2014 CWTS Preview: Thorsport Racing will win the 2014 Championship
They say that as much as things continue to change, other things stay the same. That saying will look to play truth in the Camping World Truck Series this year as even while there are some new faces in the mix, the same team will rise to the top to claim the driver’s championship.
With the first race of the season in the books and a look at this year’s Camping World Truck Series drivers, it looks like ThorSport Racing will be headed towards their second straight driver’s championship. The only question that remains – – which of their drivers will win the championship?
Matt Crafton captured the championship last year in his 14th season in the Camping World Truck Series. The veteran had a stellar season, completing every lap of competition, while scoring 19 top 10s in 22 races. The championship marked no surprise as the California native has finished in the top 10 in the point standings the last seven years. With the same group of guys around him, Crafton seems to have all the pieces to do it again. If he can have that same consistency and stay out of trouble, look for Crafton to be the series’ first repeat champion.
In series history, there has yet to be a repeat champion – so with that mind, the focus shifts to Crafton’s teammate Johnny Sauter. Last year, Sauter finished fourth in points with a total of 14 top 10s. He’s also a veteran of the series, with five full-seasons under his belt, with a best points finish of second in 2011. Sauter is also a very consistant driver, though finds himself in situations that cause damage to his truck and result in poor finishes. To beat his teammate for the championship, Sauter will have to avoid those situations and capitalize at tracks that he runs well on.
ThorSport Racing had a third truck at the season opener at Daytona with Jeb Burton behind the wheel. Burton had an incredible rookie season as he finished fifth in points with 11 top 10s. Burton was left without a ride just before the season due to his sponsor backing out, however ThorSport stepped up to the plate with a ride and a sponsor. If ThorSport can secure more sponsorship for Burton, look for the young Virginian to join the championship picture.
While ThorSport Racing looks to be the team to beat this coming season, they’re not the only team that you have to watch as there are other drivers that may find themselves in the championship picture.
After solid rookie years, both Ryan Blaney and Darrell Wallace Jr. are looking to back that up with more success.
Blaney, driving for Brad Keselowski Racing, had 13 top 10s last year in his way to finishing sixth in points. With only three wrecks last season, Blaney showed that he has the ability to be consistant. Though to make himself championship material, Blaney will need to put himself in position to win more races while putting together stronger, consistent finishes. Both of those come with experience so look for Blaney to be a top five contender this year.
Wallace Jr., driving for Kyle Busch Motorsports, had 12 top 10s last year on his way to finishing eighth in points. One of the things that hurt Wallace last season was the fact that he had eight wrecks last year. Wallace will need to work towards minimizing those wrecks, while putting together the stronger consistent finishes that it takes to be championship material.
A veteran that could find himself in the championship picture is Red Horse Racing competitor Timothy Peters, who comes off of a second place finish at Daytona. Peters enters his sixth full season in the Camping World Truck Series with his strongest points finish being a runner-up in 2012. Peters struggled last year as he only finished 10th in points after suffering 4 DNFs. Peters will look to rebound this year and if he can get back to the consistency that he had in 2012, look for him to be one of the contenders.
While those five are some of hte obvious choices for the championship, there are three dark horses that you should keep your eye on – John Wes Townley, Joey Coulter and Ross Chastain.
John Wes Townley will run the full schedule this year for Richie Wauters. Wuaters has had success in the series in the past, scoring wins with Kyle Busch and Shane Hmiel in his trucks. Townley, known as ‘Chicken Man’, was prone to wrecking a lot. However, the last 10 races of last season, Townley was able to put together six top 10 finishes. If Townley continues to build on that momentum, he could find himself up in the points mix. However, with Townley, a thing to keep in mind is he is running for both the truck title and ARCA Championship with Venturini Motorsports. Could that be a distraction? Possibly.
After struggling with Kyle Busch Motorsports last year, Joey Coulter makes the move to Gallagher Racing, a new team in the series. Gallagher Racing purchased the equipment that Richard Childress Racing used last year that led to their championship. Coulter has ran RCR equipment in the past, having his best truck season to date in 2012 with 15 top 10s on his way to finishing third in points. If Gallagher Racing can put the pieces together, look for Coulter to run upfront.
After running a partial schedule last year for Brad Keselowski Racing, Ross Chastain makes the move to Ricky Benton’s team in 2014. Ricky Benton hasn’t had the best statistics as an owner in the series, however perhaps Chastain’s youth will help bring success in 2014. Chastain had seven top 10s last year in his 14 starts.
Rookie of the Year Battle
The 2014 Rookie of the Year battle will be between Turner-Scott Motorsports’ Ben Kennedy, Brad Keselowski Racing’s Tyler Reddick and WinTron Racing’s Mason Mingus.
My pick? Ben Kennedy. Ben Kennedy enters this season with an impressive track record after having success last year in the K&N Pro East Series with a couple race wins. He’s also stepping into the truck that James Buescher drove to the championship in 2012.
The Owner’s Championship
The battle for hte owner’s championship will once again come down between ThorSport Racing and Kyle Busch Motorsports. On ThorSport’s side, it could be either Crafton or Sauter leading their team to victory.
For Kyle Busch Motorsports, they return with the same combo that led them to the 2013 Owner’s Championship as Kyle Busch will run 10 races while Erik Jones will run 12 races. There’s no questioning whether Busch can win in a truck, though Jones could rank right up there with his boss. In the five races that he ran last year, Jones had five top 10s and scored his first career victory at Phoenix International Raceway.
My pick? Kyle Busch Motorsports.
Jamie Dick Entering Phoenix With Confidence
Growing up in New Mexico isn’t the greatest home state when chasing a NASCAR career, however, Jamie Dick is one of the uncommon racers who has advanced through the racing ranks and become a well-know driver despite growing up in a non-racing environment. Despite his environment not being best suited for racing, Dick has progressed to the NASCAR Nationwide Series and is quickly becoming a force to reckon with.
Dick stunned the world at Daytona International Speedway last Saturday after qualifying his No. 55 Viva Motorsports seventh. After shocking the NASCAR universe with the qualifying run he disappointed himself and the fans after finishing a dismal 27th position.
“It was definitely a disappointment.” Dick told me following the DRIVE4COPD 300 at Daytona. “Anytime you start in the top 10 and your run in the top five but you don’t finish up there, it is a disappointment. But, we just have to learn from our mistakes and be prepared to capitalize next time we are in that position.
Dick’s career high finish was posted at Talladega Superspeedway last season after he finished in 12th position. With the prior success at restrictor plate racetracks, it seemed that he would thrive this weekend in Daytona. However, sometimes things don’t go as planned.
“After we qualified 7th, we knew we had a good car.” Dick explained to me. “It had been hard to pass during practice and testing, so I knew that starting up front was going to be important. Between our starting position and our strong car, I had high expectations for the race. I felt like I had more control over our finish then most races. But those expectations weren’t based on our 12th place finish the year before at Talladega. Our team has changed a lot since then and the circumstances going into the race at Talladega were much different than this weekend in Daytona”
Viva Motorsports and Dick are entered into this weekend’s Nationwide Series event at Phoenix International Raceway. The team’s setting high, but reachable, standards in the desert state.
“I expect to finish in the top 15 and I will be disappointed if we don’t finish in the top 20”
Dick is hoping to improve upon last year’s 35th and 22nd place finishes last season at Phoenix. He explained to me that he thinks the team can improve on those decent finishes.
“We can definitely improve on those finishes. The 35th place finish was because of a wreck we were caught up in at the beginning of the race. In the second Phoenix race last year, we had about a 22nd place car and that is right where we finish. Hopefully, we will be a little closer on the setup and we will bring it home with a much higher finish.”
Dick and Viva Motorsports are hoping 2014 is their breakthrough year where they can prove their one car organization can compete even with the top competitors in NASCAR. And this weekend in Phoenix will be a trial for the team to see whether they will accept the challenge.
Hot 20 – If wins alone decided a champion, you might not be happy with the result
Which driver has the highest level of success? Well, if the point of racing is to finish first, then the answer comes easy. Last Sunday, Dale Earnhardt Jr was the most successful driver in the Daytona 500. There is no argument.
So, who is the best over the course of an entire season and how should that be measured? NASCAR figures a 16-driver, 10 race, four round elimination system is the way to go. I propose giving 69-70 points per win (up from 47-48) and eliminating the Chase could be another. However, what if NASCAR had decided to award their championship to the driver with the most wins during the season, those with the most successful races, using points as a tie-breaker?
At present, Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt lead the way with seven titles, with Jimmie Johnson at six, and Jeff Gordon with four. Five more drivers have each claimed three crowns, all either present or future Hall of Famers in Lee Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, and Tony Stewart. However, if wins trumped points per season, the landscape would change, and I dare say a lot of NASCAR fans would not like it.
Leading the way as the sport’s greatest driver would be Jeff Gordon. Six times between 1995 and 2001, including five straight, he was the season’s most successful driver. Richard Petty did it five times, with David Pearson and Darrell Waltrip one behind. Our three time “winners” would have included Cale Yarborough, Bill Elliott, Rusty Wallace, and Jimmie Johnson. As for Dale Earnhardt, he had the most wins in a season just twice, in 1987 and 1990. I told you some might not like that statistic.
Why rewrite history, why reinvent the wheel? So, to determine the most successful driver all I did was eliminate the Chase and give added weight to victories. As we go through the season, I’ll leave it to you to determine if this succeeds in doing so.
Our hottest 20 drivers coming out of Daytona are…
| Driver | Win | Points | Diff | |
| 1 | Dale Earnhardt, Jr. | 1 | 70 | |
| 2 | Denny Hamlin | 0 | 43 | -27 |
| 3 | Brad Keselowski | 0 | 42 | -28 |
| 4 | Jeff Gordon | 0 | 40 | -30 |
| 5 | Jimmie Johnson | 0 | 40 | -30 |
| 6 | Matt Kenseth | 0 | 38 | -32 |
| 7 | Greg Biffle | 0 | 37 | -33 |
| 8 | Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. | 0 | 37 | -33 |
| 9 | Austin Dillon | 0 | 36 | -34 |
| 10 | Joey Logano | 0 | 34 | -36 |
| 11 | Casey Mears | 0 | 34 | -36 |
| 12 | Kevin Harvick | 0 | 31 | -39 |
| 13 | Jamie McMurray | 0 | 30 | -40 |
| 14 | Bobby Labonte | 0 | 29 | -41 |
| 15 | Reed Sorenson | 0 | 28 | -42 |
| 16 | Carl Edwards | 0 | 28 | -42 |
| 17 | Marcos Ambrose | 0 | 26 | -44 |
| 18 | Kyle Busch | 0 | 26 | -44 |
| 19 | Kurt Busch | 0 | 24 | -46 |
| 20 | Terry Labonte | 0 | 24 | -46 |
JR Motorsports hoping Daytona win propels them to championship
When Regan Smith crossed the finish line, he not only scored his first Daytona win – but also brought JR Motorsports home a very special win.
“It’s obviously a great way to start off the season, “co-owner Kelley Earnhardt Miller said. “Happy for our partners that are here in Ragu and TaxSlayer. Just real exciting there for the finish. I was holding my breath the whole time, for sure.
“It will give our team a whole lot of momentum for the season. We’re just one team with one dream, and that’s to win the championship. This is a great start for it.”
Co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. agreed with his sister’s sentiments, saying that the work they’ve done over the past 16 to 18 months in building the team is starting to pay off.
“Everything seems to be going in a great direction. I think Regan understood a lot about last year,” Earnhardt Jr. commented. “This is a great way for him to start the season and give him a lot of confidence after the off-season we made with crew chiefs and whatnot, to race for the championship. I think they got a great opportunity at it.”
Earnhardt Jr. feels Smith will be stronger this year due to the everything that he had learned last season. Smith started off the year strong and led hte points early, though fell off the second half of the year and was unable to capture the championship.
“I told him that the guy that wins the Nationwide Series championship is the guy that’s going to make the least amount of mistakes,” Earnhardt explains. “You have plenty of racecar, but there’s four or five teams that have enough racecar to do it. It’s the guy that will be most consistent and not falter that will be up there. That’s really what happened.
“He had a couple big weekends that cost him quite a bit. Some of that stuff is unavoidable. You just got to be careful of the situations you’re in, especially at the road courses. Late in those races, they kind of run all over each other at the end. He has to be careful at those races and try to get out of there alive.”
When trying to put yourself in championship contention, certainly wins are important along the way. Though wins are also important for the business side as well.
“I mean, it’s just definitely key to put it together. Really with our partners, they want to see us in Victory Lane, they want to see us running on the track and off the track,” Earnhardt Miller commented. “We do a bang-up job off the track with our group. So putting it together and being across the finish line number one really just adds to that.
“At the end of the day this is a performance-based business. Being up front and being up there for the wins is what we really need to do.”
Though going for those wins, it can be tough at times with the Sprint Cup drivers running the series and picking up those wins. Earnhardt Miller says it’s all about balance in how much the Sprint Cup drivers run as they’re important for gaining sponsors and also building the young drivers, in relation to their talent.
“We leverage those relationships so that we can have multi-race partnerships for our other cars,” she said. “This year we’re going to be doing that with Kevin Harvick as well. He’s brought a lot of partners onboard.
“It’s important to be able to have the Cup guys in our series. I think the young guys that are in the series like to be able to race against talent like Dale and Kevin and those guys. We’ll just have to find the balance for what makes it work. But it’s definitely part of our program and part of the leverage we use from a sponsorship standpoint.”
