Early Thursday morning the Michael Waltrip Racing (MWR) stable made another big announcement, this time in regard to who will pilot the No. 55 Toyota for the remainder of the NSCS season.
38-year-old Elliott Sadler will drive the Aaron’s Dream Machine in the final five races for Brian Vickers who has taken the rest of the year off due to blood clots. The 3-time winner in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) has been driving in the NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) for Joe Gibbs Racing.
“First, I am already a teammate of Brian’s at Joe Gibbs Racing and it is really tough to see him going through this again,” Sadler said. “Both of us have fought hard to get back in a position to win at NASCAR’s highest level. I am honored to have this opportunity to drive for MWR because I know their cars are competitive. I want to thank Rob Kauffman, Michael and Aaron’s for giving me this chance. In the meantime, our thoughts and prayers will be for Brian to have a quick recovery.”
But could this decision be another wrong choice by Kauffman and Waltrip? Is Elliott Sadler truly worthy of this opportunity?
Top notch equipment is key now a days and Sadler has had that type of equipment, the only problem is he hasn’t been able to produce victories and championships with it. 2012 saw Sadler compete with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. for the NNS championship until late in the Phoenix race Sadler spun out and it cost him the title. 2013 gave positive hopes for Sadler as he’d expect a championship, that hasn’t been the case because he hasn’t even been to victory lane and is currently fourth in NNS points.
We also don’t know what Sadler is capable of doing back in the NSCS. The last time we saw him he was deprived of his contract and sent to the NNS because he wasn’t producing. These last 5-races if the No. 55 team plans on having successful weeks you can’t count on an on/off guy like Sadler.
In my personal opinion I certainly don’t believe MWR should’ve chosen Sadler, I think a more reasonable source would have been Parker Kligerman or Alex Bowman. Most people would think I’m going out on a limb with those two guys, but if MWR has already downsized to 2-cars in 2014 and you can’t paint the future of Brian Vickers why not develop young talent.
“Elliott has all the attributes we were looking for. He’s experienced, familiar with Toyota, has a great attitude plus he’s a heck of a driver,” Waltrip said. “We’ll pair him with Scott Miller and the No. 55 guys and I know they’ll have the Aaron’s Dream Machine at the front of the field. I also want to thank everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota for letting us borrow Elliott for a few races.”
Michael Waltrip won’t be helping get Sadler setup for the car this weekend though because he will be in the No. 55 Toyota for Talladega.
Sadler never wuz, never will…….
Your logic is flawed …
Sadler switched teams this year from RCR to JGR … JGR’s only been able to have one truly competitive team in NNS and that team is the 54 this year …
Kligerman is in his first full year of NNS … Bowman has only run 34 NNS races over two years … Bowman & Kligerman are both too inexperienced for Cup …
Sadler has run Cup car for JGR this year … and can give the 55’s crew chief much better feedback than someone that’s never raced a Cup car, let alone a Gen-6 car …
I’m so tired of people thinking the owners need to put extremely inexperienced drivers in their Cup cars in order to try to grasp the 18-25 yo male demographic …
Both Kligerman and Bowman have been finishing better then Sadler this year. Your obviously a fan of Sadler and not one of younger driver’s telling me your an older fan, but the NASCAR community needs raw talent like Bowman, not dried out tools like Sadler. Don’t be to quick to say my logic’s flawed.
Neither can Bowyer. He shoulda been dumped for cheating and costing Martin a sponsor.
Elliott Sadler can’t close the deal…nuff said
Agreed.