2014 Driver Lineup

Michael McDowell, No. 95 Ford.

The Leavine team has pegged McDowell for duty as the team’s only driver for its 20-race schedule. McDowell logged a pair of highlights in 2013, first opening the season with a ninth-place finish — his first career top-10 — for team owner Mike Curb, then winning the pole and finishing second while driving for Joe Gibbs Racing in the inaugural NASCAR Nationwide Series event at Mid-Ohio.

Wally Rogers, who has six victories in his veteran career as a Nationwide Series crew chief, returns atop the pit box for the No. 95 Ford, which will continue to use engines from the Roush Yates operation. The team, which debuted in 2011, has roots in Tyler, Texas — evident from its Lone Star State-themed logo — but operates from a shop in Concord, N.C.

2014 Outlook

McDowell, 29, got his first taste of driving for Leavine Family Racing during the Sprint Showdown qualifier for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race last May. He apparently showed enough spark to lock into every race on the No. 95 team’s schedule this season.

The race-to-race continuity should help driver and team build chemistry through the season, but running a part-time schedule places a premium on finding performance in qualifying. LFR failed to qualify for two Sprint Cup starts last year.

MORE:

2014 Driver Lineup

Trevor Bayne, No. 21 Ford.

Bayne, 22, returns for a part-time Sprint Cup role with the Wood Brothers in addition to his full-time duties in the NASCAR Nationwide Series with Roush Fenway Racing, which helps the Wood team through a partnership that dates back to 1998. Bayne entered 12 Sprint Cup events for the Wood Brothers in 2013, down four races from 2012.

Bayne said in preseason testing that the team again plans a 12-race schedule with funding from longtime sponsors Motorcraft and Quick Lane. Bayne indicated that if additional sponsorship materialized, an 18- to 20-race slate "would be our perfect scenario."

2014 Outlook

The Wood Brothers’ familiar No. 21 Ford has been a stock-car racing staple since NASCAR’s earliest days. Though the team hasn’t regularly competed for wins in some time, Bayne has given the Woods glimmers of its past glory on occasion, notching a pair of top-10 finishes in its limited schedule in 2012.

Four of the team’s 12 starts last year came on restrictor-plate tracks Daytona and Talladega, where the playing field is often leveled for part-time or lesser-funded teams. A similar schedule this year could mean more glimpses of promise for Bayne and the No. 21.

MORE:

2014 Driver Lineup

Alex Bowman, No. 23 Toyota; Ryan Truex, No. 83 Toyota.

The infusion of young talent in NASCAR’s three national series remains in full swing, and it’s clear BK Racing didn’t want to miss out on the movement. The team announced Jan. 6 it had parted ways with Reutimann. Two weeks later, Bowman and Truex were named as BK’s new full-time drivers competing for Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors.

Kvapil’s status with the team was undisclosed as part of the announcement. He brought the team its only top-10 finish to date (eighth at Talladega in October 2012), but one year later he was forced into the spotlight after his arrest for a domestic abuse charge.

The team opted to switch car numbers for the No. 93 Toyota to No. 23 to create a tie-in with sponsor Dr Pepper, the soft drink touted as having that number of flavors.

2014 Outlook

BK Racing’s decision to shake up its status quo trades out two veteran drivers for a pair of excited, impressionable youngsters. Both have shown glimpses of promise, but have a combined three Sprint Cup starts between them, which could mean a steep learning curve for the third-year team.

Both drivers got their feet wet with their new team at Preseason Thunder testing in January at Daytona International Speedway. The team showed patience with Kvapil and Reutimann during their tenure; if the same time is afforded the rookie tandem through the early growing pains, the move toward youth will likely help the team achieve moderate gains.

MORE:

2014 Driver Lineup

Martin Truex Jr., No. 78 Chevrolet.

To say 2014 represents a clean slate for Truex is almost an understatement. Before last season’s pivotal regular-season finale at Richmond International Raceway, Truex had enjoyed a sort of career rejuvenation — a victory at Sonoma Raceway in June ended a 218-race winless skid and gave him the inside line to at least a Wild Card berth in the playoffs. But after his MWR mates were found to have manipulated the race results to put Truex in the Chase, NASCAR issued heavy penalties to the Waltrip organization and removed Truex from the postseason field.

NAPA’s departure was one of the most damaging blows in the fallout. Waltrip told Truex he was free to look elsewhere for employment; shortly thereafter, the sponsorship void forced MWR to shift from a three-car operation to a two-car team with a part-time third entry for research and development.

2014 Outlook

Though Furniture Row tried to keep Busch, it was unlikely the pairing was made for the long term. Enter Truex, a two-time winner in Sprint Cup competition with a point to prove after his removal from last year’s Chase.

The No. 78 car was a perennial force at the top of practice and qualifying charts last season, though Busch was unable to break through to Victory Lane. Busch, even on his way out, embraced the underdog story of the little team from Denver that could. If the Furniture Row pit crew can sort out the issues that occasionally hampered Busch at key moments in 2013, then Truex may be able to write his own Cinderella story. The team’s success may also depend on the efforts of partner RCR, facing its first major offseason driver shakeup after two years of relative stability.

MORE:

2014 Driver Lineup

Greg Biffle, No. 16 Ford; Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 17 Ford; Carl Edwards, No. 99 Ford
 
Biffle has three wins since being paired with Matt Puccia, his crew chief since the latter half of the 2011 season. However, only one, at Michigan, came last year, and the inconsistencies that plagued the team for much of the year carried over into the Chase.
 
Stenhouse Jr., last year’s Sunoco Rookie of the Year, found the competition a bit more difficult on the Cup level, with just three top-10 finishes. An offseason move has reunited the Mississippi native with crew chief Mike Kelley in an attempt to recover the spark that helped him earn consecutive titles in the Nationwide Series.
 
It has been three years since Edwards lost the championship on a tiebreaker. In the two years that followed, he has finished 15th and 13th in the final standings. On the bright side, he did win twice, upping his career win total to 21, in his first season working with veteran crew chief Jimmy Fennig.
 
Team Outlook

The fortunes of Roush Fenway depend heavily on the new rules package and a redesigned front grille for the Ford Fusion. The rules package is aimed at tracks in the intermediate range (1.5 miles), but will be in place for all tracks except for those where restrictor plates are used.
 
The new grille will help lessen the cars’ potential to collect trash on the nose, but it isn’t expected to affect aero numbers to any great degree.
 
Roush Fenway teams have the talent and tools to win. Now they need to rediscover the consistency — and the speed — that has been sorely missing.

MORE:

2014 Driver Lineup

Austin Dillon, No. 3 Chevrolet; Paul Menard, No. 27 Chevrolet; Ryan Newman, No. 31 Chevrolet

Dillon makes the move to Cup after winning championships in the Camping World Truck and Nationwide Series, replacing longtime RCR driver Kevin Harvick. The team will carry the familiar No. 3, which hasn’t been on the track in Cup since the 2001 Daytona 500. Dillon, one of several drivers vying for the Sunoco Rookie of the Year title, has 13 career Cup starts with a best finish of 11th last season at Michigan. Gil Martin, crew chief for the team under Harvick, returns atop the pit box.

Menard, starting his eighth full season, is the lone returning Cup driver for RCR. He has one career win, at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2011, and finished 17th in the 2013 points standings. Richard "Slugger" Labbe, who has been paired with Menard since ’10, returns as crew chief.

After a five-year stint at Stewart-Haas Racing, Newman moves into the No. 31 previously driven by Jeff Burton. The 36-year-old scored one win (Indianapolis) and finished 11th in last year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Luke Lambert will handle crew-chief duties again.

2014 Outlook

Dillon has proven to be a quick study as he has made his way up the NASCAR ladder, and in time will be competitive at the Cup level. The focus for 2014, however, should be on making the most of seat time and coming away from each week’s race wiser than when he arrived. He’ll do well at some tracks and struggle at others as he becomes adjusted to the increased level of competition.

While Menard and the No. 27 team have shown improvement, they have yet to prove they can be a top-10 contender on a weekly basis.

Newman has won races and qualified for the Chase in both of his two previous places of employment (SHR and Team Penske), so it’s not farfetched to see the No. 31 team as the foundation of the organization. But that could be a tall order for a team that hasn’t been in Victory Lane since 2008.

MORE:

2014 Driver Lineup

Jamie McMurray, No. 1 Chevrolet; Kyle Larson, No. 42 Chevrolet

The 37-year-old McMurray has seven career wins, including last season’s fall stop at Talladega Superspeedway. His 15th-place points finish was his best since 2010. The big change for the No. 1 team comes at crew chief, where Keith Rodden, former lead engineer with the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team and driver Kasey Kahne, has replaced Kevin "Bono" Manion.

Larson, meanwhile, steps into the ride previously held by Montoya. He made four Sprint Cup Series starts in 2013 for Phoenix Racing, with a best finish of 15th at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He is one of at least six Cup drivers competing for Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors.

Larson’s 2013 results included his first career win in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (Rockingham Speedway) and an eighth-place points finish in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, where he had four runner-up results and was named Rookie of the Year. Chris Heroy returns as the team’s crew chief.

2014 Outlook

Can a crew chief change put McMurray back in the mix in 2014? He won a career-best three races in 2010, his first season with the team following a four-year stint with Roush Fenway Racing.

Larson’s biggest hurdle might not be his lack of experience in a Cup car, but driving for an organization that has yet to prove it can run up front consistently.

MORE: