Lack of sponsors adds more pressure to Patrick, Bowyer
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - StewartHaas Racing enters 2017 much like NASCAR: awash in change.
Half of the four-car lineup is a source of conjecture.
Co-owner and three-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Tony Stewart retired after 18 seasons as a driver and was replaced by 37-yearold journeyman Clint Bowyer, who finished second in points in 2012.
Danica Patrick enters her fifth season at NASCAR’s highest level with six top-10s and a pole in 154 races. She is hopeful of improvement because for the first time she has a chance to run consecutive seasons with the same crew chief, currently Billy Scott.
As Stewart-Haas Racing competition director Greg Zipadelli says, “when you’re in a performance business, every year is go time.”
Both drivers’ program have sponsor shortfalls, with Patrick’s No. 10 Ford currently unsponsored for as many as 14 races after Nature’s Bakery ended its agreement, prompting SHR to file a breach of contract lawsuit. Bowyer’s No. 14 Ford is without sponsorship for an undisclosed, but understood, larger number of races.
2014 champion Kevin Harvick and 2004 titlist Kurt Busch return with veteran crew chiefs, Rodney Childers and Tony Gibson, respectively, adding stability to the team established in 2009.
Zipadelli believes Bowyer could follow Harvick’s arc in finally winning a Cup title. Harvick had finished as high as third in points three times before breaking through at SHR, at 39.
“We’re hoping we have another Kevin Harvick, another diamond in the rough there,” Zipadelli told USA TODAY Sports. “I don’t think he’s ever truly accomplished what he can. What I do like about him, is he’s a guy that hollers and screams all day, and then somehow it seems he ends up with good, solid top-10 finishes. He reminds me a lot of a Matt Kenseth-type. Obviously, the last few years have been tough for him in the situations that he was in. I feel like our equipment and our teammates will help him.
“If nothing else, I think we’re going to laugh a lot more than we have the last couple years.” Stewart wasn’t very funny? “Not around here,” laughed Zipadelli, who was Stewart’s crew chief for 10 seasons. “Maybe in the media center, but I ain’t seen a whole lot of humor out of him in the garage in 16 or 18 years.”
Zipadelli said Patrick has the equipment and the opportunity to make her next progression in stock cars and “they as a group, they need to step up.” Numerous crew changes underscore the team’s effort to stoke her progress, he said.
“They need to get to the point where they’re 12th or 16th every week and not 20th or 25th. I feel like our equipment is good enough to do that,” Zipadelli said. “We’ve talked more about, ‘Hey you have to take some of the responsibility yourself.’ They’re not slot cars. It’s not just going to happen. I know she’s more open-minded. I think she’s trying. I think she spent a lot of years looking for something that doesn’t exist, just from a car standpoint.”
Specifically, after the series moved toward removing downforce and making cars harder to control. That took Patrick further from the training from her IndyCar upbringing.
“You go back to (2014) and ‘15 where she had a couple good breakout races and then stuff changes and she has to really work it and learn it again,” he added.
“But I think now that there’s somebody there that’s working better with her not that in the past the guys didn’t work, but there’s a chemistry and I do think Billy has done a really good job.
“We feel like we have done everything we can as a company to support that, but I do think it was needed. I think it was warranted.”