First of all, Happy Easter to those who celebrate and also a Chag Sameach for our subscribers celebrating Passover. For me it was a cold, windy, snowy Easter after a day that was 75 degrees. Now it feels like the weather was a foreshadowing for the mood around NASCAR that was about to change as quickly as possible.
The iRacing substitute has been interesting to watch for the last few weeks and the last race was fun to play a tad of DFS on as well. There have been problems with it though as it’s not as good as the real racing for sure, but we’ve seen those problems play out in the last few weeks with real-world consequences for the drivers involved in ways not many could’ve predicted when the idea of drivers gathering online to give a distraction for the fans was first brought up.
At first, we had Daniel Suarez getting sent to the virtual hauler for trying to intentionally wreck Ty Dillon at Texas two Sundays ago then him getting frustrated that other drivers weren’t black flagged for seemingly intentionally wrecking others at Bristol. Then we had Bubba Wallace rage quitting the race at Bristol because he had had enough of Clint Bowyer bumping his bumper after 40 some laps. It was the tweet about it however, that got him in the most trouble as his sponsor tweeted back at him that they like racers not quitters to paraphrase. Now it has taken an even uglier turn with one of the sport’s most exciting stars.
Kyle Larson was involved in a hot mic incident at the start of an iRacing event and said a racial slur with the audio of said slur going public shortly afterward. Because of the choice of language, Larson had a very rough day on Monday, and a day that darkened the mood around NASCAR in general. He was suspended without pay from Chip Ganassi Racing as the first domino to fall, the next came when he was suspended indefinitely from NASCAR and mandated to take sensitivity training. Out of a ride and on the bench from the governing body, the corporate sponsors got involved and in succession he lost McDonald’s, Credit One Bank, Advent Health, and Clover as sponsors and relationships going forward. That means that even if he can come back this season to the Cup series, he won’t have any more sponsors behind him and he was slated to be a free agent at the end of 2020 to before this started. He did issue a video apology on Monday afternoon on Twitter. It is important to note the irony involved in this sad story though. Larson is the best driver to come out of the Drive For Diversity program started in 2004 by NASCAR as he is half-Japanese and graduated the program in 2012 and then won the Rookie of the Year award at every level since that time.
So with Larson officially out of the 42-car, having been fired by CGR and having his personal relationship with Chevy terminated, therefore not racing in the Cup series any time soon, it’s a good time to look at the possible replacements in the Chevy Camaro.
It’s Watermelon Season
The fan favorite, who, when he’s not full-time racing, is farming watermelons, Ross Chastain is likely the top immediate choice to fill-in in the ride. He’s been filling in for Ryan Newman in the 6-car since Daytona and doing a tremendous job. Typically, when he’s not racing in the 6-car, a Ford, he’s Team Chevy in all of his other rides including in the Gander Outdoors Truck Series, the Xfinity Series in two different cars, and in the 77-car in the Cup series which makes him an easy plug-and-play option to put into 42-car, and one who’s shown he can handle the difficulty of the Cup series. There is the added fact that Chastain was slated to drive for Ganassi’s Xfinity team full-time in 2019 before his main sponsor, DC Solar, was raided by the FBI and shuttered, so they have a relationship already in place.
Return of the R.O.Y.
Do you remember who won the Rookie of the Year in the Cup series last year? It’s a driver who isn’t in the Cup series this year. The answer is Daniel Hemric. That’s right Malin’s favorite guy could make it to the Cup series after all and get another shot in a top-quality ride after getting kicked out of the 8-car after just one year last year. Hemric hasn’t had the best start to the year in the Xfinity series for JR Motorsports but the adjustment of going back a level has to be tough. He had seven top-15s last year while driving the 8-car for RCR before getting replaced in a bit of a surprising move. He’s proven he can hang in the Cup series and is a Chevy driver making the “call-up”, to put it in a baseball sense, easier despite the clear drop off in talent between him and Larson and pairing the young driver with Kurt Busch could see him make leaps and bounds quickly as well.
Vegas Deuces
Chip Ganassi is a two-car team with the 1-car also a CGR Chevy and the driver of that car is Kurt Busch who is from Las Vegas. So who’s a second driver that could step into the 42-car making a pair of drivers from Vegas? That would be Noah Gragson. He is a very talented 21-year-old who has 40 races at the Xfinity level under his belt and 28 of those are top-10 finishes. He has driven for all three manufacturers in his career but currently is driving the 9-car for JR Motorsports and has been in the Chevy camp for the last full-season plus at the Xfinity level. Another boost for Ganassi with Gragson is that he won the Most Popular Driver award in 2018 in the Camping World Truck series.
Xfinity Lifer
When there was a bunch of turnover in the Cup series this past silly season, there was one Xfinity series driver that wasn’t brought to the top series that was surprising, especially given the success of the past few seasons. Since the start of 2018 Justin Allgaier has run 70 Xfinity races and logged 49 Top-10s, 33 Top-fives, and six wins all in a Chevy as part of, you guessed it, JR Motorsports in the number-7 machine. Allgaier has been in the Xfinity series since 2009 and won the Rookie of the Year award that year. While the age (33 years old) makes him the oldest of the options and that limits the longevity here a bit, if that’s something Ganassi is looking for, but the maturity level is there and he’s always been a good corporate sponsor which certainly helps.
A Longshot Who’s Popular
We all know that Larson has a reputation for being a wheelman and a guy that is exciting to watch, and that description has come to fit our last, and longest shot, to fill the open 42-car seat. If you’ve paid attention to iRacing the last few weeks, you’d have seen Timmy Hill breakthrough for a win and a few top-fives despite him just having a DIY setup with a basic steering wheel clamped to a desk and a six-year-old laptop compared to some others and their alleged $40,000 rigs. The trick with Hill is that he is currently under contract as a full-time driver for MBM Motorsports in the 66-car and he’s a Toyota driver as well. Hill in recent interviews has said however, that he is finding it frustrating showing up to the track with cars that have 200 less HP, five-year-old chassis, and using old tires each week when talking about how when everyone is on a level playing field in iRacing the talent can show through. So if they can get him out of the contract he’s in, Ganassi could get a guy who’s shown some skills in the Truck and Xfinity series and get a guy whose popularity is very high and tie in the iRacing crowd who might be feeling a bit shunned at the moment after the last few weeks and what’s transpired on the platform.