5 Points to Ponder: Ford Closing In On Their Competition

1. If the drivers don’t like a repave, is it safe to assume the racing will be good?

Rusty Wallace, on the Motor Racing Network Radio broadcast, said he couldn’t believe what he was watching. 

After a Cup season with less-than-stellar short track racing and a week of worry from drivers about the repaved bottom lanes in the turns, the NASCAR Hall of Famer and designer of Iowa Speedway was seeing three-wide racing all throughout the field.

Sunday’s (June 16) race averaged 11.7 green flag passes per lap according to NASCAR loop data, an even higher rate than at Bristol in March when there were 54 lead changes. There’s plenty of things that factored into what made the racing at Iowa great like tire wear concerns and less shifting, but let’s focus on just one here.

Many drivers had their minds made up on the repave at Iowa before the haulers even pulled into the Infield of Dreams. Kevin Harvick called it “one of the biggest F-ups of the year” on his podcast. Christopher Bell said after a tire test that it was going to become a one-groove race track. 

Then it provided one of the most entertaining races of the season, one that winner Ryan Blaney said “exceeded his expectations.”

Here’s a quick catch-up on recent NASCAR repaves. Atlanta announced a repave/reconfiguration, drivers hate it and it produces a new hybrid superspeedway style of racing that’s constantly entertained. 

North Wilkesboro Motor Speedway announces a repave, drivers hate it, but it produces more lanes and more wear for better racing. 

Sonoma Raceway announced a repave and drivers go out and set new track records with no pavement issues.

Before the next incoming “biggest F-up of the year” arrives, be it a repave or otherwise, maybe it’s best to wait for the results to speak for themselves.

2. Has Ford caught up to Toyota and Chevy?

Ford went from one of their worst starts as a manufacturer — going 0-for-12 to start the Cup season — to littering the playoff picture with blue ovals.

Blaney not only won at Iowa, he dominated with 207 laps led. It would have been his second win if he had a gallon of gas to spare at Gateway, where teammate Austin Cindric took the win. At Darlington, Brad Keselowski got the winner’s sticker that teammate Chris Buescher was denied.

Ford’s either won or been runner-up every week since.

Blaney wasn’t alone in his success at Iowa.

For the third week in a row, four Fords finished in the top 10. His Penske teammate Joey Logano finished sixth. Stewart-Haas Racing’s Josh Berry was in contention before falling to seventh at the finish. Keselowski collected his ninth top 10 of the season.

It’s not just the top Ford teams that have seen better results of late.

NBC analyst Steve Letarte highlighted Rick Ware Racing during the broadcast as having made huge strides to improve their pace this season. Justin Haley turned heads with ninth-place finishes at Darlington and Gateway, then ran near the top 10 most of the night at Iowa before coming home 13th despite an early penalty. 

There’s typically an ebb and flow throughout a season as to which manufacturer is leading the field. Chevy might still be top dog to most, but they don’t have the stranglehold on the field they did early when they won six of the first nine races. With that and Toyota’s slip-up over the past month, the window for Ford to dominate is wide open for the likes of Buescher, Logano and others to rack up points and wins they need for a playoff push.

3. Joe Gibbs Racing had another tough week. Can they right the ship at New Hampshire?

The results don’t show quite how tough of a weekend Joe Gibbs Racing had in Iowa, a weekend that began with a celebration of Martin Truex Jr. as he announced his retirement.

Truex started 31st and worked his way into the top 20 before getting nabbed for a pit road speeding penalty. Thanks to some pit strategy and his car coming to him, Truex salvaged a 15th-place finish.

Denny Hamlin had another uphill battle after his first lap engine failure at Sonoma. The No. 11 Toyota struggled to stay on the lead lap for the first half before getting caught up in an accident with Kyle Larson during the final stage. Hamlin finished two laps down in 24th, his worst short track finish in the last calendar year.

Ty Gibbs followed up his own DNF at Sonoma with a 25th-place finish. The lone JGR standout was once again Bell, who finished fourth in his fourth-straight top-10 run.

JGR has a few drivers down in the dumps, but it can be course corrected with the trip up north to New Hampshire, where they have nine wins. 

Truex has been a stalwart whenever the series has returned to New England, but his last two trips have seen him collect his first win at New Hampshire while leading a combined 426 laps. 

Hamlin hasn’t won at New Hampshire since 2017, but his average finish of 9.4 is best among active drivers. Bell has a win and a runner-up finish on the one-mile oval. Gibbs has struggled in his Xfinity and Cup starts at NHMS but has an ARCA East win there.

JGR as a team is stone cold coming out of Iowa. Maybe a warm bowl of clam chowder in New Hampshire is what they need to get hot again.

4. Is Josh Berry’s resume enough for a Cup ride next year?

Another week, another seat opening up and making it into the mix of silly season speculation. While Chase Briscoe became an immediate favorite to replace Truex, another SHR driver added to his resume.

Berry led 32 laps and finished seventh. It was Berry’s sixth career top-10 in Cup and fourth of which to come on tracks a mile or shorter.

Berry’s prowess on the short tracks has been known since he arrived in NASCAR, but it’s worth noting the 33-year old is still a rookie in the Cup Series with a lot to prove elsewhere. With his team shutting down next season, he’s not shying away from the fact he’s racing for a ride.

“The reality of it is we’re all racing for our jobs,” Berry said Sunday night. “For me, I don’t know what else I can do besides win a race to prove I belong at this level. We were running up front and doing some really good things. We have potential. We’re qualifying better, we’re racing better.”

If his short track credentials alone won’t convince any teams, then maybe some consistency elsewhere will. Berry has put together a few solid races together before, including back-to-back top-10s at Darlington and Charlotte. 

Or maybe, as he said post-race in Iowa, a win for a struggling, lame duck team will be what ultimately pushes his interest in free agency.

5. Kyle Busch suffered his second DNF in four races. What’s his path into the playoffs now?

Kyle Busch’s woes continued Sunday with a broken toe link — then a broken power steering belt — with just over 80 laps to go. But by his own admission, sticking around the top 10 was a struggle all day to that point.

“We were holding on and doing okay,” Busch said. “I was so loose in the corners and crashing every lap just trying to hold on. We were keeping enough track position to keep our name in the game.”

Throughout a tumultuous second season at Richard Childress Racing, Rowdy Nation has kept the faith in their driver to find a way into the playoffs. The possibility of points being enough for Busch is getting slim, with his deficit to the cutline now at 31. Another bad points day or winner from below the cutline would make it a near impossibility.

It’ll all likely come down to Busch doing what he’s managed to do at least once in each of the last 19 seasons: win a race. 

But since finishing just .007 seconds shy of a win at Atlanta, Busch has an average finish of 19.3 and has led just 91 laps. Busch may well show up to the track one weekend and put on a vintage Rowdy performance, but it’s a safer bet that he and crew chief Randall Burnett will have to get aggressive with their racing or pit strategy to pick up a win.

Busch, once one of the most aggressive drivers in the series, has become one of the cooler heads in the garage in recent years. When an opportunity presents himself, will we see some flashes of that old Rowdy?