Can the JR Motorsports driver hold off teammate Chase Elliott this season?
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Team: JR Motorsports No. 7 Chevrolet
Rank in final 2014 standings: Second
Wins: 1 (Daytona in February)
Strides: In spite of a crew chief change that saw Ryan Pemberton take over for Greg Ives (who joined JRM teammate Chase Elliott) prior to the start of the season, Smith wasted no time in getting into Victory Lane, winning the series' first race at Daytona. Although it was his lone win for the year, Smith reeled off 13 consecutive top-10s to open the season, led the points for 11 weeks and recorded a career-best second-place points finish.
"I thought that we got the speed where we needed it at the end of the year," Smith said. "We struggled a little bit with communication early on. Once we learned each other as a group and got those things figured out, the speed started coming back to us."
Setbacks: Smith had only two finishes outside the top 20 and his team appeared competitive in most areas and at most venues. However he was unable to close the gap on his teammate down the stretch, finishing ahead of Elliott in just two of the final 10 races.
"We had some opportunities that we missed to really make things tighter when it came down to the end and put some pressure on Chase at the end of the year," he said. "To his credit he didn't falter anywhere. There were a lot of points in the season where people said 'He's a rookie; he's going to make a mistake here or there or something's going to happen’ and he didn't.
"He drove like a veteran and it was great for him and great for JR Motorsports to see that. But I think for the No. 7 car, we're going to think about the what-ifs. More importantly, what can we do going into (2015) take care of the what-ifs to make sure they don't happen again."
Quoteworthy: "There were times when I was frustrated as a driver and I think it showed up on the track because of how I was driving. You've got to be careful not to let that happen."
What's next: With Pemberton moving back into his role as director of competition for JRM, Smith will be working with Jason Burdett, his third crew chief in three years. Burdett previously worked at Hendrick Motorsports, and served as car chief for Jimmie Johnson ('02), Jeff Gordon ('08-10) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. ('11-14).
"We can all work on a lot of areas, myself included," Smith said. "Restarts and qualifying for me have just been atrocious for the past two years. I can't really highlight why. I think this offseason is going to be really important to highlight why and figure that out. Because in order to contend and get the track position and the clean air that we really need, those two things have to improve."