Ford’s Get 2 Cars Through, Can They Get To Final 4?
The Ford camp has been at a massive disadvantage on tracks that aren’t superspeedway’s. For the season, they’ve led just 1,939 total laps, lowest by over 1,000 compared to the other two manufacturers.
At Daytona, Talladega and Atlanta, they’ve combined to have led 806 of the 1,204 laps (66.9%). That’s most among the three manufacturers with Chevy leading 231 and Toyota 167.
It’s just that 41.5% of their overall laps (806 of 1,939) are on those tracks and we’re now finished racing at those places in 2023.
2 of the 3 races in this round are on intermediate tracks. Ford has led only 552 laps combined on them this season. Chevy has led 2,113 and Toyota 1,591.
In Vegas this past spring, Ford led 37 laps that day. Kansas is a similar track and Ford’s led 9 laps in the spring race and 27 in the playoff race in the opening round.
Really, if you look at laps led this postseason, Ford’s led 2, 27, 1, 5, 120 and 6. That 120 was at Talladega.
Which is impressive that they’ve pushed two cars forward into the Round of 8. The question now is, can they get at least one of them to the final round at Phoenix?
Martinsville may be the spot to do it at. They led 296 laps on the Virginia paperclip this spring. In fact, Ford’s have led 499 laps on short tracks this season. Toyota has led the most at 989 but Chevy trails Ford in this stat at 462.
Ryan Blaney was fourth and seventh in the last two spring races there, third in last year’s Fall race while also coming home runner-up in both races in 2020. He was fourth and fifth respectively in 2019. Blaney, has seven Top-5s in his last 11 tries on the Virginia paperclip overall. While he was 11th in both races in 2021, he did sweep both stages in the spring race. That’s the good. However, Blaney has been 14th or worse in four of his last six short track starts this season too and ranks 22nd in short track points scored this season at 102.
Chris Buescher ranks 13th (135 points scored) and was only 15th and 24th at Martinsville last year and 14th this year.
Which is why these two just need to be consistent early on at Vegas and Miami. Don’t take too many risks. Maximize points.
Blaney has 8 top 7 finishes in his last 13 starts in Vegas. His last two though were 28th and 13th. At Kansas this year, he finished 16th and 12th too.
Buescher was 27th and 15th this season in Kansas and 17th and 27th in his last two Vegas tries.
For Homestead, Blaney was 3rd in 2021 and made a mistake while running in the top five a year ago. Buescher won Stage 1 in 2021 including 57 laps led. However, contact on a second stage restart ruined his handling which dropped him to outside the top 15. Buescher is at his best on aged tracks too. At Darlington this year, he finished 10th and 3rd.
RFK Playing With House Money
Brad Keselowski said after Chris Buescher’s Richmond win this past July that he felt like RFK Racing has moved from irrelevant to relevant. The next step was being contenders. Now, here Buescher is into the Round of 8 and Keselowski held the final spot to the third round heading into Sunday’s race on the ROVAL.
“I told somebody, a lot of you guys here this year, we moved from irrelevant to relevant. The next step is to try to be contenders,” he said then. “You get to the contender status by winning races.
“We’re not where we want to be. We want to be where we win every week, we’re 1-2 finishing. This is another step in our progression and a lot to be proud of.”
How about now?
“We’re letting our results speak for themselves,” he said after Buescher’s win in Michigan a week later. “Chris has done a heck of a job driving the car. When you get win, it feels really good.
“We got to keep some humbleness and keep our head down. There’s some great competition out here.
“Yeah, it’s been two great weekends. I’m just thrilled to death for our company. There’s a lot of people just working their guts out, trying to push, work within the limits of the rules and regulations, but not leave anything on the table, at the same time executing at the highest of levels, whether it be on pit road, restarts, whatever else it takes. I’m happy for them, their efforts getting them the results they deserve.”
Ford’s have just 6 wins this season. RFK has half of them.
“We do have two cars and we’re a two-car team, and we have both cars there,” said Keselowski. “We don’t have any good cars or bad cars. We don’t have any bad cars, which that feels good.
“We’re positioning ourselves to get there one day, and I’m proud of that. That’s earned, right? You got to earn that title. You do that with winning multiple races and contending for championships. We’re knocking on the door of that.
“Until we are walking in at Phoenix with three or four win stickers on our cars, it’s hard to say that we’re the best. That’s what we want to be.”
Buescher has 3 wins (Richmond, Michigan, Daytona). One more gets him not only to four wins, but to Phoenix with a shot at a championship.
“I mean, so much has happened in 15 years I’ve been there,” said Buescher. “But the last two years, last 18 months, just to see the turnaround, new car kind of being a good reset for us, to be able to be competing for wins.
“A lot of different size racetracks, a couple checkered flags now, some great pit strategy there, great pit stops. It’s every department working hard to make this happen and get us this checkered flag.”
Keselowski said the peaks and valleys are as high and low there than anywhere else.
“Yeah, the highs are high and the lows are low over here,” he said. “We had a lot of lows last year. It’s nice to have these high marks. I don’t take ’em for granted. They mean more to me probably because of how big a struggle last year was for both teams. Probably even more specifically for me.
“I’m thrilled for it. I know the work that goes into it on all aspects. I’m thrilled for every department of our company, from the marketing side through all of competition.
“We’ve come so far. We still have a long ways to go to get to where I want us to be, but we’re building some really strong momentum with these wins.
“I’m just as curious as anyone else to see where it goes from here. I try not to have expectations for good or bad. I just try to do our best, see what that plays out to on the field.”
Buescher had just two career Cup wins in his first 278 starts. He’s now won 3 of the last 11.
It’s a far cry from where Roush was a few years ago.
Two summers ago a Michigan born race car driver bought into an organization owned by a Michigan man. Keselowski came from the same mold as Jack Roush. They just took different paths to come together. Now two Michigan men sharing the same goal with one able to finally bring the other what he’s long been chasing since his team was left for ruin.
At one point, Jack Roush was one of the teams to beat. Then a change over occurred. It was a place to where drivers came to leave. Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth, Jamie McMurray, Kurt Busch, Greg Biffle, all had success with Roush before they each left for new teams.
There was that lull that some wondered when the tidal wave was going to come over. They went from annually competing for championships to just trying to get by.
Keselowski knew what it took to be a successful owner. He groomed several Cup drivers now in his Truck Series team. From Daniel Hemric to Tyler Reddick to Ryan Blaney you name it, they all were groomed under Keselowski’s tutelage.
Running a Truck team became too expensive, so Keselowski had to sell it all off. He turned his focus back to full time Cup Series driving but always had his eye on the future and wanting to get back in the ownership game.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option with Team Penske and Keselowski didn’t want to do what Denny Hamlin is doing by racing for one team and owning another. That’s why he signed a one-year deal in 2020 to come back in 2021 but look elsewhere for a driver-owner role in 2022.
Roush made the perfect sense.
They needed help too. Keselowski could bring his talents over as a driver. He can bring what he learned from a Truck Series owner as well as watching Roger Penske every day for the last decade with him for the front office.
Together, two Michigan men with a Michigan run manufacturer (Ford) can take this blue-collar team from the basement to at least the ground level.
So off Kesselowski went. But you have to think that this wasn’t an easy decision still. He is a father. He is a husband. He’s human. He built a name for himself with a top team in NASCAR and he was taking a massive risk by leaving everything that he’s accomplished to build something new.
To do so, challenges were going to lie ahead. He wasn’t going to be home quite as often. He was going to be on the phone more. Those daily routine activities with his wife and kids were going to go by the wayside while he built this thing up.
There’s moments where little kids want their dad but their dads mind may be elsewhere. He may be stuck at the office. Some people have those big dreams and goals but stop short when they realize that it was going to affect family time at home.
Keselowski took the risk. He jumped in anyways.
At Penske, you have the resources to win races weekly and championships annually. Going to Roush Fenway (formerly), an organization that’s last win came in July 2017 at Daytona, it was going to be a challenge ahead.
Heading into 2022, Roush Fenway had 2 victories in the last 252 races. In that span (since 2015), RFR had just 29 top five finishes, 86 top 10’s and 620 laps led since the start of the 2015 season. In that same span, Keselowski had 19 wins, 88 top fives, 148 top 10’s and 5,584 laps led. He had almost as many top five finishes (26) between 2019 and 2020 than RFR has had in the last seven years.
This wasn’t necessarily about making this team competitive again, that’s the easy goal, it was having to completely undo a culture that had settled into RFR and build a new mantra for RFK Racing.
That’s not an easy task. It’s hard to see through good people that may not be great people for this job. There’s some likeable personalities that were already established with that organization that had families, but Keselowski knew that while he liked them, they may not fit his criteria on what it takes to be great.
That’s the hard part of this job that no one realizes. To go from bad to good is one thing, but to go from bad to great is a whole different story.
There’s good people in this world that are okay with being okay. There’s also people in this world that aren’t okay with mediocre. They want greatness. They want to be on top and they’ll do everything in their power in the meantime to get there.
That’s what Keselowski was facing when he walked into the doors of the shop on Day 1. Who’s ready to work? Who’s ready for challenges ahead? Who’s ready for uncomfortable conversations and being put in uncomfortable situations to be great? Remember, there’s people that are with RFK Racing when he started that got content like Keselowski could have been with Penske. He had to see who can get outside of that comfort zone and follow where Keselowski was trying to lead them.
You can quickly tell who is and who isn’t and unfortunately some of the “who isn’t” may be great people personally but may not have what it takes to be at a championship level. So you first have to establish who that is and work with them and weed out the ones who aren’t.
Not everyone is built for greatness. Keselowski is, but he had to find who he can trust to go with him on his journey back to the top. After all, he left comfort to build this and he was going to do it the right way.
One person that he felt was valuable was Chris Buescher. He noticed that several years ago. So in the early portions of his new role with RFK, he felt like he had to snag him up for years to come.
“I went to a Ford driving school with him somewhere around 2015, and I was blown away by his talent and his feel for the car,” Keselowski said last year of Buescher. “I just felt like he didn’t have the support system around him to be successful with the teams he was with.
“I kind of felt like he was a hidden free agent gem that wasn’t being scouted properly and felt that way for a handful of years. So yeah, the first thing — it was literally the first thing I did when I signed the papers at RFK.
“The next step after signing my papers was putting an offer in front of him to give him a contract extension. I thought he was somebody we could build around and get results, and today clearly shows that that was the case.”
Now, just 58 races into an ownership role, Buescher is one round away from a championship.
Can Truex Start Better
Martin Truex Jr. is thanking his lucky stars that he had such a strong regular season to net him 36 playoff points. He’s had to lean on them in each of the first two rounds. He’s finished 18th, 36th, 19th, 17th, 18th, 20th this postseason. He’s led no laps. In fact, if you go back to the regular season finale at Daytona, he’s finished 18th or worse in all seven races.
With 9 wildcard spots available into the Round of 12 and 5 into the Round of 8, Truex had enough of a playoff point advantage to squeak by. But, there’s only one guaranteed wildcard spot to the final round this time. I don’t think he can just lean on those playoff points to get to Phoenix.
Which means he needs to start better. For Darlington, he finished 18th. For the Round of 12 opener at Texas, he was 17th.
Las Vegas is a better suited track for him. Truex has 11 Top-8s’s in his last 12 Las Vegas starts. He was sixth and fifth respectively at Kansas last season and eighth and 36th this year. He’s had a Top-8 finish in four of the eight intermediate races this season too.
Then it’s to Homestead to where he has 3 top 2 finishes in his last 5 and would have been 4 if not for an issue on his final pit stop a year ago.
Martinsville winds the Round of 8 down with Truex winning 3 of the last 8 there.
With 2 intermediate races and 1 on a short track, can Truex capitalize.
At one point, Truex was a 1.5-mile master. Among his first 19 race wins, 11 of them were on these tracks. 2 more were at Pocono and 1 at Fontana. He had just 1 win on a track that’s 1-mile in size or shorter and that was his first career win at Dover.
Over his last 14 races wins however, 10 of which were on tracks 1-mile in length or shorter. His only wins since the end of 2019 were 3 at Martinsville (2019, 2020, 2021), 2 at Richmond, 1 at Phoenix (2021), 1 at Dover (2023), 1 at Loudon (2023), 1 at Darlington and 1 at Sonoma.
Elliott, Harvick
Chase Elliott’s winless streak dates back 37 races (30 attempts). Kevin Harvick’s is 44 races. If either are going to win this year, it’s going to be this round.
That’s because since 2014 when this win-and-you’re-in format was introduced, every Championship 4 was won by a Championship 4 driver. Neither are in the drivers championship anymore.
Elliott is on the owners side but how much of a role will that play?
5 of the 6 playoff races thus far were won by playoff drivers. If they go 3-for-3 this round, then Elliott and Harvick could go winless all season. However, in each of the last 3 years a non-playoff driver won this round too.
Kyle Busch won at Texas in 2020. Alex Bowman won in Martinsville in 2021. Kyle Larson won at Homestead last year.
Elliott hasn’t gone winless in a year since his sophomore campaign in 2017. Harvick went winless just two years ago but in 2020 he won 9 races and a year ago 2. Can he really go winless in 2 of his final 3 seasons in the sport?
They’ve got 4 more chances with 3 of them being realistic. But, among those 3, really they each have 1 shot.
For Vegas, prior to a runner-up in the 2021 playoff race, Elliott had just two career top fives on this track with his last four finishes being 26th, 22nd, 13th and ninth respectively. He has six finishes of 21st or worse there too and was only 29th and 11th at Kansas last season, seventh and sixth this season and 21st in last year’s Vegas playoff race too.
Harvick has had three Top-4 finishes in a five-race span before being eighth, 10th, 20th, ninth, 12th, ninth in his last five. At Kansas though, Harvick was only 15th and 36th respectively a season ago too and 11th in both races this season. He is a great fantasy play (9th, 11th, 2nd, 11th, 10th, 19th, 11th, sixth) on intermediate tracks this season, but, not an outright winner.
Then it’s to Homestead. Elliott does have three Top-7’s in his last five Homestead starts, but he’s also winless here and Darlington too. He was fifth and 36th this past year at Darlington and 21st the last time out at Homestead.
Harvick meanwhile was only 26th in 2020 but rebounded to score a fifth-place run in 2021 and eighth last year. Harvick also has 14 Top-10 finishes in his last 15 Homestead starts including 18 of his last 20 when going back two decades ago. He was runner-up in the spring Darlington race and if not for bad luck with a caution while running second on pit road, he had a Top-2 going again in the Southern 500.
Finally for Martinsville, Elliott has finished 10th in each of his last 3 races there. Prior to that, he was 5th, 1st, 2nd, 16th.
Harvick had just two Top-5s in his last 22 Martinsville starts including 15th and 17th in 2020, ninth and 12th last year and 14th and 16th last year and 20th this spring.
HMS/JGR vs. The Rest
Among the 8 cars left, Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing have 5 of them. How many will they get to Phoenix with a shot at a championship?
2021 was a battle between these 2 with an all JGR/HMS final round.
Joe Gibbs Racing has 15 Championship 4 appearances. They’ve had a driver in the Championship 4 every year.
Hendrick Motorsports has had a driver in the final round in each of the last 3 years. Penske has had a final round driver in 2 of the last 3 but didn’t in 2019 or 2021 either.
In 5 of the last 7 years we’ve had teammates in the Championship 4
- 2016: JGR (Busch, Truex Jr.)
- 2018: JGR (Busch, Truex Jr.)
- 2019: JGR (Hamlin, Busch, Truex Jr.)
- 2020: Penske (Keselowski, Logano)
- 2021: JGR (Hamlin, Truex Jr.), HMS (Larson, Elliott)
This could become a battle between these two. Ford’s (stats above) may struggle. That take 2 of the 8 away and leaves just 23XI Racing’s Toyota left.
For Vegas, it’s no secret, when you come to the four annual stops between there and Kansas, you’re going to have to go through Hendrick Motorsports and Toyota’s in general if you want to win on these 1.5-mile tracks.
Toyota’s led 319 of 534 laps in the last two Kansas spring races and 177 of 535 in the Fall. Hendrick Motorsports led 164 of the same 534 laps in the pair of Kansas spring races and 262 of the 535 in the Fall.
In Kansas 1 in 2022, Toyota (171 of 267 laps led) went 1-3-4-5-6. HMS went 2-9-16-29 after leading 64 of 267 laps. In Kansas 1 this year, Toyota (148 of 267 laps led) went 1-4-8-9 while HMS (100 of 267 laps led) went 2-3-7-25.
For the last two Fall races, Toyota (94 of 267 laps led) went 1-2-3-5 and 1-2-8-14-32-36 (83 of 268 laps led). HMS went 4-6-8-11 (116 of 267 laps led) and 4-6-10-15 (146 of 268 laps led).
For Vegas, it’s just as good. The last two spring races, Toyota led 123 of 541 laps while HMS led 292 laps themselves.
In Vegas 1 of 2022, Toyota led 107 of 274 laps while HMS led 51. This past year, Toyota went 4-5-7-11 and led 16 of 271 laps but HMS led 241 of 271 in going 1-2-3 for the race, 1-2 in Stage 1 and 1-2-3 in Stage 2.
Combined, that’s 415 of 541 laps led in the spring Vegas races.
En fuego.
Kyle Larson has 3 straight top 2 spring race finishes here and led 63 laps this spring. William Byron led 176 laps in his spring race win and was 3rd and 15th at Kansas.
Denny Hamlin has 4 top 5’s in his last 6 and was 4th, 2nd, 1st, 2nd in his last four at Kansas.
Martin Truex Jr. has 11 top 8’s in his last 12 in Vegas and 6th, 5th, 8th, 36th in Kansas.
Christopher Bell has 3 top 10’s in his last 4 in Vegas and was 5th this past spring.
Then it’s to Homestead. HMS swept both races on a like track at Darlington this year and won the last 2 at Homestead. Each with Larson and Byron. Larson has top 5’s in his last 7 including a dominating win last year. He also just won the Southern 500.
Hamlin has finished 1st, 11th, 7th in Homestead and had a shot to win the Southern 500 if not for a loose wheel.
Truex has 3 top 2’s in his last 5 at Darlington and Bell has just 1 top 10 in his last 3 Homestead starts but 6th, 5th, 14th, 23rd in his last four at Darlington.
For Martinsville, Larson was 2nd, 1st in his last 2. He has 2 short track wins in 2023. Byron has 6 top 8’s in his last 8. Hamlin was 5th and 4th in his last 2, Truex has 3 wins in his last 8 and Bell won this race last year.
Three times since 2016 did the #1 seed entering the playoffs win the championship. It happened in odd years at that – 2017, 2019, 2021….2023? They at least made the final round in all but one year (2020). Enter William Byron.
The second-place driver in playoff points made the final round in 4 of the 6 years too and all but one has at least made it to the Round of 8. Great stat for Martin Truex Jr..
The third-place driver made it literally every time. Phenomenal for Denny Hamlin.
Larson, Hamlin and Byron are easy Championship 4 picks. Bell I feel like will eventually need to win. Truex hasn’t led a lap in the last 7 races and has finished 18th or worse in all. Reddick, Buescher and Blaney feel like they’re playing with house money.
Still, Hamlin and Truex are the only drivers in their 40s left. They have all the experience with 15 combined Round of 8 appearances and 9 Final 4’s. They rest have 14 combined Round of 8’s and 2 Final 4’s.
Does that play a role in things?
What about Bell being the only driver left that was in the Final 4 last year?
The three oldest drivers (Truex, Hamlin, Larson) are the only ones to win titles.
Trends
- Parity – We’ve had this playoff format since 2014. In the 9 years of this, we’ve seen 7 different champions. Only Truex and Larson are left that are past champions.
- The driver to finish 2nd in the points the previous season made it to the Championship 4 in just 2 of the last 5 years, but at least to the Round of 8 in 5 of the last 7. Ross Chastain…
- The driver to finish third in the Championship 4 has made it to at least the Round of 8 in each of the last 6 years with 3 of the 6 being in the Championship 4. That’s good news for Christopher Bell who’s back again.
- Playoff points during the regular season matter – 3 of the top 4 in playoff points entering the 2017 season made the Championship 4. In 2018, it was the top 3 making it to the final round. For 2019, all four in the top four of playoff points accumulated entering the playoffs made it to the Championship 4. 2020 saw 4 of the top five. 2021 it was 4 of the top 7.
- Ranks of Championship 4 drivers in playoff points entering the postseason:
- 2017: 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th
- 2018: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th
- 2019: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th
- 2020: 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th
- 2021: 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th
- 2022: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 10th
- 2023 Left: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 10th, 12th
- Three times since 2016 did the #1 seed entering the playoffs win the championship. It happened in odd years at that – 2017, 2019, 2021….2023? They at least made the final round in all but one year (2020). Enter William Byron.
- The second-place driver in playoff points made the final round in 4 of the 6 years too and all but one has at least made it to the Round of 8. Great stat for Martin Truex Jr..
- The third-place driver made it literally every time. Phenomenal for Denny Hamlin.
- The thing is, 5 of the 6 years someone outside the top 4 did get through to the Championship 4 but just one (Christopher Bell last year – 10th) was lower than the 7th seed.
- Champion likely won’t have won most races during the season — Only three times in the nine-year history of this format did a driver that won the most races during the course of a season actually win the title itself.
- The driver to win the spring race in Phoenix has only went on to win the series championship just three times – Terry Labonte (1984), Dale Earnhardt (1990) and Jeff Gordon (1995). That may not bode well for Byron.
- Eventual champion has actually started each season off slow – It actually pays to have a slower start to a season for some reason. Just last year, Joey Logano didn’t win until his 12th start of the season and he only had two wins in the regular season. A year prior, Kyle Larson had one win in the first 14 races. The year prior to that, Chase Elliott had just one win through the first 22 races. He won the title. In 2018, Logano had one win in the first 32 races but won the championship. Martin Truex Jr. had one trip to victory lane in the first 17 races of the 2017 campaign. He won the championship still. Jimmie Johnson in 2016 was 2-for-29 in 2016 and Harvick 1-for-30 in 2014. They both were champions in those seasons. No driver in this era has won the title but was also shut out in the first 26 races run either.
- Final 4 Appearances:
- • JGR 15
- • Penske 7
- • HMS 6
- • SHR 5
- • Furniture Row, RCR, Trackhouse 1 each
Trends Championship 4
Martin Truex Jr. – Won the 11th race.
Denny Hamlin – Won the 12th race. Only 2 wins this season.
William Byron – Won early and often.
Kyle Larson
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