting to see if it goes up or down in the coming weeks? Or whose stock needs to be dumped based on poor performance, complete lack of much of the criteria mentioned above and no signs that it's going to change anytime soon?
Kasey Kahne
1 of 10
While it's true Kahne has yet to lead a single lap this season, his fourth-place finish at Phoenix moved him up to fourth in the points standings. He is beginning to show why team owner Rick Hendrick had enough faith in him to sign him to a three-year contract extension that runs through 2018.
So far he's avoiding the occasional horrendous finish that can cost a driver so dearly. He seems to be developing solid chemistry with new crew chief Keith Rodden, and it's obvious he's in great Hendrick Motorsports equipment.
"We've had momentum all season," Kahne told Fox Sports' Jared Turner. "We've run in the top 10 and have had cars that can finish in the top five each week, so I'm really happy with our Farmers Insurance team. It's pretty neat."
It should be only a matter of time until Kahne starts leading laps and even winning races. He's won once in his career at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, the next Sprint Cup stop. And even though that win came in 2006, he also has finished ninth or better at the two-mile track in three of his last five starts there.
Verdict: Buy
Paul Menard
2 of 10
It seems like every year about this time Menard makes a brief appearance in the top 10 or 12 in the points standings only to disappear fairly quickly and rarely be heard from again the entire season. So here he is again, sitting in 11th after the first four races.
Is he here to stay this time? Honestly, it's way too soon to tell.
Somehow, he's 11th in points even though he hasn't finished higher than 12th in a race thus far this season. So it's not like he's been a speed demon thus far.
In 12 career starts at Fontana, he never finished better than 16th until two years ago. But he's finished eighth and ninth respectively in his last two outings there.
Verdict: Hold
Greg Biffle
3 of 10
Remember when Biffle and Roush Fenway Racing were relevant on a week-to-week basis?
Now it seems they'll rise up together at a track or two then fall off everyone's Sprint cup radar. It's been going on two years since the Biff last won a race (on June 26, 2013) at Michigan.
This year he started eighth and finished 10th in the season-opening Daytona 500. Since then, he's finished 25th at Atlanta, 14th at Las Vegas and 27th at Phoenix to drop like a rock in the points standings to a tie for 15th with Clint Bowyer, another struggling driver.
Maybe he can get it turned around at Fontana, but it seems doubtful. He owns two sixth-place finishes in the last three races he's run at the two-mile track that is similar to Michigan, but last year he finished 40th. He and the team he drives for continue to trend in the wrong direction.
Verdict: Sell
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
Ryan Newman
4 of 10
Despite his surprising runner-up finish in the Championship Four season finale race that settled the Chase for the Sprint Cup last year at Homestead-Miami Speedway, we've been reluctant to jump on Newman's bandwagon.
Maybe now it's time to jump on. The Richard Childress Racing driver has scored back-to-back third-place finishes in the last two races at Las Vegas and Phoenix, and suddenly he is showing the kind of speed in his No. 31 Chevy that it takes to run up front and maybe start winning a race here or there.
Newman credited his pit crew, but he obviously is doing a great job lately too. The Phoenix finish was not only his second top-five finish in a row, but also his third straight top 10 since getting caught up in an accident caused him to finish 38th in the season-opening Daytona 500.
"It was an awesome job by the guys, especially the pit crew," Newman told Perform Media's Joe Rodgers for Sporting News after Phoenix. "We’re knocking on the door. That’s two top-three’s in a row. ... We’re four races in and we’ve got two top fives. It took us until June last year to get our first one. So, we’ll keep digging.”
Verdict: Buy
AJ Allmendinger
5 of 10
The bubble hasn't burst yet for AJ Allmendinger, who remains fifth in the points after the first four races.
Allmendinger is a good driver on an underrated but seemingly (finally) up-and-coming JTG Daugherty Racing team. It's a single-car operation, but it now has a technical alliance with Richard Childress Racing that seems to be serving it well.
The good news is that Allmendinger expects to excel at the short tracks and, of course, on the two road courses. The Sprint Cup Series has visited no such venues as yet.
It's true that Allmendinger fell off to a 17th-place finish at Phoenix after finishing seventh in Atlanta and eighth in Las Vegas back-to-back. But even that represented a fairly major accomplishment after his car required an engine change in practice, forcing him to start the race from the rear.
The two-mile layout at Auto Club Speedway will be another test for the ECR Engines powerplants that are produced at the RCR complex and used in the No. 47 Chevrolet Allmendinger drives, as races there always tend to push engines to their limit. So let's keep an eye on this 2015 upstart.
Verdict: Hold
Clint Bowyer
6 of 10
Poor Clint Bowyer. His frustration began when he was wrecked in group qualifying for the season-opening Daytona 500, and even though he recovered from that to finish well in the subsequent race, he's been struggling ever since to get a good finish.
He neither qualified well nor ran well at any of the last three tracks that held Cup races. That translated to finishing 24th at Atlanta, 21st at Las Vegas and 24th at Phoenix.
Bowyer and crew chief Brian Pattie just can't seem to get it going in the No. 15 Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota, making one wonder how much longer the union will last. They haven't won a race since the Charlotte Motor Speedway fall race in 2012, so they'll be working on an 81-race winless streak this Sunday at Fontana.
He used to run well there. But after posting four consecutive finishes of ninth or better, including a second in 2010, Bowyer hasn't managed to finish better than 13th in his last three races at ACS.
Verdict: Sell
Martin Truex Jr.
7 of 10
Martin Truex Jr. has begun the season with four consecutive top-10 finishes, vaulting him to third in the points standings behind only defending Sprint Cup champion and two-time 2015 winner Kevin Harvick and Daytona 500 winner Joey Logano.
It's quite a turnaround after Truex struggled mightily last year in his first year with Furniture Row Racing, a single-car operation that is based off the beaten NASCAR path in Denver. He's obviously clicking well with new crew chief Cole Pearn.
In fact, one more top-10 finish and Truex will have matched his 2014 total. The way he went about earning his latest top-10 run at Phoenix illustrates the different vibe and can-do chemistry his team is developing.
His No. 78 Chevrolet actually fell off the jack during a pit stop on Lap 69 of the 312-lap event, dropping him at the time from fifth in the running order to 23rd. Instead of dwelling on it or sniping at each other, the team, crew chief and driver went to work together getting those lost spots back, and Truex ended up finishing seventh.
"It was a hell of a rebound," Truex told Fox Sports' Jay Pennell. He was talking about Phoenix, but it seems a fitting statement for his entire season so far.
Verdict: Buy
Brad Keselowski
8 of 10
Brad Keselowski never gives up. Nor should anyone ever give up on him.
So despite an uncharacteristic engine failure in his No. 2 Team Penske Ford that led to a 41st-place finish in the Daytona 500, Keselowski has rallied back with three top-nine finishes in a row. He finished ninth at Atlanta, seventh at Las Vegas and sixth in Phoenix respectively to move up to ninth in points.
There still are some questions about whether the Team Penske Fords are on the same level as the Hendrick Motorsports and Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolets as far as consistent and overall speed. Plus Keselowski's engine failure at Daytona was alarming.
But any gap between the organizations appears to be growing smaller all the time (Logano certainly has run well throughout the season). And if crew chief Paul Wolfe can put fast cars under Keselowski, as he has been known to do, BK has proved he can drive with anybody.
This is a hold situation where we're on the verge of buying as long as Keselowski keeps moving in the right direction. We just need to see a little more first.
Verdict: Hold
Tony Stewart
9 of 10
Tony Stewart just hasn't been the same since suffering a broken-leg injury that required several surgeries in a non-NASCAR sprint car accident on a dirt track in August of 2013.
That mishap, of course, was followed by his involvement a year later in another non-NASCAR sprint car incident on dirt that left fellow driver Kevin Ward Jr. dead after Ward advanced toward Stewart's moving car and was struck by it during a caution.
Stewart seemed eager to put all those bad times behind him in the offseason. You might say, by his sometimes crusty middle-aged man standards, that he was almost jovial in several settings prior to the start of this 2015 campaign.
Then the season started, and he's battled one problem after another. He has complained about the new 2015 rules package, the new cars...and all the while he has piled up one poor finish after another after another after another. He's now officially off to the worst start of his 17-year Cup career, languishing 35th in the points with no end to his misery in sight, according to what teammate Kevin Harvick told Fox Sports' Jared Turner.
Verdict: Sell
Kevin Harvick
10 of 10
Oh my. The only thing that might match Kevin Harvick's torrid start to the 2015 season is the torrid finish he had to his 2014 season.
Harvick won his last two races last year and three of his last six to secure his first Sprint Cup championship. Then he started out this year with a pair of second-place finishes before winning back-to-back at Las Vegas and Phoenix.
Perhaps even more remarkable is his streak of seven consecutive races of finishing either first or second, dating back to the end of last year. The last driver to post seven top-two finishes in a row was Richard Petty in 1975.
Harvick gives much of the credit to his crew chief, Rodney Childers. Last year was their first together. It seemed it would be hard to top it, but now...who knows?
"He's on that end of the spectrum with calm and collective," Harvick told Fox Sports' Jensen of Childers. "When he gets wound up, he gets even quieter. For me, I get wound up and tend to just get more wound up. It's a great balance between the two of us because of the fact you can find that middle road and balance."
Verdict: Buy, buy, buy
Unless otherwise noted, all information was obtained firsthand.
Joe Menzer has written six books, including two about NASCAR, and now writes about it and other sports for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @OneMenz.
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
