For Hamlin, right strategy but wrong result at Indy

Posted on July 27, 2014 by

Fuel miscue, extra pit stop lead to JGR driver coming up short at Brickyard

SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Denny Hamlin could see it unfolding in front of him, like the asphalt surface at Indianapolis Motor Speedway — a 15-second lead, a tank full of fuel, and a clear path to a major career landmark at the Brickyard.

That was the plan, at least, and it all hinged on one thing — getting the No. 11 car full of fuel on the penultimate pit stop of the day. At least until the Joe Gibbs Racing driver cycled back onto the big rectangular track, and a voice over the radio unexpectedly instructed him to try and save gas.

"Did you say you didn’t get it full?" Hamlin asked.

"That is correct," came the response from crew chief Darian Grubb.

And with that, what could have been the winning strategy Sunday at Indianapolis was blown to bits, and Hamlin needed to rely almost solely on the speed of a race car that looked fast enough to take advantage of the tactics. As Jeff Gordon did burnouts celebrating his record-setting fifth career victory on the hallowed Indianapolis oval, Hamlin leaned against his car on pit road and wondered what might have been.

"I was pretty confident. I was pretty confident we were going to win the race," Hamlin said after ending up third. "Our car was just fast. We didn’t get passed by anyone. We didn’t. All day long, nobody really passed us. We were just faster than everyone that was around us, faster than everyone that was behind us. I knew with the right track position, we could win the race."

To try and get there, Grubb employed a sly but simple bit of strategy that entailed taking four tires every stop and running the car until it was nearly out of fuel, with the hope that Hamlin could rally from his 27th-place starting position and make one less stop than the competition. It was just one tactic on a day when several teams employed what Hamlin referred to as "wacky strategy," including that of Joey Logano, who stayed out during an early competition caution Sunday, but pitted on his own shortly afterward with the hope getting ahead on pit cycles and outrunning everyone to the finish.

"Really, we executed perfectly," said Logano, who finished fifth. "I felt like everything went as smooth as it could. Just not fast enough. Just got to find more speed. I never thought even throughout practice that I was going to have a car fast enough to win this thing. I was hoping strategy would work out …. I’m not going to pass my way up there like the 24 (car) did. We did everything we were supposed to do, we just needed a faster race car."

Hamlin had it, as evidenced by the way he made up track position over the waning stages of the race, and in his ability to make a late three-wide pass to snag a third-place finish that seemed far from likely immediately following the mistake on pit road. Afterward, NASCAR said there was a possible issue with the rear firewall block-off plates on the No. 11 car, which was being taken back to the sanctioning body’s Research and Development Center in Concord, North Carolina, for further evaluation.

But immediately after the race, it was the fueling error that was most prominent on the team’s mind. Hamlin pitted with 90 laps remaining, and the team’s entire strategy hinged on getting the car full on that stop. Grubb said the issue stemmed from how the fuel chugged out of the can, not allowing the team to get the car full before it exited the stall. Over the radio, Hamlin asked how many gallons they were short. "Too many, buddy," Grubb responded. The mistake cost Hamlin 17 positions on the track when he had to pit again.

"We were going to have a 15-second lead with enough fuel to make it, and dang it, just didn’t get it full," Hamlin said. "That one stop we just had to get it full, we didn’t get it full, and had to make that extra stop. But that shows how fast our car was that we were able to battle back."

Indeed, despite the poor qualifying effort and having to make one more pit stop than planned, Hamlin gradually crawled back into it. He caught a break when Ryan Truex stalled to bring out a caution with 20 laps remaining, allowing him to stay out and gain some of the track position he had lost. Hamlin restarted fifth, and in the final laps made the big pass on the inside of Matt Kenseth and Kasey Kahne to claim a once-unforeseen third.

"A little bit shocked, but more or less just disappointed," Grubb said of the finish. "We know we had a car we could have won with. Just a miscue on our part right there in the middle of the race while we were right in our fuel window to make it to the end, and we just didn’t get the car full and we had to pit again."

Even so, Grubb’s strategy caught the attention of others on pit road, among them the team of Dale Earnhardt Jr. — who fell a lap down due to the circumstances created by Hamlin’s tactics, and later rallied to finish ninth. "We kind of had him circled on our little screen there as the guy that was going to put us a lap down, and he did just like we thought he would," No. 88 crew chief Steve Letarte said.

"The 11 (team) did a great job. They had some fueling issues, and recovered well," he added. "It’s one thing to recover well, it’s another thing to win. Nobody was going to win from back there. You had to be up front."

The No. 24 car certainly was, leading 40 laps, powering past Kahne on the final restart, and running away to a 2.325-seconds victory over runner-up Kyle Busch. In the face of the fastest vehicle in the race, strategy could only do so much.

"Todd Gordon called the perfect race," Logano said of his crew chief. "It was a winning strategy. We just needed a little bit more of a faster (car) to be up there and battle the 24 for the win. Fastest car won the race today. It wasn’t a strategy thing or anything like that. I raced around him a few times, and every time he got around me I was like, ‘Wow. We’re not even close compared to where they’re at.’ They deserve it."

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Posted on July 27, 2014 by

Biffle to act as mentor to Stenhouse Jr., Bayne in new Roush lineup

SPEEDWAY, Ind. — At Roush Fenway Racing, the youth movement is in full swing.

One of NASCAR’s top teams will move forward next season with a pair of young drivers playing more prominent roles. The announcement Sunday of Carl Edwards‘ departure at season’s end means Jack Roush will field a 2015 Sprint Cup Series lineup featuring veteran Greg Biffle and a pair of 20-somethings — Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Trevor Bayne.

In many ways that feels like a departure for a Roush team that very recently boasted a seasoned lineup including Biffle, Edwards and Matt Kenseth, three drivers in the prime of their respective careers. Kenseth left following the 2012 season for Joe Gibbs Racing, with whom he won seven times last year. Now Edwards will be gone after the 2014 campaign, bound for a destination yet to be announced.

And the team he leaves behind will have a very different look — 44-year-old mainstay Biffle, winner of 19 races at NASCAR’s top level, along with the 26-year-old Stenhouse and the 23-year-old Bayne. The two younger drivers have 60 and 53 career premier-level starts, respectively, entering Sunday’s event at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and one victory between them — Bayne’s triumph in the 2011 Daytona 500.

What does Roush think of his team’s makeup for 2015? "It doesn’t look different than when Mark Martin stepped away and we were left with Greg and Carl to go forward. We’ve been in this business for 27 years and counting, and we’ve made it our habit, our practice, our preference to bring drivers in," he said.

"We’ve brought in 23 drivers who had never been a part of NASCAR before, 19 of them are still in the sport, and 17 of them have won races. So we’re pretty much on time. We have a great field of rookies coming with Ryan Reed and with Chris Buescher. They’ll be in our Nationwide program. But there’s also some room, and we might have more rookies. But Ricky and Trevor and Greg are going to be great. I’m really excited about that for next year. Not any less excited than I’ve been at any time in the past."

Bayne currently drives full-time in the Nationwide Series, and part-time for the Roush-affiliated Wood Brothers team on the Sprint Cup tour. Stenhouse, a two-time Nationwide champion in his second full-time Sprint Cup season, has struggled somewhat to adapt at NASCAR’s highest level and currently stands 28th in points. But Roush said the driver of the No. 17 car is still "detoxing" from the less-powerful vehicles used on the Nationwide circuit, and the owner’s faith remains strong. "Ricky Stenhouse is going to be as good in this business as anybody has been," Roush said.

Sponsorship for next year is still in flux, Roush said, although AdvoCare will act as primary on Bayne’s No. 6 car in 2015, while Fastenal announced Sunday it wound anchor Stenhouse’s No. 17 beginning next season. Edwards’ No. 99 will not be a full-time car next year "unless something unusual happens," said Roush president Steve Newmark. Roush also indicated that current Nationwide participants Reed and Buescher would remain in place. Those drivers are 20 and 21 years old respectively, adding more momentum to the organization’s youth movement.

From a Roush perspective, though, these moves fall in line with a philosophy based on promotion from within. The team has reacted similarly in the past, bringing up then-younger drivers like Kurt Busch, David Ragan, and even Kenseth and Edwards back in the day.

"We’ve always been a driver development program. It’s in our DNA," Newmark said. "… When you take the approach that we do, which is generally not going out on the free agent market and trying to develop from within, these type of circumstances are going to happen. The key is to make sure you have a very fertile playing field behind that, and a good group coning up, and we feel we do in Ricky and Trevor, Ryan Reed and Chris Buescher. That’s just the way we operate, and we’re pretty proud of how that’s worked for us in the past."

Even so, Edwards has been a constant in the Roush lineup since 2004, winning 23 races and twice coming close to a championship over that span. Next year the burden of leadership will clearly fall on Biffle, who as of 2015 will be the team’s only driver to have made the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. But Roush knows his two younger drivers will also need to step up.

"Certainly the focus of our leadership is going to be with Greg Biffle, and the things he does in the race car and the leadership he provides with the engineering initiatives we take. We had that split with Carl and Greg this year, so that will be a little different next year," Roush said. "But Ricky is ready to step up. Trevor is a Daytona 500 winner, and he drives his car with great enthusiasm in the Nationwide Series. We’re not going to be in a bad place next year, it’s just going to be a little bit different."

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