‘FORD’-ging Ahead

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Early last year without so much as a whisper of rumor or comment, Ford and Stewart Haas Racing dropped a bombshell announcing they were partnering together for the 2017 season.  This left most race fans and those within the NASCAR community wondering what kind of impact that was going to have on their sport.  The first seven races of the season have shown positive signs of moving ahead in the right direction.

Team Penske continues to carry the banner as they did last year with Joey Logano winning the season opening non-points “Clash” at Daytona and Brad Keselowski has two victories while just missing on a third.  Each driver has posted six top-ten finishes this year while Keselowski just missed extending his personal streak of five consecutive top-fives with a sixth place run at Texas. Ryan Blaney has added three finishes in the top-ten with the Wood Brothers as a satellite team

Stewart Haas Racing has settled down the concerns about a lag in performance due to a switch of manufacturer in the off-season.  Kurt Busch gave the blue oval their fifth Daytona 500 win in nine years right out the gate.  Although Kevin Harvick doesn’t necessarily have the best results, he has run up front and led laps, as he did last season.  After stepping into the No.14 car to replace the retiring Tony Stewart, At Martinsville, Clint Bowyer just collected his first top-five since the 2015 Bristol Night Race. All three finished in the top-11 at Texas: Harvick (fourth), Busch (tenth), and Bowyer (11th).

Overall the biggest benefactor of Ford’s resurgence has been Roush Fenway Racing.  Trevor Bayne has been the model of consistency sitting 12th in the standings.  His top-five, two top-tens, and four top-20’s are already approaching half of what he accomplished during the entire previous season.  Ricky Stenhouse has shown flashes of top speed in qualifying and during the race, showing a renewed vigor and aggression, missing since winning the XFINITY Series’ Championship in 2011.  He has already knocked out a top-ten and six top-20’s. The duo was close to the front at Texas with Bayne shown 13th and Stenhouse 14th in the final rundown.

In summary, Ford as a manufacturer last year didn’t have three wins until June, halfway through the year.  This season, they second in the manufacturer points, only three behind Chevrolet with ten of the 13 full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series teams collecting at least one top-ten and half of the top-ten in point standings, carrying that iconic blue oval topped by Keselowski in fourth and Logano fifth, with Blaney (sixth), Bowyer (ninth), and Harvick (tenth). The company took notes of Toyota’s mantra of all teams working together with one goal as they continue to end droughts like not winning at Martinsville since 2002 and perhaps ‘FORD’-ging toward their first Championship since Kurt Busch in 2002.