2015 Quickly Becoming the Year of the Unexpected and Bizarre in NASCAR
A few years back, a friend and I flew out to Arizona a day early for a Phoenix race so that we could play golf in Sedona, which was a bit like swinging clubs at little white balls in the middle of a John Wayne movie.
The Searchers, perhaps.
The view was marvelous, and as such, on each tee, we would marvel at the natural beauty of the red-rock formations rising all around us. We’d play a hole, pay attention to, oh, golf, arrive at the next tee box, savor the scenery again, and it seemed as if the entire landscape had changed in the difference of a few hundred yards.
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| Track | Winner | Car | Pole Speed | Yellow Flags | Avg. Speed |
| Daytona | Joey Logano | Ford | 201.293 | 7 | 161.939 |
| Atlanta | Jimmie Johnson | Chevy | 194.683 | 10 | 131.078 |
| Vegas | Kevin Harvick | Chevy | 194.679 | 6 | 143.667 |
| Phoenix | Kevin Harvick | Chevy | 140.751 | 10 | 105.753 |
| Fontana | Brad Keselowski | Ford | 185.142 | 7 | 140.662 |
| Martinsville | Denny Hamlin | Toyota | 98.461 | 16 | 68.843 |
It reminds me of the current NASCAR season. Every week the perspective changes. As we concentrate on the individual races, we lose contact with the forest by staring at the individual trees. It happens every year, and the constant overreaction is common to every other sport too.
After winning the STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway on March 29, Denny Hamlin said to reporters, “We’re just not used to not having success, especially with the resources we have. Boss man over there (Joe Gibbs) expects a lot from us, and we expect to be in Victory Lane and be up front.”
Who doesn’t? Join the crowd. It’s getting bigger.
Two weeks ago, Kevin Harvick had put together a streak of eight consecutive races, three during the previous season, in which he finished either first or second. He seemed bent on utter NASCAR domination. At Martinsville, he finished a mortal eighth, the streak ended and suddenly everything seemed to be normal again. Different numbers came to the fore.
The season is one-sixth over. In six races, five different drivers have won. Only Harvick has won twice. There have been no major upsets, no winners who were particularly surprising and the powerhouse teams—Stewart-Haas, Penske, Hendrick and Gibbs—have all won. All three manufacturers—Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota—have won.
Chevrolets have put two drivers—reigning Sprint Cup champion Harvick and six-time champion Jimmie Johnson—in three Victory Lanes. Fords have taken Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski to victory, and last week Denny Hamlin took the checkered flag at Martinsville in a Toyota.
The biggest surprise? Unheralded Martin Truex Jr. has finished in the top 10 in every race. So has Harvick, but that’s not a major surprise.
"We believe in each other and always feel we're never out of it," said Truex in a March 29 news release. "We've had fast cars all year and an incredible team chemistry."
Keselowski has finished first and second in the past two races. On the downside, some of the sport’s premier stars, particularly the aging Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon (both 43), are struggling mightily.
On the five races since the Daytona 500, Gordon said in a March 27 media conference, “I do like the stretch. It didn’t fare well for us, but that’s our fault and not the schedule’s. We just had some things that didn’t go well for us, and we need to perform at a higher level.”
In six weeks, there just isn’t time for everyone to shine.
The Gibbs Toyotas, which had allowed 31 races to pass since their previous victory 11 months earlier, finished first, fourth (Matt Kenseth) and fifth (David Ragan). The Penske Fords were second (Keselowski) and third (Logano). The strongest manufacturer, Chevrolet, settled for sixth (Truex), seventh (Danica Patrick), eighth (Harvick), ninth (Gordon) and 10th (Jamie McMurray).
Others roared to the front to compete with and outperform the alleged Harvick monopoly. It all seems a bit more exciting. No one’s panicking. There’s hope for Dale Earnhardt Jr., Stewart, Carl Edwards, Kasey Kahne, Clint Bowyer, Greg Biffle, Ryan Newman and all the other usual suspects who haven’t been rounded up yet.
“It’s so early in the year,” Keselowski said after following up his Fontana, California, victory with a second at Martinsville. “Right now, the ‘4’ (Harvick) and ‘41’ (Kurt Busch) are the best on the mile-and-a-half tracks, and the championship always comes down to the mile-and-a-half tracks. You look at the Chase, and that’s how it is. They’re the best cars there. We’ve all got some work to do to catch up them, but there’s, what, seven months till then?
“When that time comes, you know, that’s when you need to be fast. [There’s] a lot of time to keep developing and pushing to get better, and everybody will. Gibbs has always had good cars, and I wouldn’t be surprised if, by that time, they were one of the favorites to beat, but you just never know.”
It’s good for racing when “you never know.” But some of what wasn’t known when the season began has been downright bizarre, maybe even macabre, and surprise off the track has been a hallmark of the season too.
No one could have predicted that a Daytona crash would sideline indefinitely one of NASCAR’s great talents, Kyle Busch, or that apparent lack of domestic tranquility (in his personal life) would form the basis of a suspension that sidelined Kurt Busch for the first three.
No one knew the season’s biggest controversy would be the need for additional safety measures, but Kyle Busch’s crash and several others where cars piled head-on into concrete barriers, not “soft walls,” sent NASCAR officials and track owners into a hurry-up, double-time safety program.
No one expected Brian Vickers to have his health problems resurface so that he would begin the season late and perhaps end it early due to blood clots in his lungs and thinners in his veins and arteries.
No one expected Joe Gibbs’ son and the president of his team, J.D. Gibbs, to take on a limited role because he began experiencing a medical issue involving brain function.
No one expected a young, by all accounts healthy, driver, Kyle Larson, to faint on March 28 at a Martinsville autograph session and sit out the race. Doctors later concluded that Larson was merely dehydrated, and he is expected to be back for the race in Fort Worth, Texas, next week.
On April 2 at a media conference, Larson said, “I feel great right now, and I felt perfectly fine shortly after I fainted the other day, but yeah, I just had to get a lot of tests run on me to make sure nothing serious was wrong, and all the tests came back negative.
“Yeah, the whole time I felt fine, and hated it that I couldn't race [last] weekend...and [I] just got to thank all the doctors and nurses for how thorough they were with me.”
The latest revelation was NASCAR’s reaction to a tire scandal that apparently involves, now, get this, teams intentionally poking tiny holes in their tires. NASCAR dealt rather draconian penalties to Ryan Newman’s team, including a $125,000 fine and six weeks of unwanted idleness for his crew chief, Luke Lambert. Presumably, under certain circumstances, a leaky tire is a fast one. Don’t try it at home, kids.
“In my educational career, I’ve been called to the principal’s office a few times, and a few times, let go for whatever,” Newman said at a March 27 Martinsville media conference, “so, I mean, from my standpoint, it’s just a matter of [NASCAR officials] doing their job.
“Whether you’re guilty, or you’re not guilty or whatever, that’s their job of keeping the sport at a level playing field.”
The concerns above will pass, either by resolution or adjustment, but the alarming incidence of the unexpected and unanticipated has etched its signature on the young season too.
Larson managed something of a quip during his media conference that seemed in line with the NASCAR year to date in general as well as his own crisis. It’s been a season made for the kitchen sink.
“I don’t know what specific things they tested me for,” he said, “but I had stuff hooked up to me from my head to my toes. Probably the only test they didn’t get in there was a math test.”
All quotes are taken from NASCAR media, team and manufacturer sources unless otherwise noted.
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