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More confidence, new car key to 2013 effort

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ricky Stenhouse Jr. stood at center court during halftime at a recent Ohio State University men’s basketball game, smiling with pride and validation as the announcer congratulated him on his second straight NASCAR Nationwide Series championship. It was a final moment of celebration for Stenhouse, who is moving to the Sprint Cup Series in 2013.

Though car owner Jack Roush believed Stenhouse was ready for NASCAR’s top series last year, Stenhouse wanted another year in Nationwide. 

“I feel like I had some more to learn,” Stenhouse said. “I felt like I could get better as a driver.”

"He’s winning races against the best in the business."

— Joe Balash, former Nationwide Series director

His last season in the Nationwide Series shows that instinct was a good one. In 2011, he recorded two Nationwide victories, both standalone events in Iowa. In 2012, he won six races, many against Sprint Cup regulars. Crew chief Mike Kelley, who was at the helm of Stenhouse’s team during those two seasons, believes those 2012 wins helped solidify Stenhouse’s reputation as a breakout driver.

“Races like Atlanta, when he went and took that race from Kevin Harvick,” Kelley said. “Chicago, when he drove by Kyle Busch with 20 to go to win. Vegas, when we started side-by-side with Mark Martin. Those are three of the best that ever sat in the Nationwide car, and this kid took races from them and raced those guys hard all year.”

Those wins seemed to announce to the sport that Stenhouse was a threat on the track.

“He’s winning races against the double-duty drivers,” former Nationwide Series Director Joe Balash said. “It’s not like he won the points championship without winning. He’s winning races against the best in the business.”

Stenhouse will pilot the No. 17 car for Roush Fenway Racing in Sprint Cup under the leadership of longtime engineer and first-time crew chief Scott Graves. It’s the same car that Matt Kenseth used to win last year’s Daytona 500 and qualify for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

“I’m in the 17 car, but it’s not the same crew,” Stenhouse said. “It’s not the same crew chief. It’s not anything the same. So I don’t think there’s pressure from that standpoint that, ‘Hey, that car was in the Chase last year, it was leading the points, winning races.’ I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform, go out and win races. But nobody has pressure on me right now.”

Stenhouse is setting his own expectations for his rookie season, saying he wants to run in the top 15 early on, and contend for wins by season’s end. He’ll have to do it without his best friend, Kelley, overseeing his crew. Kelley is choosing to stay back and lead Trevor Bayne’s Nationwide effort, but says the timing of Stenhouse’s rookie effort in the Sprint Cup is perfect.

“You’ve got the brand new car,” Kelley said, referring to the Generation-6 car debuting in Sprint Cup. “They opened up the testing, (he’s) coming off a great year in Nationwide, his confidence is high. He’s got great backing from his sponsors.”

Kelley expects Stenhouse’s 2013 season to be just as impressive as 2012.

“I would not be surprised to see that kid come out of the box and be the talk of 2013.”

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NASCAR plans return to racing roots on dirt track

The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will make history in 2013 — in more ways than one. The series will have a race on the dirt of Eldora Speedway and make its first international trip to Canada.

The race at Eldora will mark the first time a major NASCAR series has raced on dirt since 1970.

“It’s really a dream come true,” said Tony Stewart, owner of the speedway and three-time Sprint Cup champion. “To imagine that 42 years later we’re going to be taking a national NASCAR series back to a dirt track is a huge honor for us.”

"It’s really a dream come true."

— Tony Stewart, Eldora Speedway owner

Eldora will likely be the most anticipated stop on the 22-race schedule that kicks off at Daytona on February 22.

Stewart said talk about bringing the series to the Rossburg, Ohio, track started more than a year ago.

Last summer, both Stewart and former Truck Series champion Austin Dillon participated in the first test at the track.

“Austin was actually the first guy on the track in a truck,” Stewart said. “He kept waiting on me to go out.  I said, ‘I would like you to go out because that’s something down in the history books.’ ”

The Eldora race will run at night on Wednesday, July 24.

In September, the series will cross the border into Ontario, Canada. The race at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park will mark the first road-course race for the trucks since 2000. 

NASCAR officials said it was important to maintain a presence in the country after the Nationwide Series dropped a race in Canada from its schedule.

“What we feel like this enables us to do is give us that taste as drivers evolve up to the Truck Series,” said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR senior vice president of racing operations. “It gives them the ability to race not only on ovals, but road courses that they’ll see at the Sprint Cup level.”

The Camping World Trucks Series will return to Rockingham Speedway for a second time in April.

The season concludes in November at Homestead.

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Addition of road racing favorite brings Nationwide to new fanbase

NASCAR Nationwide Series drivers will have a new track to conquer in 2013.

The series announced a return to the state of Ohio with a scheduled race at the Mid-Ohio road course in August.

Ohio is also the home state of series sponsor Nationwide.

This is the sixth time in nine years the series has added a new venue.

“This gives us the opportunity to bring the series’ signature side-by-side racing to a new fan base,” said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR senior vice president of racing operations.

The inaugural race at Mid-Ohio will be the third road course race of the year for Nationwide drivers, joining Road America and Watkins Glen.

The 2013 schedule features 33 races and begins in Daytona on February 23.

The series returns to Indianapolis Motor Speedway in July in what NASCAR is calling a “Super Weekend” that includes Sprint Cup and GRAND-AM series races.

Six weekends will be stand-alone events, separate from the Sprint Cup series.

The series ends in Homestead in November.  

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Proven drivers becoming more important for JR Motorsports.

JR Motorsports is the organization that helped Brad Keselowski make the transition from unknown driver to Sprint Cup champion. It provided Danica Patrick her first foothold in NASCAR and gave Cole Whitt his biggest break. The NASCAR Nationwide Series team founded by Dale Earnhardt Jr. was built on the concept of affording up-and-coming drivers the chance they needed to take the next step in their careers.

But the changing landscape of the Nationwide Series has forced JRM to alter its approach, and the team heads into the 2013 season with two cars fronted by NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race winners. Former Southern 500 champion Regan Smith will compete for the championship in the organization’s No. 7 entry, while the No. 5 car will run the majority of the season and be split between Brad Sweet and three-time Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup participant Kasey Kahne.

A large part of that puzzle came together Wednesday when the Great Clips Inc. sponsorship that had backed an entry for Kahne and Sweet at Turner Motorsports moved to JRM, becoming primary sponsor of a No. 5 car that will compete in 27 events. Earnhardt will run a No. 88 car in four Nationwide races this season, the opener at Daytona among them. For the time being, that leaves no place for Whitt, the 21-year-old who finished seventh in final Nationwide points last season.

It’s a shift in focus that clearly pains the folks at JRM, who looked at the evolving Nationwide scene around them — one that includes former Sprint Cup drivers in Elliott Sadler and Brian Vickers, and other entries fielded directly by Sprint Cup teams — and believed they had no choice but to follow suit.

“We’re competing for wins against Gibbs and Penske and Childress.”

— Kelley Earnhardt Miller, JR Motorsports general manager

“We’re competing for wins against Gibbs and Penske and Childress. Putting the effort together, the whole combination of car driver and crew has been at the forefront of our mind this past year as we’ve worked to compete with those guys,” said JRM General Manager Kelley Earnhardt Miller, whose team featured Whitt and Patrick — now at the Sprint Cup level with Stewart-Haas Racing — behind the wheel last year.

“We don’t want to be an eighth-to-15th place car week in and week out,” she added. “And if you look at the top drivers … just trying to compete with that at the Nationwide level, we’ve kind of had to abort the up-and-coming drivers stance that’s kind of been strong with this company. Before we had Danica, we were able to do that with one car — we’d have our strong driver in one car, and our up-and-coming driver the other, and it would balance out and showcase what our program could do. These last couple of years where we’ve had rookies in there, which was the case with Cole and Danica, it’s been much harder to evaluate our equipment … because they’re both still learning and they’re both still figuring it out.”

The change in philosophy paid an immediate dividend late last season when Smith won at Homestead in a tune-up start for JRM. It was the team’s first victory since Jamie McMurray won at Atlanta in 2010. Even so, the team was prepared to go into 2013 with only one full-time car until JRM received a call from a Great Clips representative in early December. Although the schedule for the No. 5 car hasn’t been finalized, Miller guessed Kahne would start 10 to 15 events in the vehicle with Sweet filling out the rest.

Kahne had started a handful of Nationwide events for JRM in the past, and Miller said Kahne was interested in running more even if his longtime Great Clips backing had remained with Turner. The fact that Kahne and Earnhardt compete for the same Sprint Cup team, Hendrick Motorsports, probably didn’t hurt in enticing both driver and sponsor to a new home.

“He’s always been a possibility to race for JR Motorsports, if we had the funding and the cars available for him,” Miller said of Kahne. “Really, the situation with him and Brad wasn’t an option until we received that phone call in December. It does make great sense for us, though, with our relationship with Hendrick, and Kasey and Dale both being drivers there. It’s a good opportunity for everybody to kind of work together.”

Whitt remains the odd driver out. Miller said JRM would like to fill out the balance of the season and compete for the owner’s championship with the No. 5, which could involve putting Ron Fellows in the seat for road-course races. There’s also hope sponsorship can be found to allow Whitt to drive the car for those remaining events.

“Cole is extremely talented. He’s a great kid, and youth is on his side. So I think there’s a lot of opportunity for him in the sport in the future, and we’d definitely like to keep that relationship,” Miller said. “I’ve told him, he’s still welcome here, and we’re still working really hard to put something around him. He can travel to the races with us and stay involved as much as he wants until hopefully something comes together. But when these sponsors are paying these dollars, they want to see their cars in Victory Lane.”

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X Games gold medalist welcomes discipline that comes with Nationwide slate

Behind the floppy hair, the easy-going demeanor and the crazy feats on two or four wheels, Travis Pastrana is an athlete who understands the need for structure. He grew up the son of a Marine, and from 4 years old he and his father had an understanding — you want to go to the race track that weekend, you get up before school and run.

“It was just that little extra person looking over your shoulder saying, ‘You don’t have to do this. Nobody is making you race,’ ” Pastrana said Thursday. “But if you want to be the best, you’re going to do this, this and this. I want to do this, plus exceed it.”

It’s a mentality that led Pastrana to take his boldest step yet in NASCAR and agree to a full 2013 schedule in the NASCAR Nationwide Series with Roush Fenway Racing, which has won the last two crowns on the circuit. The X Games legend will pilot a No. 60 car backed by a variety of sponsors, and with Chad Norris as crew chief.

It’s quite a leap, even for an action-sports star who likes to make big jumps. But Pastrana realized if he wanted to succeed in NASCAR, it couldn’t be just a dalliance. That progression required structure, which in turn led him to Roush.

“The last couple of years have just been about fun,” Pastrana said, “and I’m ready to be a racer again.”

"The last couple of years have just been about fun, and I’m ready to be a racer again."

— Travis Pastrana

Pastrana, 29, made his name in motocross, rally cars and motorcycle stunt jumping, establishing himself as a legend in extreme sports well before he started his first NASCAR race. Slated to kick off a limited Nationwide slate in 2011, he crashed attempting a jump in the X Games and broke his ankle. He made nine starts on the Nationwide tour last season — all but one of them in a car fielded by Robby Benton through an agreement with Michael Waltrip Racing — and recorded a best finish of 13th at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

His final start of 2012, at Richmond, came in a Roush vehicle, beginning the process that led to Thursday’s announcement. Pastrana said he bonded quickly with the Roush drivers. New Nationwide teammate Trevor Bayne sent him a Christmas card and called him on New Year’s, he struck up a quick friendship with two-time outgoing Nationwide champ Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and he remembered representing the U.S. in the Race of Champions alongside Carl Edwards.

“I feel like I’ve stepped into a family here,” Pastrana said.

Equally as important, he found a team willing to take the step he needed to take to further his NASCAR career.

“Travis is a champion,” Roush said in a statement. “It takes a great deal of drive and determination to reach that level of greatness in any field. He is serious about this move to NASCAR and we are committed to doing everything we can to see his career develop in NASCAR. We would certainly expect to see a great level of excitement brought to the table as he progresses within our sport.”

Pastrana said that between his sponsors and Roush’s sponsors, they cobbled together enough sponsorship to fund most of the 33-race season. If they come out short on funding, they’ll find a way to cover it. “It’s kind of a leap of faith on both our parts,” Pastrana said.

But it’s a leap the driver is more than willing to make.

“This is the first time since 2004 when I was racing Supercross that I’ve really had something to look forward to every weekend, and was judged and criticized and critiqued every single weekend, and that’s what I live for,” he said. “We have the entire season now, 30-something races, to go out there and figure out if I can make it in this sport. And I know I can drive. I know I have car control. But it’s new. It was so frustrating last year to have so many things on the docket. I’d race one weekend and be off four weekends and then come back, and it would be like starting over again. So it definitely should be good.”

It wasn’t always this way for Pastrana. He admits that when he first became interested in NASCAR, he just wanted to see what the sport was all about. He wondered about maybe racing at a road course, maybe racing at Daytona. He settled on the partial schedule, still keeping one (surgically repaired) foot in extreme sports. But he reached a point where he could only go far. “If I want to be competitive with the best in the world … it kind of has to be pounded into your brain a little bit,” he said.

That time is now. Roush wants Pastrana to sit in on both the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and Nationwide debriefs at the shop each Monday. Pastrana knows he’ll have vehicles tested by someone “probably better than me in every aspect,” he joked, producing detailed information on braking points and lines around the race track. This isn’t just about having fun anymore.

“This is going to change everything about my life,” he said. “This is going to change from have fun every day, no worries, do whatever you want to do, to, I want to go out there, and I want to work my ass off. There’s going to be sleepless nights. There’s going to be crying. You’re going to see a grown man cry. And, figuring out how to be the best again. That’s what we were able to do in motocross, and that’s what we were able to do in rally. I need that in my life. My wife basically sat me down and said, ‘I’m backing you. I love you to death, and we’ll make it work.’ That’s why we’re here.”

Pastrana said Roush reminds him of Roger DeCoster, a five-time motorcycle world champion who was once Pastrana’s team director. He could have fun — as Roush showed Thursday, taking his newest driver for a spin in a World War II-era fighter plane — but he also demanded structure. Pastrana knew, deep down, that if he were going to make it in NASCAR, he needed that all along.

“I knew it beforehand,” he said. “But it takes a while to really sink in and say, ‘What’s this going to take, and what’s this worth for you?’ To me, it’s worth everything. I’ve got a taste of it, and I want to put myself up against the best. I want to see if I can do it.”

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After breakout season, Michael Annett looks for first NASCAR win

In 2012, Michael Annett recorded his first top-five finishes, shattered his previous best in top 10s and placed higher in final points than ever before. He did so with a start-up program and an organization that had fielded a NASCAR Nationwide Series car in only one race prior to last season. Yet even amid that career year, there remained one goal the Richard Petty Motorsports driver has yet to check off his list.

Winning.

“I think that’s the only thing left to do now,” Annett said. “It would just be huge, not only for the guys and myself, but also to say, ‘Hey, I belong here.’ I don’t think you could ever finish out a career without having a trophy on the mantle to prove that you did belong there.”

Michael Annett

By any account, Annett enjoyed a breakout season in 2012, finishing fifth in points behind the primary Nationwide Series championship contenders and recording some of the best finishes of his NASCAR career. That’s not bad for RPM’s first attempt at a full-time Nationwide effort, particularly one put together at warp speed after Annett’s previous team, Rusty Wallace Racing, shut its doors in January 2012 because of a sponsorship shortage. The paint scheme wasn’t even picked out until a week before the No. 43 was loaded onto the hauler for Daytona.

All that considered, it’s hard to label Annett’s first venture with RPM anything but a success, particularly since it netted 17 top-10 finishes and the driver a turn on stage during the Nationwide Series banquet. Even so, just as it has throughout Annett’s career in NASCAR, a victory remained noticeably absent. His last win at the national level came almost five years ago, when he beat Justin Allgaier by a quarter of a second to claim the ARCA event at Daytona.

Annett came close to snapping that skid on several tracks in 2012. He finished third in each of the second Daytona and Dover races. In almost every event during the second half of the season, he said, there was a point where his No. 43 was the fastest car on the track. He believes his best chance to win was at Kansas, when he was third on a green-white-checkered restart, but had his line jam up when Paul Menard ran out of fuel. He sees taking that next step and reaching Victory Lane as part of a progression.

"To say, ‘Hey, this is how we’re going to do that…’, I don’t know that yet," Annett said. "We talk about it in our sport so much, you’ve got to learn how to win to do it over again. Once we get that first one in the book, it’s going to be like our streak of top-10s was. I think we’ll be able to repeat it often."

It’s probably the first time Annett has legitimately been able to think that big entering a season. Although his best NASCAR finish is runner-up at Kentucky in a 2008 Camping World Truck Series event, his results were wildly inconsistent as he climbed the ranks with outfits like Germain Racing and RWR. It wasn’t until he landed at RPM, which gets chassis, engines and technical help from Roush Fenway Racing, that things began to level out. And even then, it took a while — the program was thrown together quickly, and the team’s only previous Nationwide effort had been a one-off for Marcos Ambrose at Watkins Glen.

"I think what we were able to do and what we accomplished last year was huge," said Annett, a 26-year-old from Des Moines, Iowa. "Yeah, I didn’t want to see this offseason come. But we’re probably going to be 10 times better than where we ended in Homestead."

The Roush connection is what attracted Annett to RPM, and what he believes made the difference in results. He and crew chief Philippe Lopez are consulting with Roush crew chief Mike Kelley — who worked with back-to-back series champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. the past two years and will oversee Trevor Bayne’s program this season — about the best places to test, so Roush-built cars can gather as much information as possible. 

"That relationship is huge, and is by far probably one of the biggest things that helped us to have the success we did," Annett said. "The engineers, they’re sitting down together every day of each week. Philippe and Mike Kelley have a great relationship and sit down and compare notes. After each practice, we go down to the 6 hauler and debrief, and I don’t see anything changing except for it being Trevor sitting there instead of Ricky."

This offseason, Annett wants to test at a road course, which he said was a weakness last year. He wants to get in a sports car and take laps around Mid-Ohio, a new Nationwide venue for 2013, and is even thinking about booking time at a road course school. Annett is gritting his teeth through the winter, and not just because of the cold and snow in Iowa, where he spent time visiting family over the holidays. He knows how his team ended last season, he knows new cars will be ready for this coming one and he’s ready to get back on the track.

"I felt like we just kept getting better as the season went on," he said. "It was kind of like, ‘Man, I don’t want this to end. We’ve got some momentum going.’ The offseason is tough, because I knew where we were headed. But also, we’re building about six brand-new cars. We’re going to go to Daytona right where we left off. If there’s ever a time where I thought we could win the championship, it’s going to be (this) year."

But first, he has to turn those top-10s into trips to Victory Lane.

"The only thing that’s still there is, ‘Man, why haven’t you won a race yet?’" Annett said. "That’s the exciting part to me. Because I know when we do get that first win, we’re going to take off."

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Sponsorship opportunity steers Coulter away from Richard Childress Racing

The biggest thing at Kyle Busch Motorsports is the trophy case, and it’s overflowing.

The three-year-old organization has won 19 times and claimed 11 poles across two national NASCAR circuits, in addition to a pair of owner’s championships on the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. There are so many trophies at KBM that some are stored in empty offices, simply because there’s no other place to put them.

It doesn’t take a degree in mechanical engineering — which KBM’s newest Truck Series driver is pursuing — to understand that all that hardware carries implicit expectations.

“That’s a great sign when you’re a driver,” said Joey Coulter, who will pilot the team’s flagship No. 18 truck on a full-time basis this season. “When they say, ‘We want to go win our first championship, and we want you to do it,’ you kind of look around and go, ‘Yeah, I think I might be able to handle it.’ They’re very centered around winning, which is fantastic.”

"It’s pretty amazing when you sit back and pay attention how much you can learn from him."

— Joey Coulter, on racing against Kyle Busch

Coulter’s arrival marks a tactical shift at KBM, which, throughout its short history, has employed multiple drivers in pursuit of race wins and owner’s titles. But Busch’s goal is for the team to flourish without him being in the seat, and toward that end the organization will chase driver’s championships for the first time in 2013.

That’s also reflected in the team’s NASCAR Nationwide Series program, where Parker Kligerman will compete full time. In the Truck Series, the onus falls on Coulter, a 22-year-old who won at Pocono last year and comes to KBM after two seasons at Richard Childress Racing.

Coulter was more than competitive at RCR, finishing third in the final Truck Series points standings. After Coulter’s Pocono victory, Childress spoke of promoting the Miami native to the Nationwide Series for 2013. Coulter said that option was there for him, but RCR is also a larger organization spreading sponsorship across several rides. Although no backing has been announced for his truck at KBM, Coulter felt driving for a smaller team where he would be more of the focus offered a better opportunity for funding and stability.

“I think the one thing KBM has going for them is, they’re just a smaller organization,” Coulter said. “They don’t have to take care of three or four Cup teams, three or four Nationwide teams, and three Truck teams. They’re a little bit less spread out, and I think it just opens up opportunity to maybe focus efforts a little bit smaller. I’m not saying RCR couldn’t handle all those teams — they did a fantastic job with that organization, and have done a fantastic job. KBM could just focus their efforts on a little bit smaller organization and maybe make things move on a little faster.”

Coulter said RCR wanted him back, but sponsorship had not yet materialized, and he had to make a decision. It was the same with the potential Nationwide ride, which ended up going to Brian Scott after Coulter moved on.

“It was definitely a possibility,” he said. “It came down to sponsorship dollars. It was hard to get things concrete. We got a lot of, ‘Well, maybe; we’ll see what happens.’ We waited as long as we could, and just had to make a decision. It came down to sponsorship and where might have been the best place to go.”

So when KBM general manager Rick Ren approached Coulter’s father Joe one weekend, the family knew it had to make a difficult decision. As a bonus, Coulter’s longtime crew chief Harold Holly made the move to KBM as well. It may seem an ironic hiring, given the way Busch and Coulter are intertwined — it was the former who bumped the latter after a Truck race at Kansas two years ago, leading to the infamous run-in between Childress and Busch in the garage — but Coulter said there’s no one he’s learned from more on the race track than his new boss.

“Every time he ran a race, especially my first season, every time he’d race I’d do whatever I could to get around him, and watch and learn,” Coulter said. “He’s so good with throwing that race car around. It’s pretty amazing when you sit back and pay attention how much you can learn from him.”

In that 2011 Kansas race, Coulter got around Busch on the final lap to record his first top-five finish. Busch has since said he bumped the young driver afterward as a sign of congratulations, although some clearly didn’t see it that way at the time. In retrospect, it all seems a misunderstanding.

“There was a lot of passion going around for that whole scenario to play out like it did,” Coulter remembered. “Just kind of wrong place, wrong time.”

Time is something Coulter often doesn’t have enough of these days, as he pursues a racing career as well as a mechanical engineering degree at UNC Charlotte. He takes classes such as dynamics and heat transfer — “lots and lots of math,” he said — with a concentration in motorsports. Careful not to overwhelm himself, Coulter said he takes a lighter load than most students, scheduling classes around his race travel.

But occasionally, he has to do homework on the road.

“It’s hard,” he said. “It’s like a light switch. It’s either racing or school. It’s hard to kind of set it in the middle, especially when both of them require quite a bit of attention while you’re doing them.”

That will certainly be the case this season on the racing side, given that he’s tasked with running for a championship by an owner who thrives on performance.

After all, all those trophies at KBM didn’t get there by themselves.

“I tell people all the time, I was pretty fortunate for my first ride in NASCAR to be with a team like Richard Childress, and then the second shot I get is with Kyle Busch,” Coulter said. “I feel pretty fortunate to have those opportunities. It’s definitely something where after they make you that offer you go back and think, ‘Are they sure they wanted me? Was that the right guy?’ I think it’s going to be a great season. There’s a little bit of pressure, but it’s a big confidence-booster. It’s a lot of encouragement at the same time.”

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Keselowski, Logano willing to trade tips, swap strategies

Brad Keselowski has a new paint scheme, one that incorporates more white on both the front quarter and even the wheels of the Blue Deuce. He has a new car model, a Ford to replace the Dodge he has driven the past three years. He even has a new firesuit, one he helped design.

It all seems appropriate for the new Sprint Cup Series champion, who heads into a new NASCAR season having clearly asserted himself as one of the top drivers in his sport. And yet, there are some areas in which Keselowski feels his new teammate, Joey Logano, is even better than him.

“I think he has the ability to unload at a place like this and just instantly be fast, and that’s not my style,” Keselowski said in December at Charlotte Motor Speedway during a two-day test of 2013 Sprint Cup cars. “It’s something that I would like to add to my arsenal, because there are times where that’s really, really helpful, so those are some of the things I look at.”

Indeed, of all the changes the reigning champion is experiencing over this brief offseason — not in the least being a serious bump in both his bank account and public profile — among the most significant might be his stablemate at Penske Racing. After a year of upheaval, with the ousted Kurt Busch giving way to the released AJ Allmendinger giving way to the fill-in Sam Hornish Jr., in comes Logano, whose age matches the number on the side of his No. 22 car. He’ll try to bring a little stability to that ride, as well as follow his new teammate’s evolution from Sprint Cup race winner to title contender.

When Keselowski was 22, he was still trying to make it in part-time Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series rides. Even so, these teammates six years apart share some similarities. Both arrived at a relatively young age, both won a Sprint Cup event early in their careers, both hit rough patches attempting to take the next step.

"I think that Joey is an elite talent in this sport, and if we can work together that we will both be better."

— Brad Keselowski

Thanks to a pairing with crew chief Paul Wolfe, Keselowski was able to break through. Logano is still trying to get there, but Keselowski thought enough of his talent that he effectively orchestrated the hiring once it became clear that Penske would look beyond the organization to fill the seat in the No. 22. Indeed, it was the shared struggle of trying to stay afloat at NASCAR’s top level that made them friends before they became teammates.

Now they’re linked together, and both drivers have plenty of skin in the game — Logano gets another opportunity with a top Sprint Cup outfit (following four years with Joe Gibbs Racing), while Keselowski gets a chance to back up the clout he’s built within a team that’s allowed him more influence in decision-making as his career has blossomed. It was Keselowski who urged Logano to put his name in contention for the No. 22, who arranged the audience with owner Roger Penske, who pushed and pulled until it happened.

Which means that Logano’s results in 2013 and beyond will reflect not just on himself, but also on his teammate in the No. 2 car. Not surprisingly, Keselowski is a true believer in Logano’s abilities, and thinks having a teammate with which he shares so much in common — not to mention has something to prove — will push both of them to improve, even in the wake of Penske’s first championship in NASCAR’s premier series.

“At the end of the day, I think that Joey is an elite talent in this sport, and if we can work together that we will both be better,” Keselowski said. “I would rather finish second to him next year in every race, and even the championship, than to rest on my laurels, not get any better and … run fifth, 10th, 15th, 17th — whatever it might be — and beat him. I think it’s that spirit that is going to drive us to be the best we can.”

Logano is no longer the third driver alongside two older, more experienced and more decorated peers, as he was at Gibbs. He and Keselowski seem to have already forged a closer bond than the new champion shared with any of his past teammates at Penske — that’s not surprising, given their pre-existing friendship. Logano said he and Keselowski spoke in the weeks following Homestead to lay out a plan for 2013, but the Charlotte test was the first time they were able to really gauge their working relationship. Clearly, the information is flowing both ways.

“(It) was the first time we worked together at the race track driving a race car and then sitting down with him and talking about, ‘What do you think about this?  What’s your car doing?’  Back and forth, and it’s been really good,” Logano said. “The lines of communication have been very open between both teams, and I’m really excited about that. I think that’s definitely one of the biggest things I like over there right now. I think that’s definitely cool having Brad working with me and vice versa. I think it’s going to be good. I’m excited about it. They include me a lot, even with the decisions on personnel, so I like how they include the driver a lot.”

They’re already picking up ideas from one another. Keselowski likes Logano’s off-the-truck speed; Logano likes the way Keselowski approaches longer runs. Of course, two test days can’t replicate the rigors of an entire season. But in the early going, at least, both of these new teammates are learning things about one another they hope to apply to their own cars when the racing resumes for real.

“It’s really cool to have a teammate that’s a student of the sport, that really studies it and will push me to do things differently,” Logano said. “I think the coolest thing that Brad is able to do is he’s able to think outside of the box — like way outside the box. I think that’s interesting to me, to see the way his mind works.

“I’ve learned a lot the last couple days, and the ways he thinks through a race car is a little bit different than normal, and I think that’s cool. I think it’s good to have a little bit of both on a team, so I can learn a lot on the way he leads a team and drives a race car and the way he sets up his car. … There are a lot of different things. The way he drives his car is a little bit different than me, too. Taking some of his techniques, I’ve tried them out there and there are pros and cons to everything, but it gives me a few more tools to work with when I’m out there.”

The shared tactics will come with time, trial and error. For now, though, Logano’s arrival only solidifies the fact that Keselowski swings a very big stick within his organization, what with a Sprint Cup on the mantle — at the shop, that is; the driver doesn’t keep any trophies in his house — a handpicked teammate and the ear of a team owner who prizes the kind of performance the new champ has delivered. All that remains is the matter of indoctrinating Logano into the Penske fold. Toward that end, Keselowski has an idea.

“The best way I can break in Joey is to get him one of those championship glasses and take him out for the night,” he said, referring to his beer-soaked celebration that followed the championship clincher at Homestead last month. “I think he’d really enjoy that, and I’d really enjoy it. Too soon?”

Posted on by NASCAR Wire Service

Stenhouse Jr. celebrates, looks ahead to 2013 Sprint Cup slate

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — It was as if Regan Smith never had been gone.

Making his first Nationwide Series start in five years, Smith drove to victory in Saturday’s Ford EcoBoost 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, beating pole-sitter Kyle Busch to the finish line by 1.375 seconds.

As Smith scored his first victory in the series for JR Motorsports, the team that has hired him full-time for next year, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. rolled to a workmanlike, problem-free sixth-place result to lock up his second consecutive championship.

Brendan Gaughan ran third, followed by Sam Hornish Jr. and Austin Dillon. Elliott Sadler came home ninth and held on to second place in the final series standings.

When Smith last raced in the series in 2007, there were no tapered spacers restricting horsepower, and the body styles were markedly different. On Saturday, Smith showed how well he could adapt.

"It’s really neat to be able to go back-to-back, when only now six of us have done it."

— Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

"For me, I think there’s been a ton of changes since ’07," Smith said. "The tapered spacer, I think, is probably the biggest thing because it chokes the motor down so much. That took some time to get used to in the first practice, and even at the start of the second practice, I was still getting used to what I could do with the throttle.

"It didn’t hurt that I had a fast race car from the start, so I didn’t have to worry about a lot of things. We made a lot of changes and tried a lot of stuff, but, at the same time, that balance was always there pretty close. … It’s definitely a good start."

Stenhouse is the sixth driver to win consecutive Nationwide titles, joining Sam Ard, Larry Pearson, Randy LaJoie, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Martin Truex Jr. He’s also the first Roush Fenway Racing driver to achieve the feat.

"It’s really neat to be able to go back-to-back, when only now six of us have done it," said Stenhouse, who will drive full-time in the Sprint Cup Series for Roush Fenway next year. "That’s pretty special. It really makes me see how hard that 48 team [of Jimmie Johnson] works on the Cup side with five in a row.

"It was a great two years, and we’ve had a lot of fun. We look forward to our opportunity next year."

Trying to extend an eight-year streak of winning at least one Nationwide race per year, Busch led 65 of the first 66 laps, pulling out to a lead of more than nine seconds over second-place Regan Smith. The dynamic of the race changed dramatically, however, after two quick cautions, the first on Lap 66 for Ryan Truex’s crash in Turn 4.

Busch’s Toyota became extremely loose, and Smith and Dillon took turns at the front of the field. As the race progressed, Dillon became every bit as dominant as Busch had been earlier, building a lead of more than eight seconds over Smith before a cycle of green-flag pit stops that ran from Lap 145 through Lap 152.

Dillon’s lead shrank to 3.093 seconds after the exchange of pit stops, and Smith subsequently chopped it down to 1.7 seconds before NASCAR called the fourth caution, for debris, on Lap 174.

Busch took advantage to the late cautions to regain his form but was no match for Smith over a 15-lap green-flag run to the finish.

Posted on by NASCAR Wire Service

Thrilling finish caps Buescher’s first championship

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — With sparks flying as the two trucks raced to the finish line, Cale Gale beat Kyle Busch by .014 seconds to win Friday night’s Ford EcoBoost 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Behind the dramatic race to the checkers, James Buescher rolled to his first series championship, securing the title with a 13th-place run.
 
In a championship battle that generated little drama until the closing laps — when rookie Ty Dillon made a last-ditch move — Buescher drove a methodical race en route to the title. After Dillon wrecked with two laps left in regulation distance, Buescher finished six points ahead of series runner-up Timothy Peters, who ran eighth Friday.
 
Joey Coulter finished third in the season finale, followed by Nelson Piquet Jr. and Miguel Paludo.
 
Gale claimed the first victory of his career in a green-white-checkered finish that took the race six laps beyond its scheduled distance of 134 laps. As he and Busch exited the final turn, Gale pinched Busch’s No. 18 Toyota against the outside wall, taking the checkered flag by a nose in a shower of sparks.
 
"I got drove into the fence," Busch said. "That’s it. You saw it."
 
Gale didn’t disagree.

"This is definitely the coolest thing I’ve ever done in racing."

— James Buescher

"It’s not my style, but I knew that, if I could pinch him a little bit, I could get the advantage, and pretty much, that’s what I was thinking at that point," Gale said. "A guy like me, it’s my first opportunity to come down for the checkered flag in a NASCAR race.

"Kyle’s a racer. He’s been in the same position I’ve been in. We’ve all seen hungry racers get an opportunity and take it. That’s what you have to do in this sport. He owes me, but I saw the checkers in the final race. That’s all I can say…
 
"When it comes down to the final straightaway to win at Homestead in the last race, and your first NASCAR win, I believe anybody would do it."
 
Buescher started 17th, 14 spots behind Dillon (who entered the race 12 points behind the leader), but the driver of the No. 31 Chevrolet moved briskly toward the front, working his way up to eighth by the time debris from Bryan Silas’ contact with the outside wall in Turn 4 caused the second caution on Lap 43.
 
Buescher had dropped to 12th, the last car on the lead lap, when NASCAR called the third caution on Lap 104, again for debris. He held that spot after pit stops under the yellow and gained one spot to 11th before Max Gresham’s spin with 10 laps left brought out caution number four.
 
After a restart on Lap 130, Dillon charged into second place, 11 positions ahead of Buescher, but contact between the trucks of Kyle Larson and Dillon wrecked both as they fought for second and also collected the Dodge of Ryan Blaney.
 
Buescher pitted for tires after a 10-minute, 40-second stoppage and came home 13th after the two-lap sprint to the finish.
 
"Everybody on this team has done a fantastic job," said Buescher, who won four times on the way to the title. "We had a shot at it last year, but we came into this year swinging and did a lot of work over the offseason. It definitely paid off. This is definitely the coolest thing I’ve ever done in racing."
 
Despite the wreck that took him out of contention and dropped him to fourth in the standings behind Coulter, Dillon was philosophical when he talked about the final race.
 
"We just had to go out there and win the race and make something happen," said Dillon, the series rookie of the year. "I just tried to make something happen there at the end, I got to second, and the points were looking good.
 
"We just missed that championship by a little bit, but I’m all right with everything that played out. We were going for it. We almost had it. We were trying to hit the home run in the bottom of the ninth and almost did it. But it’s all right. We’ll be back next year, fighting harder than ever."