As NASCAR enters offseason, looking ahead to 2018
The 2017 racing season will be remembered for a lot of things. And for the first time in years, it’s mostly positive.
Nothing was more popular than Martin Truex Jr.’s championship. As one of the most-liked drivers in the garage area, his victory at the season-finale race at the Homestead-Miami Speedway was celebrated by practically everyone in the sport.
Although Dale Earnhardt Jr., Matt Kenseth and Danica Patrick became the latest veteran drivers to step away from their full-time rides, their seats were filled by some extremely talented youngsters.
The rivalry between Ford, Chevrolet and Toyota intensified, reminiscent of the intensity between Ford, Chevrolet and Chrysler several decades ago. And while it kicks up a lot of dust, it’s good for NASCAR because it creates storylines.
Now that the 2017 season has taken the checkered flag, here are three burning questions for 2018:
Can Truex maintain his dominance?
Truex didn’t just have a breakout season. He had a dominant one.
He won a series-best eight-races to become just the third driver in 20 years to win the most races and the championship in the same season. The others were Jimmie Johnson in 2007 and Jeff Gordon in 1998.
Most impressive was his 2,253 laps led were the most in a championship season since Jeff Gordon in 1995 (2,610 laps).
Truex started slowly with the Denver-based Furniture Row Racing with a single top-10 finish in his first 12 races. That’s when the team tried some of their own ideas instead of following everyone else’s lead.
A surprising move to Toyota before the 2016 season and a technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing and Truex’s working relationship with crew chief Cole Pearn accelerated their progress.
“That was like the switch that flipped, and me and him could see eye to eye, and he bought into what I was saying, I bought into what he was saying, and when they made him the crew chief in 2015, he went from being this guy behind the scenes that was really quiet to this is my team, I’m going to run it the way I think I need to, and the rest is history,” Truex said. “I mean, really, he is the No. 1 reason, besides Barney [Visser, team owner], giving him the things he needs to make our cars fast that have transformed this team, and he said, this is how I want it to be, this is how I’m going to do it.
“We’re a bunch of misfits, but we get along, and we love racing and we work hard. We have a lot of confidence in each other and what they’re doing, and we all do our own thing, and it works.”
Others were impressed with the way Truex’s team went about their business. And there’s no reason to believe anything will change.
“It’s impressive. Impressive what they’ve become,” Earnhardt said. “If you look at where this team was years ago, so impressive, so impressive.”
How will sport adjust to the current youth movement?
Jeff Gordon left in 2015 and Tony Stewart followed last year. Now it’s time for Earnhardt, Kenseth and Patrick to move to the sidelines. But based on the fast starts by their young replacements, the sport won’t skip a beat.
Earnhardt, 43, will be replaced by 25-year-old Alex Bowman at Hendrick Motorsports, while Kenseth, 45, lost his spot at Joe Gibbs racing to 21-year-old Erik Jones. Kasey Kahne, 37, was forced from Hendrick to a lower-tiered team at Levine Family Racing, making room for William Byron, 19.
Added with the solid efforts this year by Chase Elliott (21-years-old), Kyle Larson (25), Ryan Blaney (23) and Ty Dillon (25), the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series seems to be adjusting well.
Larson won four times, while Blaney won his first race at Elliott finished fifth in the final standings.
“I’m not dreading any of it,” Earnhardt said. “I don’t know what to look forward to. Whatever is next.”
The young guns are eager to fill the void.
“Going into next year with the [No.] 20 car is going to be a big change for sure,” Jones said. “There was just a lot of things throughout the year that I thought could have been done different. Being able to start the year over now, I think we would have had a much different season with everybody having a little bit more experience.”
Although car owner Rick Hendrick is happy to add two young drivers to his racing stable, he hates losing his valuable veterans. Both Gordon and Earnhardt honored their former boss by presenting him with their helmets after their final races.
“I don’t want to get any more helmets,” Hendrick said.
Manufacturer rivalries heat up
Toyota got a new car for 2017, and the car company responded by winning the manufacturer’s championship, 16 of 36 races and the overall championship with Truex.
Chevrolet will get a new car next year when it replaces its SS model with the Camaro.
And Ford, it plans to stick with the same care that won four of its seven races in the four restrictor-plate races. That prompted Brad Keselowski to fear the worst for 2018, especially since Ford won only twice at the 11 tracks that measure 1.5 miles.
“We’ve just got to be faster,” he said. “We can’t show up and be that far behind on the mile-and-a-halves. We know that. That Toyota car is a good way in front of us and we’ve got to figure that out.”
And he expects Chevrolet to elevate its program with the new Camaro.
“As to what will happen for 2018, I don’t know,” Keselowski said. “I would assume that Chevrolet would be allowed to design a car the same way that Toyota was for this one, but Ford doesn’t have any current plans for that. If that’s the case, we’re going to take a drubbing next year, so we’ll have to see.”
