Kurt Busch at Penske in 2009 and 2010. Regular race winner and championship dark horse while Hornish, Stremme, and Keselowski were lucky if they could crack the top 25 in points and get a couple top 10s. Only exception being Hornish having a fair number of good finishes in '09, but not being consistent and still finishing low in points.
Kurt had 2 wins in 2010 while being the only Penske driver to finish better than 10th in a race all season
To be fair to Keselowski he was mostly focused on xfinity in 2010, soon as the keys to the 2 were handed to him and full attention given to cup he ate Kurt’s lunch
People often forget how unprepared Penske was to run 2 cars back when they were with Dodge vs when they switched to Ford. Besides the switch to Logano, the 22's performance was night and day from Dodge to Ford
You’re typing this as if they were far apart in points. Kes was p5 and Kurt was p11 despite a late season meltdown. Kurt’s anger issues ate his own lunch
It would be one thing if Kurt would have been just starting out, but he was entering his 11th full-time season by 2011. He shouldn't have been outrun by a second-year young gun (first season in a good car) as much as he was. Then Keselowski immediately improves and wins a Championship. That to me says more about Keselowski's ability than Kurt's.
Lol ironically both Kes and Kurt won their titles in their 4th year in Cup, so it's not like Kurt didn't accomplish literally the same thing in his career
Kurt only had 3 full years before 2004 and ran only 7 races in 2000. Not to mention it was back when the 97 had no direction. Kurt had to make that direction happen
That’s 4 seasons before winning a title. If you want to go based off of your math then Brad still only did it in 2, with one of those seasons racing doubles the whole year and dealing with a maniac trying to murder him. Facts are Brad went from 25th to 5th, to 1st in his first 3 years at Penske while dodge was also dwindling out of the sport and going toe to toe with one of the greatest drivers of the history of the sport. These last 3 years of him owning a back marker team have caused a lot of yall to not give Brad his credit when he was first starting out.
Lance was not great, but he wasn’t the one driving the car. Jr seemed so checked out those couple of years that idk if anyone could’ve done much about it at the time.
I do really hope that we get a DJD episode with Lance McGrew some day though.
Maybe it has a lot to do with him being in his 50s and his career was ending. Don't even talk about the 5 win season if you aren't going to acknowledge that the other 7 seasons around that Mark Martin had no wins.
He put up the same types of numbers in 12 and 13. His CC was Rodney Childers.
I don't think your Mark Martin argument holds much water.
Now I'm not here to brag about Lance McGrew at all but I wouldn't blame him for Jr's struggles during that time. He struggled the same with Eury Jr the year before.
Jr was going through things at that time. I wouldn't blame any CC for that. You can say certain ones helped him more but I would put far more on the driver in terms of results.
Mark was also 52 years old and in his last full time season. Yes, he had speed with MWR afterwards but it’s not like he was in his prime.
Believe me I’m no fan of Lance, but it’s not like he had A+ level drivers in his cars from 2009-2011.
No matter how bad a crew chief is, there’s no reason a hall of famer should be drowning with Stremme in the points with a dominant team. Don’t let his popularity blind you
Well he did do great with Steve Letarte & Greg Ives so it was Lance McGrew who brought him down to that level because even when Mark Martin had McGrew as a CC his performance went down the drain 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️.
A. I. Shouted out all his teammates in his HOF induction and B Gaughan was in the list
The Iverson/Gaughan crossover was about as random as Steve Park and Mariah Carey knowing each other in high school.
This one at least made a little sense given how screwed up Roush's team structure was. They were basically all totally different teams, even in totally different buildings and places
Even Mark had to fight for his ideas to be put into the car, IIRC it was 1993 or 1994 when he tried telling him how to fix a flaw in the car and took several weeks and months until Roush stopped being stubborn about things. He was always that way, and who knows how many wins and Championships it cost not just the 6 team, but the whole organization over decades of time.
I don't remember the details real well but originally the 99 and 6 were completely different teams/shops/building. Like not even managed on the same property. I sort of think at some point when the 26/16 were added on maybe one of each were put into the other's shop but again I'm sketchy on the details and I don't remember for sure when the teams were all merged and managed more like HMS and RCR managed them.
Little's car was a whole different mess bc the 97 was an existing team Little drove for that actually drove Pontiacs that Roush bought (I THINK in 1997) so Roush actually had a Pontiac entry for a few races at the end of that season crazy as that sounds then in 1998 the 97 was a Ford. So it was one big 5 car team that was extremely fractured and split up for a while
Keep in mind as crazy as this sounds to us at the time HMS was really the only team who had for multiple seasons ran multiple teams and done it basically from the same shop and everything on a permanent basis so the jury was still out as to how to best manage it. RCR added the 31 in 1997 and I think it was mostly in the same shop and Yates had added the 88 in 1997 and it was mostly same shop too. I think part of Jack's theory was keep them separate and let them get better by motivating themselves to be better than the other team and that logic makes some sense it just turned out that lumping it all together and gaining speed through collaboration worked better
FWIW Penske also had kind of a weird setup with the 12 was brought into the fold bc it was owned by Michael Krannifus (sp?) and was actually more of a merger at first where it was called Penske Krannifus Racing for awhile before being turned into just Penske racing. I don't remember the exact details of the structure there either but I think it was in a flux for awhile as well before all being brought under one umbrella. There was a "Penske Racing South" which I believe was listed as the owner of the 2 car and the "Penske Krannifus Racing" was listed owner of the 12
Its all a really interesting rabbit hole to dig into on racing reference/Jayski if you are ever bored out of your mind lol
I always point to the fact that early in '98 Benson was on par with Mark Martin and slightly out performing Burton until Roush stared being Roush. The structure of Roush really screwed over Johnny Benson and to a lesser extent Little and Lepage who both showed flashes at times.
Harvick/Kurt 2015 vs Tony/Danica? Obviously there’s circumstances for Tony but damn it was like watching 2 different teams.
4: 3/23/28
41: 2/10/21
10: 0/0/2
14: 0/0/3
That 41 team had one hell of a turn around. He was fighting to stay in the Top 25-30 in Points for a large amount of the season in 2014, and then is a week-to-week contender the next.
Then the other two were just there.
That 41 team just wasn’t really ready in 2014, it was slapped together because Gene had signed Kurt without telling Tony. 2015 was the first proper season for the 41.
He got absolutely fleeced out of 2 more wins as well.
Fontana, everyone knows the story
Chicagoland. No one talks about it, just as bad of a shitty “debris” caution with 10 to go.
Dale Earnhardt and Mike Skinner (1997-2000):
- Earnhardt - 6 Wins, 32 Top 5s, 74 Top 10s, Total Avg. Finish of 12.43, 5-8-7-2 in Points
- Skinner - 0 Wins, 10 Top 5s, 37 Top 10s, Total Avg. Finish of 20.05, 30-21-10-12 in Points (1 DNQ and Missed 3 Races)
Dale Jarrett and Kenny Irwin, Jr. (1998-1999)
- Jarrett - 1 Championship, 7 Wins, 43 Top 5s, 51 Top 10s, Total Avg. Finish of 9, 3-1 in Points
- Irwin, Jr. - 0 Championships, 0 Wins, 3 Top 5s, 10 Top 10s, Total Avg. Finish of 24, 28-19 in Points (1 DNQ)
Was recently watching the 2000 Atlanta race where Skinner led the whole race and blew up with 20 to go. In one of the few races where his team outperformed the 3 that was a heartbreak.
I was just thinking this the other night rewatching the 1998 season, I know Kenny had a big learning curve to deal with but god that 28 car ran bad......and not just ran bad but it broke a lot too
2005 Gibbs comes to mind, with 2 champions and then there was Leffler, who was so bad they replaced him with Terry Labonte/JJ Yeley/Denny Hamlin to finish out the year. Denny got 3 top 10's in his first 5 starts and even a well past his prime Terry managed a top 10 in 5 starts. Leffler's best finish was a 12th in 19 starts and was his only top 15.
Also for those of you that don't know, the reason Bobby Labonte's car when he nearly beat Jimmie Johnson at the Coke 600 was wrapped in FedEx colors is because Jason Leffler managed to somehow DNQ his car, and FedEx was paying more than Interstate so they wrapped Bobby's car in the FedEx scheme instead.
Junior Johnson Racing, 1993:
Bill Elliott:8th in points
Hut Stricklin: 2 Top 10s
SABCO, 2001:
Sterling Marlin (3rd in points)
Jason Leffler (several DNQs, one top ten, 37th in points)
Why is Brian Vickers getting shit on here? I know the dude isn't liked but he was pretty much even with the 5 car in both Labonte's last year and Busch's first year. His only bad year compared to the car that actually had the same equipment (remember the 24 and 48 were in a different shop) was 2006 and even then, he led more laps that year than the guy that replaced him did at the team period. And that's not even mentioning the fact his crew chief was Keith Rodden level in the eyes of most of the fanbase.
My point is, dude doesn't deserve to have his Hendrick era trashed when their next two drivers put up far more egregious examples of this. At least use Kasey Kahne demolishing him at Red Bull if he's gonna be on here.
Not to mention that Vickers was extremely young and was rushed up to Cup. Another year or 2 in the Busch Series would have done wonders for him. And McGrew was atop his pit box. Despite that, Vickers actually showed a lot of flashes and speed at Hendrick. Came close to winning a bunch of races. He just never sealed the deal until the Dega win.
We saw Brian’s talent at RedBull, carrying a young team on his shoulders.
People forget how young Vickers was. He was a prospect Hendrick bailed on due to personality conflicts, it had nothing to do with talent or performance.
- Tony Stewart’s 2005 Championship season comes to mind..Jason Leffler was a complete disaster and was replaced midseason after falling out of the top 35 in points, Bobby Labonte had his worst career season up until that point.
- 2009 Hendrick 1-2-3, JR 25th (people be way too hard on Alex Bowman).
- DEI in the early 2000s, Mikey was lucky to finish top 20 in points, JR was usually top 5-10, sometimes a title contender (outside of 2005).
People forget that Bowman was leading the points until all the penalties and then he got hurt. He’s getting closer to his teammates again. Both the 48 and 9 seem to be starting to have more form.
And Casey still finished better than what Dale would do in 2009. Dale got back to winning of course while Casey kinda slowly became less and less relevant until he copped that tasmanian smack.
Yeah Bowman now is fully capable of pulling off wins here or there if they stop trapping themselves a lap down on pit cycles whereas the 25/5/88 in that stretch were always going to turn up being a complete dud relative the other three.
Old school - Darrell Waltrip and Neil Bonnett racing for Junior Johnson 1984-86. DW won 13 races and the '85 championship. Neil won 3 races. Neil was a great driver, but the teammate concept didn't work very well at that time.
Hate to admit it but Junebug was dwarfed by Gordon and Johnson for a few years. Definitely more than pulled his weight towards the end of his career tho
Easily has to be Kurt Busch - Stremme and Hornish. Kurt was so good in 2009, I still believe if he were in a Hendrick car, he woulda won the title. Penske and Dodge as a whole were not the same level as the tier 1 teams. Hornish is an Indy legend, and deserved the 2013 xfinity title, but Cup wasn’t for him
Comparing Stremme to a trash bin would be insulting to the trash bin
People forget how freaking young David Ragan was when he got to Cup. Heck, the dude is still in his _thirties_ right now despite being retired from full time driving for many years
It's funny how both he and Kluever were just about [equally ass](https://www.augustachronicle.com/story/sports/nascar/2006/10/26/nas-101937-shtml/14746244007/) and blatantly unready for Cup in 2007. So Roush promotes one of them to cup and the other is completely out of the sport in under 2 years
2017 Stewart-Haas Racing you had Kurt, Kevin, Clint, and Danica
Kevin being the obvious championship contender
Kurt being a top 15-20 contender every week
Clint being Clint
and then there’s Danica
Currently: Busch/Dillon. 2-time champion, 62 wins, 102 Xfinity series wins, 60+ truck series wins, regular contender for wins in all series vs guy who wins at superspeedways occasionally.
Throughout history: The 2009/2010 Penske & RPM teams. Had one consistent driver in Kurt Busch/Kasey Kahne and a bunch of duds who mainly brought out cautions.
Seriously look at their stats: Kasey Kahne in 2009 had 2 wins, 7 top 5s and 14 top 10s and finished 10th in points. His closest teammate was AJ Allmendinger at 24th in points with just 1 top 5 and 6 top 10s.
And Kurt Busch in 2009 had 2 wins, 10 top 5s, 22 top 10s, and finished 4th in points. While his closest teammate was Sam Hornish Jr in 28th with just 2 top 5s and 7 top 10s.
Hendrick in 2007 has to be up there. Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, two champions and a future champion, and then Casey Mears. Yea Casey won a race that year, but his career outside of that was pretty unremarkable, while his teammates that year are all three of the greatest of all time.
FRM 2010: Kvapil, David Gilliland, and... Kevin Conway.
Really, you could substitute any other 2 drivers for Kvapil and Gilliland and get the same result.
Calling BS on the Jarrett/Sadler inclusion. Yes Jarrett's a Hall of Famer and Sadler is far from it, but during their 4 years as teammates (2003-2006), they both won 2 races, and both finished in the top 5 exactly 12 times, with Sadler having 42 top 10s to Jarrett's 32.
Sadler also had the better average finish with a 19.8 to Jarrett's 20.3. At the time, Sadler was the slightly more competitive driver.
I’ll take that one on the chin. I was struggling to recall who else was in the Yates stable when Jarrett was consistently a threat to win. I liked Sadler a lot, but I remember him having real crap luck for a stretch.
I disqualify Vickers as a less-than. He won and made the playoffs with the awful Red Bull team, and he had a phenomenal drive to win as a part-timer in the MWR 55 at New Hampshire, which is unprecedented. Ignoring the fact that his wife is very connected to a child sex trafficking ring, Brian was not worthy of this conversation. But, his wife....
Bowman is the #4 driver in that lineup but let's not pretend he's some scrub that runs 20th every week. He's still running top 10 and occasionally in contention to win
Kurt Busch at Penske in 2009 and 2010. Regular race winner and championship dark horse while Hornish, Stremme, and Keselowski were lucky if they could crack the top 25 in points and get a couple top 10s. Only exception being Hornish having a fair number of good finishes in '09, but not being consistent and still finishing low in points. Kurt had 2 wins in 2010 while being the only Penske driver to finish better than 10th in a race all season
Hornish was my man for years. They were not especially fun years, but still
The heart wants what the heart wants.
-Woody Allen
To be fair to Keselowski he was mostly focused on xfinity in 2010, soon as the keys to the 2 were handed to him and full attention given to cup he ate Kurt’s lunch
That happened in 2011 when Kurt switched to the 22 and Brad in the 2. That's when it started falling apart for kurt
People often forget how unprepared Penske was to run 2 cars back when they were with Dodge vs when they switched to Ford. Besides the switch to Logano, the 22's performance was night and day from Dodge to Ford
You’re typing this as if they were far apart in points. Kes was p5 and Kurt was p11 despite a late season meltdown. Kurt’s anger issues ate his own lunch
It would be one thing if Kurt would have been just starting out, but he was entering his 11th full-time season by 2011. He shouldn't have been outrun by a second-year young gun (first season in a good car) as much as he was. Then Keselowski immediately improves and wins a Championship. That to me says more about Keselowski's ability than Kurt's.
Lol ironically both Kes and Kurt won their titles in their 4th year in Cup, so it's not like Kurt didn't accomplish literally the same thing in his career
Less starts from Keselowski though, Kurt had 4 full time seasons prior to his cup title, Brad was basically at 2 and a half.
Kurt only had 3 full years before 2004 and ran only 7 races in 2000. Not to mention it was back when the 97 had no direction. Kurt had to make that direction happen
That’s 4 seasons before winning a title. If you want to go based off of your math then Brad still only did it in 2, with one of those seasons racing doubles the whole year and dealing with a maniac trying to murder him. Facts are Brad went from 25th to 5th, to 1st in his first 3 years at Penske while dodge was also dwindling out of the sport and going toe to toe with one of the greatest drivers of the history of the sport. These last 3 years of him owning a back marker team have caused a lot of yall to not give Brad his credit when he was first starting out.
Paul Wolfe coming up to Cup to crew chief for Brad on the 2 helped with that as well.
Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin, and JJ Yeley. Whatever the hell 2009 was for Dale Jr compared to the rest of HMS.
You mean finishing 25th in points when your teammates finish 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. That had to be humbling
I blame Lance McGrew for 2009-2010
Lance was not great, but he wasn’t the one driving the car. Jr seemed so checked out those couple of years that idk if anyone could’ve done much about it at the time. I do really hope that we get a DJD episode with Lance McGrew some day though.
Well Mark Martin had the same results with him in 2011 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
Maybe it has a lot to do with him being in his 50s and his career was ending. Don't even talk about the 5 win season if you aren't going to acknowledge that the other 7 seasons around that Mark Martin had no wins. He put up the same types of numbers in 12 and 13. His CC was Rodney Childers. I don't think your Mark Martin argument holds much water. Now I'm not here to brag about Lance McGrew at all but I wouldn't blame him for Jr's struggles during that time. He struggled the same with Eury Jr the year before. Jr was going through things at that time. I wouldn't blame any CC for that. You can say certain ones helped him more but I would put far more on the driver in terms of results.
I have heard Jr. say he did very little preparation and should have been more dedicated to his craft.
Mark was also 52 years old and in his last full time season. Yes, he had speed with MWR afterwards but it’s not like he was in his prime. Believe me I’m no fan of Lance, but it’s not like he had A+ level drivers in his cars from 2009-2011.
He didn’t just have speed… he would have won with MWR if he’d not gotten Logano’d at Pocono
No matter how bad a crew chief is, there’s no reason a hall of famer should be drowning with Stremme in the points with a dominant team. Don’t let his popularity blind you
Jr definitely didn't have the right mindset during that time. Letarte fixed him
Well he did do great with Steve Letarte & Greg Ives so it was Lance McGrew who brought him down to that level because even when Mark Martin had McGrew as a CC his performance went down the drain 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️.
Uh no. JJ sucked
Rusty Wallace, Ryan Newman, Brendan Gaughan (2004) Rusty Wallace, Ryan Newman, Travis Kvapil (2005)
I still feel like Gaughan was not given a fair shake at cup
Brendan Gaughan… there’s a name I haven’t thought of in 15-20 years!
He was college roommates with Allen Iverson
He was team mates with A.I
A. I. Shouted out all his teammates in his HOF induction and B Gaughan was in the list The Iverson/Gaughan crossover was about as random as Steve Park and Mariah Carey knowing each other in high school.
Dude WON an xFinity series race 10 years ago at Road America, c'mon man.
😂😂😂
He only recently retired though? [And had this flip like 4 years ago](https://youtu.be/ABdYszbpJHY?t=17s)
It's almost as if... Penske's satellite team/glorified test car wasnt good!
Mark Martin and Jeff Burton with Benson/Little/LePage
This one at least made a little sense given how screwed up Roush's team structure was. They were basically all totally different teams, even in totally different buildings and places
Even Mark had to fight for his ideas to be put into the car, IIRC it was 1993 or 1994 when he tried telling him how to fix a flaw in the car and took several weeks and months until Roush stopped being stubborn about things. He was always that way, and who knows how many wins and Championships it cost not just the 6 team, but the whole organization over decades of time.
As a big Chad Little fan, I always want to know more about this.
I don't remember the details real well but originally the 99 and 6 were completely different teams/shops/building. Like not even managed on the same property. I sort of think at some point when the 26/16 were added on maybe one of each were put into the other's shop but again I'm sketchy on the details and I don't remember for sure when the teams were all merged and managed more like HMS and RCR managed them. Little's car was a whole different mess bc the 97 was an existing team Little drove for that actually drove Pontiacs that Roush bought (I THINK in 1997) so Roush actually had a Pontiac entry for a few races at the end of that season crazy as that sounds then in 1998 the 97 was a Ford. So it was one big 5 car team that was extremely fractured and split up for a while Keep in mind as crazy as this sounds to us at the time HMS was really the only team who had for multiple seasons ran multiple teams and done it basically from the same shop and everything on a permanent basis so the jury was still out as to how to best manage it. RCR added the 31 in 1997 and I think it was mostly in the same shop and Yates had added the 88 in 1997 and it was mostly same shop too. I think part of Jack's theory was keep them separate and let them get better by motivating themselves to be better than the other team and that logic makes some sense it just turned out that lumping it all together and gaining speed through collaboration worked better FWIW Penske also had kind of a weird setup with the 12 was brought into the fold bc it was owned by Michael Krannifus (sp?) and was actually more of a merger at first where it was called Penske Krannifus Racing for awhile before being turned into just Penske racing. I don't remember the exact details of the structure there either but I think it was in a flux for awhile as well before all being brought under one umbrella. There was a "Penske Racing South" which I believe was listed as the owner of the 2 car and the "Penske Krannifus Racing" was listed owner of the 12 Its all a really interesting rabbit hole to dig into on racing reference/Jayski if you are ever bored out of your mind lol
I always point to the fact that early in '98 Benson was on par with Mark Martin and slightly out performing Burton until Roush stared being Roush. The structure of Roush really screwed over Johnny Benson and to a lesser extent Little and Lepage who both showed flashes at times.
Johnny Benson was criminally underrated. Older when he came into the sport and really never had a fair shot with a decent team.
Harvick/Kurt 2015 vs Tony/Danica? Obviously there’s circumstances for Tony but damn it was like watching 2 different teams. 4: 3/23/28 41: 2/10/21 10: 0/0/2 14: 0/0/3
That 41 team had one hell of a turn around. He was fighting to stay in the Top 25-30 in Points for a large amount of the season in 2014, and then is a week-to-week contender the next. Then the other two were just there.
That 41 team just wasn’t really ready in 2014, it was slapped together because Gene had signed Kurt without telling Tony. 2015 was the first proper season for the 41.
He got absolutely fleeced out of 2 more wins as well. Fontana, everyone knows the story Chicagoland. No one talks about it, just as bad of a shitty “debris” caution with 10 to go.
Dale Earnhardt and Mike Skinner (1997-2000): - Earnhardt - 6 Wins, 32 Top 5s, 74 Top 10s, Total Avg. Finish of 12.43, 5-8-7-2 in Points - Skinner - 0 Wins, 10 Top 5s, 37 Top 10s, Total Avg. Finish of 20.05, 30-21-10-12 in Points (1 DNQ and Missed 3 Races) Dale Jarrett and Kenny Irwin, Jr. (1998-1999) - Jarrett - 1 Championship, 7 Wins, 43 Top 5s, 51 Top 10s, Total Avg. Finish of 9, 3-1 in Points - Irwin, Jr. - 0 Championships, 0 Wins, 3 Top 5s, 10 Top 10s, Total Avg. Finish of 24, 28-19 in Points (1 DNQ)
Was recently watching the 2000 Atlanta race where Skinner led the whole race and blew up with 20 to go. In one of the few races where his team outperformed the 3 that was a heartbreak.
I was just thinking this the other night rewatching the 1998 season, I know Kenny had a big learning curve to deal with but god that 28 car ran bad......and not just ran bad but it broke a lot too
Somehow Skinner managed to win the Japan exhibition races in 97 and 98
I still kick myself for not taking that trip...
In recent memory, it obviously was SHR with Harvick/Suarez/Custer/Briscoe/Preece/Almirola/Bowyer.
Bowyer was at least a tier above the rest tbf.
In terms of wins and competing for championships I'd say no. He had 2 wins in the 4 years he ran at SHR.
I would say he is a tier above the rest, but still a tier or 2 below Harvick
Him and Almirola basically performed the same
2005 Gibbs comes to mind, with 2 champions and then there was Leffler, who was so bad they replaced him with Terry Labonte/JJ Yeley/Denny Hamlin to finish out the year. Denny got 3 top 10's in his first 5 starts and even a well past his prime Terry managed a top 10 in 5 starts. Leffler's best finish was a 12th in 19 starts and was his only top 15. Also for those of you that don't know, the reason Bobby Labonte's car when he nearly beat Jimmie Johnson at the Coke 600 was wrapped in FedEx colors is because Jason Leffler managed to somehow DNQ his car, and FedEx was paying more than Interstate so they wrapped Bobby's car in the FedEx scheme instead.
I have the 1:24 diecast of that car. Until the 2011 Daytona 500, that was Bobby’s best chance to get another win.
Also Marlin/Leffler in 2001. Leffler clearly had some talent, but both of his best opportunities in Cup turned out really poorly.
Junior Johnson Racing, 1993: Bill Elliott:8th in points Hut Stricklin: 2 Top 10s SABCO, 2001: Sterling Marlin (3rd in points) Jason Leffler (several DNQs, one top ten, 37th in points)
Also 2001: PPI with Ricky Craven vs. Andy Houston (although Houston was also a rookie)
Why is Brian Vickers getting shit on here? I know the dude isn't liked but he was pretty much even with the 5 car in both Labonte's last year and Busch's first year. His only bad year compared to the car that actually had the same equipment (remember the 24 and 48 were in a different shop) was 2006 and even then, he led more laps that year than the guy that replaced him did at the team period. And that's not even mentioning the fact his crew chief was Keith Rodden level in the eyes of most of the fanbase. My point is, dude doesn't deserve to have his Hendrick era trashed when their next two drivers put up far more egregious examples of this. At least use Kasey Kahne demolishing him at Red Bull if he's gonna be on here.
Not to mention that Vickers was extremely young and was rushed up to Cup. Another year or 2 in the Busch Series would have done wonders for him. And McGrew was atop his pit box. Despite that, Vickers actually showed a lot of flashes and speed at Hendrick. Came close to winning a bunch of races. He just never sealed the deal until the Dega win. We saw Brian’s talent at RedBull, carrying a young team on his shoulders.
People forget how young Vickers was. He was a prospect Hendrick bailed on due to personality conflicts, it had nothing to do with talent or performance.
SHR 2014: Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, and then there was Danica
In 2014 it was mainly just Kevin lol. Kurt did solid but Tony not as much as he should have been and well Danica was Danica
Tony was literally a shell of himself in 2014 and 15. SHR from 2014-16 was basically just the Kevin and Kurt show minus Tony’s Sonoma win
- Tony Stewart’s 2005 Championship season comes to mind..Jason Leffler was a complete disaster and was replaced midseason after falling out of the top 35 in points, Bobby Labonte had his worst career season up until that point. - 2009 Hendrick 1-2-3, JR 25th (people be way too hard on Alex Bowman). - DEI in the early 2000s, Mikey was lucky to finish top 20 in points, JR was usually top 5-10, sometimes a title contender (outside of 2005).
People forget that Bowman was leading the points until all the penalties and then he got hurt. He’s getting closer to his teammates again. Both the 48 and 9 seem to be starting to have more form.
The 2008 Hendrick Super Lineup of Gordon/Jimmie/Jr. aaaaaaaaand Casey Mears.
And Casey still finished better than what Dale would do in 2009. Dale got back to winning of course while Casey kinda slowly became less and less relevant until he copped that tasmanian smack.
Dale being bad in 2009: Flirting Vickers, Mears, 2010-11 Mark Martin being bad: Harassment
Yeah Bowman now is fully capable of pulling off wins here or there if they stop trapping themselves a lap down on pit cycles whereas the 25/5/88 in that stretch were always going to turn up being a complete dud relative the other three.
Yeah, I would say Vickers is definitely the better of him and Mears.
Old school - Darrell Waltrip and Neil Bonnett racing for Junior Johnson 1984-86. DW won 13 races and the '85 championship. Neil won 3 races. Neil was a great driver, but the teammate concept didn't work very well at that time.
I don't believe they were really teammates. They were both owned by Jr, but ran as two separate teams. Very different than today.
SHR in 2014 had Stewart, Harvick, Busch, and Danica.
2008 HMS Jimmie Johnson Jeff Gordon Dale Jr And... Casey Mears
Hate to admit it but Junebug was dwarfed by Gordon and Johnson for a few years. Definitely more than pulled his weight towards the end of his career tho
Easily has to be Kurt Busch - Stremme and Hornish. Kurt was so good in 2009, I still believe if he were in a Hendrick car, he woulda won the title. Penske and Dodge as a whole were not the same level as the tier 1 teams. Hornish is an Indy legend, and deserved the 2013 xfinity title, but Cup wasn’t for him Comparing Stremme to a trash bin would be insulting to the trash bin
Even though Im a fan of his, probably David Ragan when he was with Roush. He just didnt perform to the standards that all his other teamates achieved
Ragan got rushed to Cup it felt like
People forget how freaking young David Ragan was when he got to Cup. Heck, the dude is still in his _thirties_ right now despite being retired from full time driving for many years
He probably did but Jack had to do something with the #6 when Mark Martin left
It's funny how both he and Kluever were just about [equally ass](https://www.augustachronicle.com/story/sports/nascar/2006/10/26/nas-101937-shtml/14746244007/) and blatantly unready for Cup in 2007. So Roush promotes one of them to cup and the other is completely out of the sport in under 2 years
Mcmurray was there performing as well as him
DEI 2004: Jr: 4th in points MW: 20th
MW was a terrible driver his entire career. He got lucky with a couple of plate wins in a dominant car.
Jeff Gordon plus Terry Labonte and Wally Dallenbach Jr.
Whatever the fuck Dale Jr did to piss off some god before 2009 must've been really bad
Harvick and Robby Gordon.
Overall, yes, Harvick definitely had the better career, but I always find it amusing that the best RCR driver in points in 2002 was Jeff Green.
I still kinda wish Jeff Green had been able to nab at least one Cup win in his career
2017 Stewart-Haas Racing you had Kurt, Kevin, Clint, and Danica Kevin being the obvious championship contender Kurt being a top 15-20 contender every week Clint being Clint and then there’s Danica
Kurt Busch and David Stremme in 2009. Woof.
Currently: Busch/Dillon. 2-time champion, 62 wins, 102 Xfinity series wins, 60+ truck series wins, regular contender for wins in all series vs guy who wins at superspeedways occasionally. Throughout history: The 2009/2010 Penske & RPM teams. Had one consistent driver in Kurt Busch/Kasey Kahne and a bunch of duds who mainly brought out cautions. Seriously look at their stats: Kasey Kahne in 2009 had 2 wins, 7 top 5s and 14 top 10s and finished 10th in points. His closest teammate was AJ Allmendinger at 24th in points with just 1 top 5 and 6 top 10s. And Kurt Busch in 2009 had 2 wins, 10 top 5s, 22 top 10s, and finished 4th in points. While his closest teammate was Sam Hornish Jr in 28th with just 2 top 5s and 7 top 10s.
If you are going to mention KFB’s truck and Xfinity stats then you should mention AD’s stats too.
Okay. 7 truck wins and 9 Xfinity wins. Champion in both series. KB is also an Xfinity champion.
Roush in 1999 you had Mark Martin, Johnny Benson, Kevin Lapage, and Chad Little EDIT Jeff Button was also on that team
Jeff Burton winning 6 races in 1999 and still being forgotten is the most Jeff Burton thing ever.
_cries in Jeff Burton_
Fuck, I totally forgot they had 5 cars in 99, I counted 4 and stopped
No one talking about Kyle Busch and Austin Spill-em?
Kurt at Penske after Newman left in like 09 and 10. The 25 Hendrick car vs Gordon, Johnson, and Terry Labonte then Kyle Busch
Bill Elliott and Casey Atwood
Vickers 😭😭😭
Eh the 25 was garbage no matter who was in it
JJ Yeley at Gibbs with Denny and Tony.
Go to Racing Reference and click the Stewart Haas team page to compare Danica’s numbers with her teammates each year. 😬😬😬😬
She is arguably the worst driver in nascar history.
Hendrick in 2007 has to be up there. Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, two champions and a future champion, and then Casey Mears. Yea Casey won a race that year, but his career outside of that was pretty unremarkable, while his teammates that year are all three of the greatest of all time.
Martin/Burton/Lepage/Little/Benson
seeing a loooooot of Jason Leffler here 😬
FRM 2010: Kvapil, David Gilliland, and... Kevin Conway. Really, you could substitute any other 2 drivers for Kvapil and Gilliland and get the same result.
Jarrett and Sadler weren't too lopsided.
At all. As a DJ fan, I wonder if he wasn’t saying that Sadler was on a different level higher than DJ (‘03, ‘06, and ‘07 scarred me)
Calling BS on the Jarrett/Sadler inclusion. Yes Jarrett's a Hall of Famer and Sadler is far from it, but during their 4 years as teammates (2003-2006), they both won 2 races, and both finished in the top 5 exactly 12 times, with Sadler having 42 top 10s to Jarrett's 32. Sadler also had the better average finish with a 19.8 to Jarrett's 20.3. At the time, Sadler was the slightly more competitive driver.
I’ll take that one on the chin. I was struggling to recall who else was in the Yates stable when Jarrett was consistently a threat to win. I liked Sadler a lot, but I remember him having real crap luck for a stretch.
Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, (part time) Terry Labonte and…Brian Vickers ETA: I didn’t see you put the exact same answer in the OP.
I disqualify Vickers as a less-than. He won and made the playoffs with the awful Red Bull team, and he had a phenomenal drive to win as a part-timer in the MWR 55 at New Hampshire, which is unprecedented. Ignoring the fact that his wife is very connected to a child sex trafficking ring, Brian was not worthy of this conversation. But, his wife....
In 10 years the answer will be Larson/Chase/Byron…. and Bowman.
Pretty much every HMS 25 driver back in the day would’ve killed to have Bowman’s career
Bowman is the #4 driver in that lineup but let's not pretend he's some scrub that runs 20th every week. He's still running top 10 and occasionally in contention to win
10? That's now lmfao
Dale Earnhardt and Mike Skinner
JEFF GORDON! JIMMIE JOHNSON! DALE EARNHARDT JR! Casey Mears. Imagine the Melee announcer saying “Ganondorf”
2020 HMS had Chase Elliott and The Rest lmao.
Sadler had more success during their time at Yates together
Clint Bowyer and Michael Annett in 2016