Young guns still missing the mark
LONG POND, Pa. — Kyle Busch tossed his son into the air at Texas Motor Speedway. Clint Bowyer waited for his toddler to run toward him with open arms at Martinsville Speedway. Kevin Harvick rested his hands on his son’s shoulders as they gazed at a trophy at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Hey, who said the young kids in NASCAR can’t celebrate in victory lane?
In truth, as stock-car racing continues its struggle to fill stands and attract TV viewers, a ballyhooed youth movement among drivers has not paid dividends with checkered flags and publicity bursts as the Cup Series regular season nears its halfway point. Instead, NASCAR is still very much a veteran’s game.
Ryan Blaney, 24, and Chase Elliott, 22, won qualifying races for the Daytona 500 during Speedweeks in February, seemingly setting the stage for the new generation to take the reins in 2018. And who won the pole position for Daytona? That’s right — 25-year-old Alex Bowman in his debut race for Hendrick Motorsports.
The sizzling starts haven’t carried over. Elliott is winless in 90 Cup Series starts and has three top-five finishes this season; Bowman is 0-for-94 and has one top-five finish this year.
“I haven’t had one (car) feel like what I want so far this year because we haven’t won yet,” Bowman said. “I don’t think I’m going to have one that I like until we win, but we are getting closer.”
Bowman finished a solid ninth last week at the Coca-Cola 600 in the best finish of his Cup Series career on an intermediate length track. He said he hasn’t
felt stress from replacing the retired Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the No. 88 Chevrolet. The burden comes, he said, from failing to bring home trophies for one of the most storied organizations in NASCAR history.
“Hendrick Motorsports is known for winning races and winning championships, and that is what I’m expected to do,” Bowman said. “I think most of my pressure comes from myself and the fact that I just want to win races and prove that I can do it.”
As the series shifts to Pocono Raceway this weekend, Blaney’s win for the Wood Brothers last June marked the last time a driver earned his first Cup Series victory. There have been close calls, blown leads and bad breaks, but from William Byron to Erik Jones to Darrell Wallace Jr., the list of 20-something drivers stuck with a zero in the win column goes on and on.
It’s rare for a driver to break through at Pocono. Jeremy Mayfield (June 1998), Denny Hamlin (June 2006), Chris Buescher (August 2016) and Blaney each scored his first Cup Series win on the tri-oval track nestled in the mountains.
Blaney’s win ended a fiverace stretch last season that included first-time winners Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Austin Dillon. Stenhouse and Dillon have each won one race since then, but the rest of the list reads like much like it has for most of the past five years: Busch, Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr. headline the drivers with multiple victories since last June.
Harvick, 42, and Busch, 33, both former series champions, have nine of the 13 wins in Cup Series competition this season. The veterans aren’t ready to pass the torch, and the so-called young guns are still shooting blanks.
Wallace, who made his first Cup Series start last June at Pocono, energized the sport when he finished second this year in the Daytona 500 for the best-ever finish in the race for a black driver. He hasn’t finished better than 16th in any of his past five races.
Wallace said the struggles from the budding stars could be pinned on more than inexperience.
“The Chevrolets are kind of struggling as a whole,” he said. “I think we’re missing a little bit on the new body.”
Dillon won in a Chevy at Daytona, but that is the only one for the manufacturer in its first year using the Camaro.
The young drivers’ drought won’t last forever. So who’s next to crack the first-timer club?
Elliott, the son of NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott, is the obvious choice. He had five runner-up finishes last season and was second this year at Richmond Raceway.
“Erik Jones is running good and (Daniel) Suarez is running really well,” Blaney said. “Those three stick out in my mind of the next ones who will get their first win pretty soon. I think their teams are good enough and them as drivers are plenty good enough. It just needs to all work out for them.”
Eventually, it probably will. But for now, the wait goes on.
“I think the young guys are on the brink, they’re on the cusp,” Busch said. “It’s just a matter of when that happens.”
Blaney is taking aim at a repeat at Pocono after winning the pole for Sunday’s race. He turned a lap of 176.897 to lead qualifying Friday and earn the fourth pole of his Cup Series career.
He gave the famed Wood brothers their 99th career win last season, a ride strengthened by an alliance with Team Penske. Team owner Roger Penske wanted the 24-year-old budding star in his NASCAR stable and put him in the No. 12 Ford this season. The son of former NASCAR driver Dave Blaney and grandson of dirt track star Lou Blaney has led 418 laps this season and is 11th in the points standings.
Harvick will join Blaney on the front row, with Jamie McMurray, Truex and Busch completing the top five in the starting grid.
“It is always nice to come back to a place you have had success at and won at,” Blaney said. “It gives you confidence as a driver, and as a whole team, everyone’s confidence is up. Obviously, you want to repeat that. You want to win every week, but when you come back to a place where you have had success, that definitely is nice.”