2014 Driver Lineup

Tony Stewart, No. 14 Chevrolet; Danica Patrick, No. 10 Chevrolet;  Kevin Harvick, No. 4 Chevrolet; Kurt Busch, No. 41 Chevrolet.
 
Stewart is hoping to get medical clearance to race in time for The Sprint Unlimited non-points race during Daytona Speedweeks. However, the three-time champ has cautioned he won’t be completely back to form in the early portion of the season. Last year he and the whole SHR organization got off to a slow start figuring out the new Gen-6 car. But he had just turned the corner — winning at Dover and finishing runner-up in the summer Daytona race in the weeks before his injury. Chad Johnston, who worked previously with driver Martin Truex Jr., will be Stewart’s new crew chief, replacing Steve Addington.
 
Patrick started her rookie campaign in historic fashion, becoming the first woman to win the Daytona 500 pole. However, her eighth-place finish in the race was her only top-10 in a season of expected hard knocks and learning curves. She considers her 12th place at Martinsville, Va., to be a highlight as well, considering the difficulty of that race. She will benefit from the continuity of working with the veteran Gibson again, who, like Patrick and team owner Stewart, is committed to keeping expectations realistic even as they raise for her second full season.
 
Harvick disproved any lame duck conspiracy theories by turning in a high-performing final year at Richard Childress Racing in 2013 after a 13-year tenure with the team. He won four races, including two in the Chase, and was in contention for the Sprint Cup championship right up to the final race in Homestead, Fla. He ultimately finished third behind Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth and comes to SHR motivated and eager to take the next step in his career and finally hoist the Cup. He will be working with crew chief Rodney Childers, who, like Johnston, comes from Michael Waltrip Racing.
 
Busch completes the all-star lineup and, as with Harvick, comes to SHR fresh off a high-achieving, head-turning season. The 2004 Cup champ all but promised to land the small Denver-based No. 78 Furniture Row Racing team in its first Chase, and midway through the schedule, it was apparent, he would make good on that. Although he didn’t win a race, he scored 11 top-five finishes with season best runner-up finishes at Richmond, Va., and Kansas. He finished 10th in points, scoring only three top-10s in the 10 Chase races. He’ll be paired with crew chief Daniel Knost.
 
2014 Outlook
 
This team has high-wattage personality to match its talent level. And that is a key unknown variable when it comes to how the team will perform with essentially four "lead" drivers.
 
How will Stewart race after recovering from such a serious injury? Will Patrick show marked improvement, even win a race? How long will it take Harvick and Busch to feel at home with their new team? And how will all the new crew chief combinations pan out?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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