[media-credit name=”Brad Keppel” align=”alignright” width=”233″]
[/media-credit]Now that the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season is in the history books. It is time to look back at how the top teams in the sport performed in 2012. Some teams rose to the occasion and performed at the top of their game while others disappointed and performed below expectations. Here are my grades for the 2012 season.
Hendrick Motorsports: Although Jimmie Johnson’s quest for a sixth NSCS championship come up short. It is hard to ignore the quality of season overall by Hendrick Motorsports. HMS qualified all four of their cars for the chase and went to victory lane 10 times this season, the most of any team in the NSCS. HMS’ record in 2012 was 10 wins, 51 top-5’s, and 81 top-10’s. Performance like that is the reason why Hendrick Motorsports remains the Gold standard in NASCAR. 2012 Grade : A
Michael Waltrip Racing: Without question the breakout team of 2012. For the first time in their history they qualified 2 cars for the chase and new addition Clint Bowyer had a career year winning three races and finished second in points. Martin Truex Jr. also had a stellar year and came close to breaking through with a win on several occasions. Mark Martin and Brian Vickers also turned in great performances while splitting time in the No.55 car. 2012 Grade: A
Penske Racing: If we were basing a grade solely on the performance of Brad Keselowski then it would be an easy A but Penske Racing has two cars and we are grading the organization as a whole. The performance of the No.22 team is what brings down the overall grade here. 2012 Grade: B+
Roush Fenway Racing: This had to be the most interesting team all year long. While Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth proved to be consistent in leading the NSCS points for a combined 21 of 26 weeks. Carl Edwards was a non factor in 2012 and came nowhere close in matching his 2011 season. Roush’s non proactive approach to re-sign Matt Kenseth proves to be a huge factor in their overall grade as well. 2012 Grade: C
Stewart Haas Racing: After the first six weeks of the season it looked like SHR was on the cusp of having a very dominant 2012 season. SHR won three of the season’s first six races plus Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman were both in the top-10 in NSCS points but unfortunately for SHR that would be as good as 2012 would get. Inconsistency and poor overall performance plagued SHR for the rest of the season while winning only one more race in 2012 as Tony Stewart went to victory lane in the July race at Daytona. 2012 Grade: C –
Furniture Row Racing: Expectations were high this season for Regan Smith and the No.78 team but those expectations were never met which led to Smith’s departure from the team. Kurt Busch however did restore some optimism by recording three top-10 finishes in the last three races. 2012 Grade: C –
Richard Petty Motorsports: This organization continues to improve on a weekly basis. Highlighted by Marcos Ambrose’s win at Watkins Glen and constant improvement on oval tracks while Aric Almirola carries the momentum of a strong 2012 finish which saw him dominate at Kansas in October only to have a blown tire derail his chance at victory. Also ran very strong at Martinsville in October finishing forth and finished seventh in the season finale at Homestead. 2012 Grade: C
Joe Gibbs Racing: If there is one word to sum up 2012 for JGR it would be inconsistent. Denny Hamlin carried the banner for JGR in 2012 by winning five races and looked to be a championship contender all the way to Homestead but mechanical trouble plagued JGR from top to bottom all season long which led Hamlin to being the only chase participant from the organization. Kyle Busch and Joey Logano won one race a piece and Busch was knocked out of the chase in the final week of the regular season. Hamlin did however win one race in the chase and Kyle Busch did show the form in the chase that was expected of him in 2012 by recording seven top-5 finishes in the last ten races. However that isn’t enough for a passing grade. 2012 Grade: D
Richard Childress Racing: Yes I know Kevin Harvick won at Phoenix and yes I know Kevin Harvick made the chase but RCR has three cars in their stable and the overall performance was dare I say not good. Harvick went from winning four races in 2011 to winning only one in 2012. Jeff Burton went win less for the fourth consecutive year while leading only 38 laps and then there was Paul Menard who also saw a decline from 2011 while having three fewer top-5 finishes but improved his finishing position from 2011 to 16th in 2012. Harvick’s departure from RCR after 2013 leads me to believe it could be just as rocky of year at RCR in 2013 as 2012 was. 2012 Grade: F
Earnhardt Ganassi Racing: If there was a team that would like to have a mulligan on 2012 it would be EGR. Neither Jamie McMurray nor Juan Pablo Montoya recorded a top-5 in 2012 and they only combined to lead 80 laps during the 2012 season. 2012 Grade: F
