With Carl Edwards locked up for the foreseeable future at Roush Fenway Racing, we found out today that Fastenal is the first company to sign on as a primary sponsor for Edwards’ #99 Fords. Starting with the 2012 Daytona 500, Fastenal will sponsor 17 races a year for Edwards over the next few years. Edwards’ current main sponsor, Aflac, has yet to announce whether they will return to RFR, but this announcement shows that at the very least Aflac is scaling back. But while its good to see a sponsor move from the Truck Series, through the Nationwide Series, and into Cup sponsorship, the move isn’t all good.
As we move closer to the end of the 2011 season, much remains up in the air for RFR. Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth, Edwards, and David Ragan all have contracts for next season, but as of today, only Biffle (3M) has a full sponsorship deal. Edwards still needs about half his inventory filled, and questions remain for Ragan and Kenseth. We know for sure that Crown Royal won’t return next season as a team sponsor for anyone, as they’ve signed on to sponsor the Brickyard 400, and the future of UPS has yet to be announced. And RFR developmental drivers Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Trevor Bayne still don’t have firm plans.
As RFR pursues sponsorship for 2012, Fastenal’s move to the Cup Series really comes at the expense of their Nationwide Series program and the series as whole. As one of our Twitter followers (@kebzach) pointed out today, Fastenal now represents another sponsor lost by the Nationwide Series. The industrial supply company has been the primary sponsor for Edwards’ #60 NNS Fords for the last couple of seasons, and they’ve appeared on the hoods and quarter panels of the other RFR NNS teams as well. We already know that Edwards won’t compete full time in the NNS for 2012, but now we know we’ve lost a full time team and a major sponsor.
We’ve all heard it time and again, but moves like these are just another symptom of the current climate of NASCAR business. Teams need to find ways to keep their Cup cars racing, and poaching sponsors from other series is one way to go about it. Hopefully Roush is able to track down a company to back Edwards’ partial NNS bid, and fill the remaining inventory for it’s other Cup and NNS teams.
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Just past the halfway point of the season, with just seven races until the Chase begins, several teams have decided now is the prefect time to start making some serious changes on the ground.
Roush Fenway Racing announced last week Greg Erwin was being replaced by Matt Puccia as Greg Biffle’s crew chief. The #16 team hasn’t performed as well this season as past seasons and the strain was apparent between Biffle and Erwin. Prior to this past weekend the pair had just one top-five and five top-10s – they sat 14th in the points.
With the first week under their belts, Puccia led Biffle to a 16th place finish – not a rousing start, but we’ll give the pair a little more than a week to make any judgments.
While Greg Erwin was out of a job for a few days, he found a new home just down the block at Richard Petty Motorsports, working with AJ Allmendinger. Allmendinger was with crew chief Mike Shiplett for most of the last three seasons. Together the two have scored three top-fives, 14 top-10s and one pole. Their best full season points finish is 19th, last season. The two haven’t had a bad run together, but things could definitely be better. Erwin has the experience and success at the sport’s top level, but does he have the support at RPM? Time will tell.
Earnhardt Ganassi Racing announced this week Juan Pablo Montoya would get his fourth different crew chief in less than five seasons. The driver’s been with immediate past crew chief Brian Pattie since the midway point of 2008. This was after stints with Donnie Wingo and Jimmy Elledge. Together, Pattie and Montoya have scored one win, 16 top-fives and 39 top-10s. These are solid statistics for Pattie to be proud of.
This season though has been a struggle for both EGR teams. And after issues like last season’s Brickyard 400, Montoya’s and Pattie’s relationship has been less than great. If there is a lesson to learn, it’s that when Juan’s not happy, no one’s happy.
Is Jim Pohlman any more the answer to Montoya’s performance issues than Elledge and Pattie were? Again, only time will tell.
So how do you feel about the crew chief shifts? Do you expect swift performance improvements? Any of the moves better than others? Let us know!
Remember that time Roush went 31 races without a win? Yeah I don’t really either. With memories of 2009 slowly fading away, Roush is proving, with this season and last, that it’s still very much a team on top.
The team currently has two of four cars inside the Chase and one knocking at the door, and three wins, 12 top-fives, and 21 top-tens. They are all weekly contenders. And though fellow organizations Hendrick, Childress and Stewart-Haas all also have two in the top-10, no one has the stats of the Roush teams.
Carl Edwards currently sits atop the driver points with a 24 point lead, and one win. Even though last season was an improvement for the #99 bunch, 2011 is shaping up to be a better year. Edwards is averaging a 7.3 place finish and he accounts for one of those two wins and 307 total laps led.
Matt Kenseth has been the other standout, becoming only the third repeat winner of the season. Though there has been some bad luck, he’s managed a 14.1 average finish and a sixth place position in the points. His laps led? 231. Apparently he and Jimmy Fennig are working well together.
As for Greg Biffle and David Ragan, while they only combine for 41 total laps led, both have had bright spots here and there. Ragan, if you’ll recall, almost won at Daytona and has had some solid top-five and top-10 runs recently. He too though has had some bad luck and generally bad weeks this season. As for Biffle, he had a rough start to the season, but has made up for it with top-15 runs six of the last eight weeks. That includes one top-five and four top-tens.
All of that’s not even including the three wins Roush and Edwards have in the Nationwide Series this season. Add to that the very promising talent of Trevor Bayne (who won the Daytona 500 for an RFR supported Wood Brothers Racing) and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Organizationally Roush is looking good this season. And after a less than wonderful couple of years they’re cementing their perch. With the competition tight and two thirds of the season remaining we’ll see if Roush can continue this momentum. As always, it’ll be interesting to watch.