2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Stock Watch: Week 8
Danica Patrick visited the New York Stock Exchange recently. Coincidence? We think not.
Patrick is one NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver whose stock always bears watching. And while her marketability has rarely been questioned (maybe never), her skill as a driver is under constant scrutiny. Is her stock up, down or on hold these days?
In addition, where do others such as Jimmie Johnson, winner of the latest Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway, stand? Johnson and Kevin Harvick, who finished second at Texas, now are the only two-time winners of the young season, which will hold its eighth race at the Bristol Motor Speedway short track this weekend.
Former championship driver and current FoxSports.com analyst and columnist Darrell Waltrip wrote of the Johnson-Harvick battle at TMS: "I don't think Jimmie had a better car than Kevin Saturday night but it just seemed like Jimmie was able to cut through traffic better. ... So there at the end it seemed to be the battle of the titans. It was the No. 48 versus the no. 4."
Based not only on number of races won, but also on chemistry with crew chiefs and pit crews as well as current momentum and whose shop consistently provides the fastest cars, let's see whose stock is on the rise, falling off or deserves to be held for judgment on another day.
Martin Truex Jr.
1 of 10
Truex Jr. battled hard to finish ninth at Texas, giving him seven top-10 finishes in as many starts this season.
The reason that's so impressive for the driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Chevrolet is that he's already bettered his total of top-10 finishes for the entire 2014 season, which covered 36 races.
"Last year, we could just never find any consistency," Truex told FoxSports.com's Jay Pennell. "One week this worked, one week this worked, one week that worked. You can't be inconsistent and run up front like that. You need to have a package that works for you and you can fine-tune each and every weekend, and we didn't have that."
Now he's Mr. Consistency in the Sprint Cup garage in his second season at Furniture Row, but Truex must share the credit for that with new crew chief Cole Pearn, who has made all the right calls. They suddenly seem to have developed a driver-crew chief chemistry that rivals some of the best in Cup.
Verdict: Buy
Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates
2 of 10
It's been kind of a strange year so far for Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson, the two drivers for Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates.
That's especially true for Larson, who fainted during an autograph session the day before a race at Martinsville Speedway and had to sit that event out while undergoing extensive tests at a hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina. The 22-year-old Larson emerged from the incident with a clean bill of health from doctors and also with a new vow to take better care of himself away from the track.
"It stinks when you come here to Texas and they have the Fuzzy's Tacos that are really good and you can't go over there and eat them, probably," Larson told FoxSports.com's Pennell last weekend prior to the Texas race. "I hate breakfast, so I've got to find some things that I like to eat in the morning and just make sure I drink enough fluids. I feel like I take decent care of myself. That morning (at Martinsville) was a little bit different because I overslept and had to rush out to the car (for practice), but we should be good."
Well, we're not sure about Fuzzy's Tacos, and Larson's finishes haven't been so good this season. He finished 25th at Texas, and that's four out of six races that he's finished 25th or worse. But he finished with top 10s in the other two, and McMurray is up to 11th in the points standings after finishing sixth at Texas—his fourth finish of 11th or better in the last five races.
That indicates the boys back at the Ganassi shop are starting to build fast race cars, and that means this pair bears close watching going forward.
Verdict: Hold
Paul Menard
3 of 10
Same old, same old.
Menard appears to be on the same track to nowhere that he's traveled in previous seasons, when he got off to a fast start and was high in the points early on and then quickly faded from the rearview mirrors of the true championship contenders.
Fueled mostly by a fourth-place finish at Fontana, the Richard Childress Racing driver surged to as high as sixth in points this season. But he was 23rd on the short track at Martinsville and then had a blown engine relegate him to 41st at Texas.
So now he's down to 16th in the points and headed the wrong way fast. Sound familiar?
Stock: Sell
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Kevin Harvick
4 of 10
It didn't take Harvick long to start a new streak of top-two finishes.
One week after an eighth-place run at Martinsville snapped his streak of eight consecutive top-two finishes, Harvick was at it again in Texas. He led 96 laps in the Duck Commander 500 before losing the lead late to Jimmie Johnson, forcing him to settle for second.
Harvick's eight straight top-two finishes was only three shy of the NASCAR record of 11 in a row set by Hall of Famer Richard Petty in 1975. One of the things that makes Harvick so good is that he's old-school, and he showed that again by bumping Joey Logano out of the way with 21 laps to go at Texas.
Harvick was unapologetic about the incident afterward, telling Pennell: "He blocked and I knocked him out of the way. I'm tired of him blocking."
Verdict: Buy as much as you can
Ryan Newman
5 of 10
Did they or didn't they tamper with tires?
NASCAR said Newman's No. 31 Richard Childress Racing team did and subsequently slapped it with some hefty penalties. Newman, crew chief Luke Lambert and RCR vehemently deny it and have appealed the penalties, with the ruling expected to come down on their appeal this Thursday.
Whether the appeal is upheld could be huge for Newman and his chances of making the Chase for the Sprint Cup. He was sixth in points before NASCAR handed him a 75-point penalty. Afterward, he fell to 26th.
A respectable 12th-place run at Texas moved him up two spots to 24th. But Newman will still have a long way to go—or will need to actually win a race (which he hasn't done since July of 2013, 59 races ago)—to get back into Chase contention if the penalties, which also include a six-week suspension for Lambert, are upheld.
Verdict: Hold
Michael Waltrip Racing
6 of 10
A combination of bad luck and poor decisions that can be traced back to the fall race at Richmond in 2013 have led to a poor state of affairs for Michael Waltrip Racing.
The worst luck of all has sidelined driver Brian Vickers for the season and possibly for his career. Vickers, who underwent heart surgery in the offseason and sat out the first three races of this season while recovering from that, is now out for at least three months after blood clots forced him to return to using a blood-thinner medication that prevents him from racing.
Asked by reporters recently if he feared his career may be over, Vickers told them, per Sporting News' Ray Slover, "Of course. Have I given up hope? No."
Meanwhile, 22-year-old driver Brett Moffitt, who has very little experience, has been pressed into duty as driver of the No. 55 MWR Toyota that Vickers was supposed to pilot. After a promising eighth-place run in the season-opening Daytona 500, Moffitt has finished 22nd at Fontana, 28th at Martinsville and 29th at Texas.
Then there is the No. 15 Toyota driven by Clint Bowyer, who was at the heart of the Spingate scandal at Richmond in September of 2013 that eventually led to loss of sponsorship and a massive downsizing of the work force at MWR. Bowyer hasn't won a race since fall of 2012, 84 races ago, and has only one top-10 finish this season (seventh in the Daytona 500).
Among the personnel lost during the fallout following Spingate: Truex Jr., now one of the hottest drivers in Sprint Cup; and defending championship crew chief Rodney Childers, who now sits atop Kevin Harvick's pit box for Stewart-Haas Racing.
Verdict: Sell
Danica Patrick
7 of 10
Not only is Danica getting better results in her finishes on the track, but now she appears to be applying the pressure on her boyfriend, fellow Sprint Cup driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr., to pop the marriage question, per FoxSports.com's Andre Vergara.
First, let's talk about her on-track performance. Driving the No. 10 GoDaddy Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing, she's finished seventh at Martinsville and 16th at Texas in her last two outings and is up to 17th in the points standings. Remember, last year two drivers inside the top 16 in points who didn't have a win made the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
As for her relationship with Stenhouse, it was noted, per FoxSports.com, that Patrick has been dropping lots of hints lately. One sticking point that could come up at the dinner table these days is the fact that Patrick is way ahead of Stenhouse in the points standings, where he sits 27th.
Oh, and as for Patrick's recent visit to Wall Street to help kick off GoDaddy's IPO? The company's stock soared 30 percent higher on its first day of trading on the NYSE, further evidence that this girl is on a serious hot streak.
Verdict: Buy
Kurt Busch
8 of 10
Just when it seemed perhaps Kurt Busch had finally dug himself a hole from which he could not easily emerge, the enigmatic driver is poking his head out over the edge the abyss.
Busch missed the first three races of the season while serving a suspension by NASCAR, which it dropped on him on the eve of the Daytona 500 after a judge in Delaware ruled in favor of a Busch's ex-girlfriend, Patricia Driscoll, as she sought a restraining order against him.
But when it was later ruled that criminal charges would not be brought against Busch for alleged domestic violence against Driscoll, NASCAR lifted the suspension, and Busch quickly got up to speed again in his No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet.
It's still way too early to tell if Busch really will get it right this time. History suggests he won't and that he'll screw up again off the track somehow (where his temper has repeatedly gotten him into trouble).
But for now, he's behaving away from the track as far as we know, and he's bad-fast on it. In just his four starts since his suspension was lifted, he's won two poles (at Fontana and Texas) while finishing third at Fontana, fifth at Phoenix and no worse than 14th everywhere else.
Verdict: Hold
Tony Stewart
9 of 10
What is most disturbing about the fact that Tony Stewart continues to run so poorly this season is that everyone else in the driver-owner's Stewart-Haas Racing stable is running well.
Harvick leads the points standings and has won two races. Patrick is running better and sits 17th in the standings. Kurt Busch has won two poles and is up to 21st in points despite missing the first three races of the season while under suspension.
Then there is Stewart. He remains mired in 31st in points and doesn't have a single top-10 finish to his credit yet. In fact, his best finish of 14th at Fontana is his only finish inside the top 20.
It's true that Stewart likes his cars set up differently than his SHR teammates. But they're all driving the same equipment, with the same knowledgeable people swarming all over their cars back at the shop. It's absolutely shocking that Stewart hasn't been able to find the speed in his No. 14 SHR Chevy that his teammates have been able to find in theirs.
Verdict: Sell
Hendrick Motorsports
10 of 10
It's easy to say Johnson's stock is on the rise after he registered his second win of the season at Texas in the last race.
But it's not just Johnson and his No. 48 team that are moving in the right direction at Hendrick Motorsports. It's all of the HMS teams.
In addition to Johnson winning at Texas, Hendrick-driven cars claimed half of the top eight spots. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished third, Jeff Gordon rallied to finish seventh, and Kasey Kahne came home in eighth.
They're all moving up in the points standings too, with Johnson up to second, Kahne seventh, Earnhardt eighth and Gordon, who encountered terrible luck to start his final full-time Sprint Cup season, now in 13th.
It's safe to say the folks at the Hendrick shop know what they're doing with these new Sprint Cup cars and the new 2015 rules package, whereas several other teams are still out to lunch in both departments.
Verdict: Buy
Joe Menzer has written six books, including two about NASCAR, and now writes about it and other sports for Bleacher Report while also covering NASCAR as a digital content producer for FoxSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @OneMenz.
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