Bonehead of the week: Daytona 500

Pretty foolhardy to be trying to judge how a full season will go by the Daytona 500 lol. The Fords dominated the speedweeks, but the real season starts this weekend.
 
Revman said:
WE will always have a numbers problem on these tracks. Lined up, WE were fine....could run with the Fords. That 70% you are looking at was as much about the turd that Chevy dropped than anything else. Ford was good, but not untouchable the way we have seen Junior and Chevy in the past kind of thing.
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You have much to learn grasshopper.
 
Revman said:
We have seen this from Chevy before, but I thought the new car would be different. Huge raw speed, but absolutely nothing in the race. Nothing. Very interesting stuff.
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The 9 car was clearly horrible.

But I think before you had Gordon, Johnson and Dale Jr really elevating HMS at the speedways. Dale and Jeff are all timers. Johnson was hit or miss, but was still good enough to win 5 points paying plate races, and still had the most dominant plate win in recent years back in 2013 where he just lead the entire race..

Now, Elliott is the most successful plate racer at HMS.

I really do believe that the youthful stable just hasnt figured it out at these tracks.

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jaqua19 said:
The 9 car was clearly horrible.

But I think before you had Gordon, Johnson and Dale Jr really elevating HMS at the speedways. Dale and Jeff are all timers. Johnson was hit or miss, but was still good enough to win 5 points paying plate races, and still had the most dominant plate win in recent years back in 2013 where he just lead the entire race..

Now, Elliott is the most successful plate racer at HMS.

I really do believe that the youthful stable just hasnt figured it out at these tracks.

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Dunno. Two Champions in the group, and they haven't figured it out? I will point toward MY Toyotas like usual. They give everything up in terms of practice times and qualifying (raw speed), and inevitably race well/decent when it counts. I am wondering if there is something in the set up direction. Not a bad plan really. Neither Chevy nor Toyota won the big prize, but Chevy walked away with some rep with the qualifying speed/pole. If it's a crap shoot anyway, maybe you go for what you can get....and see how the rest plays out?
 
Revman said:
Dunno. Two Champions in the group, and they haven't figured it out? I will point toward MY Toyotas like usual. They give everything up in terms of practice times and qualifying (raw speed), and inevitably race well/decent when it counts. I am wondering if there is something in the set up direction. Not a bad plan really. Neither Chevy nor Toyota won the big prize, but Chevy walked away with some rep with the qualifying speed/pole. If it's a crap shoot anyway, maybe you go for what you can get....and see how the rest plays out?
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Maybe. But I also think having success at plate tracks gives you confidence and knowledge, and that's something no one at Hendrick has. Before, you had champions who know what works to find success at plate tracks. Now, you really don't. And to reinforce this, Larson made questionable/late moves all race. Bowman seemed nearly as lost. Chase, as far as the 500 went, I really think the car just didn't have it, to your point. And Byron? While he does have a win at Daytona, I just don't see him able to elevate the superspeedway program like Gordon, Jr and Johnson were able to.

I also hear your points about TRD, but I think it's also worth pointing out that Denny and Kyle are proven winners at plate tracks. Kyle has less success, but he knows how to run the races. I believe he's lead the most laps in 2 Daytona 500s. Then, you add in your other champion in Truex - doesn't have the same success, but has the experience to know what does work, and the success and experience of Hamlin and Busch to fall back on.

Then package that up into their race plan, which was executed masterfully, might I add, and that's why they ran mostly a solid race. If you rewatch the race, you'll notice that when YOUR TOYOTAS were the first to get the bottom line going, each car managed like a 4 foot gap that didn't change or grow. Compared to some of the Ford's who kept sort of rubber banding from a full push to about 8 feet. The Toyota drivers locked up and we're able to draft together perfectly.

All this being said, the Toyota advantage over Chevy on Sunday, I think, was in preparation, teamwork, and driver more than it was having the pure cars.

Both stables have champions, but the TRD drivers work WAY better together, and went out of their way to work way better together compared to the HMS cars, really, who didn't have any partners out there.

Each HMS car seemed like they were on their own.

I really believe they didn't know what they were doing and were just running their own races - obviously not the right strategy.

That's how I see it. Maybe I'm wrong

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jaqua19 said:
The 9 car was clearly horrible.

But I think before you had Gordon, Johnson and Dale Jr really elevating HMS at the speedways. Dale and Jeff are all timers. Johnson was hit or miss, but was still good enough to win 5 points paying plate races, and still had the most dominant plate win in recent years back in 2013 where he just lead the entire race..

Now, Elliott is the most successful plate racer at HMS.

I really do believe that the youthful stable just hasnt figured it out at these tracks.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
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I noticed that too, what do you think the reason was for it being horrible? What was different between the 9 car and any of the other HMS cars other than the crew chief and the driver? I would say Bowman has the track figured out pretty good in qualifying with a record 5 straight front row starts, and he usually runs up towards the front and leads laps on race day, but he always seems to get caught up in someone else's wreck. I think Chase and Bowman are pretty close to the same on race day but then the Bowman curse gets him every time.
 
Nitro Dude said:
I noticed that too, what do you think the reason was for it being horrible? What was different between the 9 car and any of the other HMS cars other than the crew chief and the driver? I would say Bowman has the track figured out pretty good in qualifying with a record 5 straight front row starts, and he usually runs up towards the front and leads laps on race day, but he always seems to get caught up in someone else's wreck. I think Chase and Bowman are pretty close to the same on race day but then the Bowman curse gets him every time.
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Who knows man? I think he just didn't have the raw pace the other 3 did, as indicated by qualifying. Maybe it was something Allen did? Again, I also don't think them not going out of their way to link up did them any favors.

I just don't get it. The Toyotas never left each other's bumper, same with the Fords. And all the HMS cars were just racing. Larson pulled out from behind Elliott at one point to get up top, leaving Elliott out to dry. And I don't think the 24 or 48 spent more than a few laps nose to tail with another HMS car all race. No other manufacture was doing that.

So one one hand, the 9 did look the weakest, but on the other hand, none of them were even in a situation where they could figure out how good they were, other than Larson. Who just timed everything wrong in terms of anticipating the runs, and changing lanes.

I think HMS has a serious gameplan issue at the plate tracks right now. They may have the speed, but they're way behind the 8 ball in terms of weekend execution, imo. I love Larson, but listen to his post race interviews, he's dumbfounded. When asked how much he's grown as a plate racer over the years, he pretty much said that he hasn't learned much since 2014, and still isn't sure how to navigate this type of racing.

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Byron has a win at Daytona and was up front battling for the lead when Keselowski did Keselowski things and took everyone out.

The goal is to be there at the end, but they all got caught up in wrecks. It's a crapshoot.
 
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