Joe Gibbs Racing made the announcement last month that they’d have three teams next year in the Nationwide Series.
The first team will include Brian Scott running the No. 11 car full-time with crew chief Kevin Kidd.
The second will include Adam Stevens, previously an engineer on the Cup side, as crew chief on the No. 20 with Joey Logano running the majority of the races. Denny Hamlin is also expected to run some of the races.
The last team will include Jason Ratcliff with Kyle Busch driving the majority of the races as they try to defend their Owner’s Championship title.
This all looks good on the surface, though it begs questions. Joe Gibbs Racing has drivers in development, including Brad Coleman and Matt DiBenedetto, so why not give them the chance behind the wheel full-time? Both have proved that they are talented and are worthy of being champions if given the equipment.
Why let drivers like Busch, Logano and Hamlin compete in a series and win just to look good? All the fans know they are just winning due to competing against smaller teams and less talented drivers?
By allowing DiBenedetto and Coleman full-time shots, you are allowing the talent pool to expand, which is why the Nationwide Series was built. It was built to give drivers a shot and get them ready for the Sprint Cup Series. Numerous drivers have come through that ladder and it has worked successfully. Why delete that system now and have drivers behind the wheel who have succeeded the ladder?
It’s simple—Gibbs wants the publicity and knows the sponsors will pay the big bucks if he goes down this road.
This is something you see with numerous of teams as you saw Penske Racing (Brad Keselowski) and Roush Racing (Carl Edwards) do it last year, just for a start. Though at least they stepped it up and put drivers full-time behind the wheel to give them a chance (Justin Allgaier and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.), but they still add to the problem.
Till somebody, like NASCAR, stands up and puts an end to this, you are going to see the problem grow and the series lose fans. NASCAR has spoken about getting back to their roots and it’s about time they start doing it by starting with the Nationwide Series.
Well as a JGR hater and considers them hypocrites in other aspects, i do like the fact they have attempted to get some Nationwide regulars out there such as Brad Coleman and Matt DiBetto or whatever his name was, but still i think guys like Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, and Brad Keselowski should only be allowed to run about 6 races a year like Jeff Burton and Tony Stewart have done, with complete moderation! Ive been to Nashville Raceway and everytime i go, i pull for the regulars cause i want to see new faces in victory lane, im sick of the same ole pathetic losers who should focus more on acheiving success in Cup level and stop wasting time and opportunities for others in the Nationwide series.
Very nice article. Some people are naive and forget the series history before the Kyle-Brad-Carl-Joey show. There is a lot NASCAR can do to help this series, but nothing gets done year after year. Shortening the schedule, banning Cup drivers and adding more stand alone events would be a huge improvement to Cup-lite. New faces up front offer new storylines and new sponsors.
When Kevin Conway is the Cup series ROTY, could it be any more obvious that this $ = ride system is not healthy for the sport?
I DO remember the Nationwide/Busch series before the Kyle-Brad-Carl-Joey show – and it was boring. I very rarely watched a full race when the drivers spent more time running into the wall than racing for position. What the Cup drivers bring is a very bright YOUNG group who still love to race for racing’s sake, but have the skill and savvy to race the older Cup drivers on Sunday as well. It is the best of both worlds. Does it bother me when Kyle leads 80% of the laps? Heck, no! He is putting on a clinic. There are good young drivers coming along, but they have to be well-managed and get out of the gate fast to make these days. That’s racin and I still enjoy it.
I think these young drivers made a mistake allowing themselves to get into a position where they are not racing every week. How can they learn and get more experience if they are not racing?
Coleman left Gibbs a few years ago so he could race every week with Baker Curb. Even though that ultimately did not work out, I thought it was a good decision on Brad’s part. When the going got tough, he ran back to Gibbs where he is once again a spectator.
If they can’t drive in the Nationwide or Truck series because of sponsorship issues, then put them in a Late Model somewhere and let them beat and bang on the short tracks. If the organization cannot do that, then cut them loose so they can pursue other opportunities.
These young drivers are not being helped by sitting.
That is a very naive column by Ashley McCubbin. You give a brief mention to the sponsor issue – but that is the WHOLE issue! Yes, Kyle would drive 15 races a week if Gibbs let him, but Joe limited Kyle’s schedule last year because he is still the “boss of Kyle,” as difficult as that might be. The issue is m-o-n-e-y. Not even Hendrick, Roush or Gibbs can run without sponsorhips money – lots of it – and the sponsors clearly want Kyle and Joey over Coleman and DiBenedetto. Kyle said himself that he wanted to put Brian Ickler into more of his truck series races, but the sponsors wanted Kyle. Period. Sponsors pay for TV time. With Kyle, you get get maximum TV coverage. He is either leading every lap or causing controversy. It doesn’t matter which to the sponsors. They want to see their Z-Line car or their NOS car and they know that the 18 with Kyle will give them maximum payback. Unfortunately, NASCAR is not a charitable institution or a driver development organization. Fewer young drivers will make it as a result of this hard economic truth, but the cream will rise. Trevor Bayne was out of a ride one week, has a part-time Cup ride now. This is one problem that really only CAN be fixed by money. (And that assumes it is a problem. I enjoy the Kyle-Brad-Carl-Joey show.) Face reality before you start typing.
The only thing this piece proves is that you don’t understand the business of racing. The connection between revenues, expenses and cash flow – i.e. business – is required of any team that intends to pay its employees and keep the lights on. No exceptions. Racing teams expend cash to operate. They, like all businesses, must maximize revenues and minimize expenses. Talent notwithstanding, if DiBenedetto or Coleman were capable of generating the financial support (i.e. cash) needed to run full-time in 2011 they would. Hamlin, Busch and Lagano are household names that enable sponsors to justify the sponsorships needed to support JGRs on-going operations.
Good article…..glad to see someone besides MM has the stones to tell the truth about the mega-teams’ greed, and NASCAR’S stupidity.
Keep up the good work.
I agree with your premise, but I don’t see any hope in Nascar making the needed changes to correct the situation for a variety of reasons.
1. Nascar and the Nascar media has promoted the drivers over the teams. People don’t nessarily root for JGR, but they root for Kyle, Denny or Joey. This is why also you have drivers in Nascar that should have lost their seats a longtime ago still racing because they have name recognition. In Formula 1 if you are not performing up to the level they think you should be then out you go. Damon Hill was let go after coming in 1st and 2nd the previous two years because Williams thought they could put a better driver in. In Nascar it would never happen if you could still sell swag.
2. The bigger teams running in Nationwide have given more coverage to the series, but has raised the cost of all the team’s if you want to be competitive. A small team can’t compete with Rouch or JGR or Penske with their budgets and then they the put in a cup driver and Nascar and the Media fall all over themselves to lavish praise on how great they are. It would be the same as Ferrari sponsoring a GP2 car and dumping a ton of money into it and then have Fernado Alonso drive the car. If they didn’t win every race would be a shock.
3. Nascar is a business and they want to make money now. Nascar and the track promoters think that having cup drivers better the bottom line and thats the name of the game. Who cares if the small guy can’t compete.
4. Because of the cup drivers have taken over the Nationwide series the sponsors now want a cup driver in their car. Why sponsor Trevor Bayne when I can sponsor Joey. What it has done has made the cup teams richer and the Nationwide only teams more poor.
So, how do you fix the problem if you really want to fix the problem of financeing and the lack of development for young drivers? It’s easy, but Nascar will never do it, instead they will come out with some stupid rule that the cup guys can’t compete for a championship. That which may be the worst idea I have ever heard. If you were Justin Algiar and you won one race and Kyle won 16 and Brad 6 do you think you would want that trophy? The only reason that the media is not saying anything is because they have never competed for anything. You might just get rid of the trophy if thats the case because if I’m Justin and someone tells me I the champ I’m throwing that trophy at them. So, here is what I would do if I was Bill France.
1. Call it what it is. It’s a developmental series for guys trying to make it to the show. I don’t want to hear that it’s an independent series and if you show up you should be able to race. Bull, no one is promoted by sending them from sprint cup to the Nationwide. When a crew chief does well in Nationwide he gets a shot in sprint cup not the other way around. It’s owned by Nascar, the cars are similier except more downforce and less horsepower. It’s just like GP2 or Indylights and you never see I guy from the upper series racing in a lower series.
2. Don’t let any cup driver run in the Nationwide if they ran more then half the races in cup the previous year. The only exceptions to that would be a guy that is not running in cup at all that year.
3. Promote the teams in Nationwide not just the drivers.
4. Get rides for the guys that do win the nationwide series. If you look at Formula 1 you have several exGP2 champions that made big impact by breathing new life into Formula 1. Guys like Lewis Hamilton, Nico Roseburg, and Nico Hulkenburg.
5. Put a cap on what the teams can spend. This will benefit the smaller teams and allow the talent of the drivers shine.
6. Put the focus on young up and coming guys that will put on a better show they watching five cup drivers up front all night with everyone else a lap down. The racing stinks now in Nationwide because only a couple guys having any chance of winning.
If they do this the sponsors will still spend, but the prize money and sponsor dollars will be spread out more and benefit everyone and not just the big teams.