December 1, 2010
By Chuck Abrams
The keys on my keypad were not even cold last week (after I had written that there would be a whole lot of shakin' going on in the off season) when Hendrick announced the crew chief shake up with three of their four teams.
By now everyone knows that Dale Jr. gets another new crew chief, Mark Martin gets his last shot at a title with Hendrick and Jeff Gordon finally gets rid of Steve Letarte to many of his fans delight.
The one constant? Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus. Why mess with a good thing, right?
Personally, I don't think much will come of the Letarte-Earnhardt pairing. I think Gustafson would have been the better pit box commander for Earnhardt but time will tell. If you are going to put money on my opinion or Rick Hendrick's, I have an idea where the money would go. Or you could just spend it on a pizza.
There is something deeply wrong with the No. 88 team and Letarte -- may be just a band-aid for that team. Obviously, getting Jeff Gordon back on track is far more important than getting Junior Nation fired up. Mark Martin had an off year for sure, but it probably won't take as much to return the No. 5 car to the Chase.
Richard Petty is back in charge at RPM and let's hope that is a good thing. The Petty organization has been in free fall for quite some time, just look at the past few years when it acquired talent but could not dig itself out from underneath its owner's bad business decisions or internal family turmoil.
Scaling back to a two-team operation allows them to pick the best talent they had to run those two teams. Allmendinger seems to finally be getting it and Marcos Ambrose joins this year bringing a fresh perspective and a new sponsor.
But two team operations are not the trend in NASCAR's top series and Petty will find itself behind the eight ball at every step. They will need to challenge for top 10 finishes all year in order to do more than just survive beyond 2011. Ending the year with both cars in the top 20 would be a nice accomplishment but in order to do that they will have to outrace a few other two car teams -- mainly Stewart-Haas, Earnhardt-Ganassi and Penske. These teams have a head start on Petty by competing as two car teams with affiliations with larger teams such as Hendrick or RCR. Penske is the only true two-car team with no other affiliations in Cup racing. If Petty were to return to the Dodge stable, they could share info with Penske, but Petty seems to be tied to Ford right now. Ford has deeper pockets than Dodge and that is more important to Petty's long-term viability than any past connections with Dodge.
Speaking of Penske, Brad Keselowski makes the jump to the No. 2 Blue Deuce Miller Lite Dodge, with a new crew chief in the form of his Nationwide crew chief Paul Wolfe. We'll see if they can make beautiful music together and put the Blue Deuce back in the Chase in 2011. That will be a major accomplishment for them considering Brad finished the season in 25th place. There is a lot of pressure on Brad in 2011. This is an historic ride and it's sponsor is used to winning and being in the Chase. Stay thirsty my friend.
While Roush had three of it's four cars in the Chase this year, they did not really make much noise in 2010 with only four total wins and two of those came in the final two races. Those two wins may have saved some jobs over at Roush. David Ragan on the other hand, is nowhere to be found and had only three top 10 finishes. Ragan had much more promise in his rookie season and Roush will need to make some changes to get that team back into contention.
Red Bull has yet to finalize its 2011 team but to be sure lame duck Kasey Kahne will be their main focus. Scott Speed has been on the hot seat all year and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that he may not be with Red Bull in 2011. But I am not sure who they would tap to put into his seat at this point. Elliott Sadler seems to be the most logical choice but Sadler is damaged goods right now. Sadler will be driving for Harvick in the truck series in 2011 and is still looking for a Cup ride. Stay tuned for this one.
Let me know your thoughts.
Drive fast, turn left and keep the shiny side up.
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