Chevrolet has some serious work to do shoring up its Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series program ahead of the 2019 season.
For the second consecutive year running there were no Chevy drivers with a chance of winning the NASCAR championship by the time the Cup series rolled into Miami for the season finale. It’s something the manufacturer is looking to correct moving forward.
The year started well enough, with the 2018 Camaro ZL1 taking victory in its series debut at the season-opening Daytona 500, but things quickly headed downward as the cars headed to tracks more sensitive to downforce. Of course, it didn’t help that many of Chevrolet’s marquee teams, especially those under the Hendrick banner, were fielding young drivers.
“Obviously (we) don’t have anybody in the Championship 4 for the Cup, so that’s disappointing, but I would say that as I take a look at a year in which we introduced a new car, the 2019 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, and we have begun this transition that we all go through at different points,” Jim Campbell, Chevrolet U.S. vice president of performance vehicles and motorsports, was quoted as saying by Motorsport.com.
“Many veteran drivers have started to retire and we’re bringing in a young crew of drivers. We had our young group that got a year of experience. You see Chase Elliott really accelerated his season through the back half with three wins in the last 14 races, and then (Kyle) Larson was very consistent all year long, didn’t make the final four, but proud of those guys.”
In total, Chevrolet only had four wins on the season, Austin Dillon’s Daytona win, and Chase Elliott’s first three victories of his Cup career, with the Georgia native ending up as the top Chevrolet driver in the standings, finishing the year in sixth place. It didn’t help that seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson went winless for the first time in his career.
It’s unclear what exactly Chevrolet plans to do differently heading into the 2019 season. “More work to do. But I’m really excited about what that means for us for next year,” Campbell concluded.
Here’s to hoping the 2019 Chevrolet Camaro Cup Series program will go better than before.
Comments
NASCAR would be far better off to get rid of their horrific spec car and move closer to what was V8 Supercars (now supercars). They should also just go back to a normal racing points format.
The chevy teams just need to wait until the rules come back round in their favor! Nascar made it so that the Toyota teams could be competitive so they can justify their investment in the sport!
Really what needs to happen is chevy and ford need to use their racing dollars and force nascar to kick out Toyota and replace them with dodge!
Make Toyota leave nascar or we both are leaving!
It’s amazing how people complain how Chevy didn’t win many races yet they when Ford wasn’t winning many races due to NASCAR favoritism towards Chevy they weren’t saying much. I say deal with it and quit complaining.
with ford not wining a championship in 15 years NASCAR had to do something and the aero changes were done to help ford. I bet NASCAR was sweating toyota was going to win again and they almost did.
The sport is a wreck. Fans are leaving in droves and so are sponsors. Chevy’s elite organization, Hendrick, is in a transition phase having lost Gordon and Earnhardt over the last few years; their top talent just lost his sponsor, his longtime crew chief, and doesn’t appear to have much left in the tank; and the future of their organization is riding on Chase Elliot, who is no Jeff Gordon. Childress was barely up to snuff in Earnhardt’s day and Chevy should have cut and run when he put his grandbabies in his cars. And Ganassi, who may have the best prospect of all in Kyle Larson, simply doesn’t have the resources to battle the best of Gibbs, Penske, or, for that matter, Stewart-Haas.
Things can change but the financial outlook is not good right now for NASCAR, and I suspect the Chevy teams are going to be hit the hardest by this unfortunate reality. At least initially.
WE can blame Nascar to some extent,because in many ways they have totally ruined the series-ALL three of them actually! The new system is not worth a tinkers dam! Take it back to the old system where consistency was the norm and give 50 pts. more for a win,10 pts for leading a lap and 30 pts for leading the most laps! No damned lucky dog crap and no gren/white/checkers crap! As far as Chevrolet goes……well,being a BIG Chevy guy I say get your crap together chevy and get back to kickin’ some butt! Hendrick has the teams and drivers and Childress needs some help too with his teams and than we would be back kickin’ butt again! For what Chevy gets for their vehicles, there should be plenty to give/help the stock car teams!
NASCAR needs to remove restrictor plates altogether and leave it up to the drivers like it was in the 80’s…
What they need to do is go back to old the school rules remove the restrictor plates and raise the amount of horse power allowed in a car and add more car manufacturer’s
Just get rid of the junk gm to begin with. Cry gm cry because that’s what you’re best at.
Cry until nascar changes the rules to your favor like always.
GO FORD
Exactly correct,Pete! I totally agree with you…………..
They haven’t been Chevys under the hood forever. Since the Car of Tomorrow they all have the same template, no Chevys, Fords…., just stickers. Next year’s Mustang will be the exact same shape as this year’s Fusion, and the Camaro. I am surprised the manufacturers haven’t walked away. Sitting at BMS watching them all go roll through two tents where it will be ascertained they are all exactly the same shape was really upsetting, probably will quit buying tickets. Bring back the manufacturer templates!!
To a certain point of view as a person that loves the fast cars, the smells of fuel and rubber the reality is only one; NASCAR sucks like never before. All the regulations that always been change, the B.S. computer electronic devices in the cars, restricted plates in the engines and there they go down the drain. I am from Brasil and I can say that NASCAR is heading in the same direction as the F1, before all the so call Safety Regulations Policy and Micro Management from the Director/ President of the sport, F1 was the most recognized sport of all. But after all the change that was done, of course as they say all for the Safety of the Drivers is not like was before. The technology that was put in the cars today is everything for the drivers, just like a cell phone. If you don’t have one you don’t know what to do also, the fact that they dropped the speed on the race cars and the competition now is about computers and not the drivers isn’t great any more. Unfortunately NASCAR seems to be heading down to the same road as F1, it’s not about compete with what you have or who you have (The Best Driver) but, place any age driver with no real talent behind the wheel with computers inside those cars doing just about everything for them. I know that some people will not agree with the fact that NASCAR was in trouble before Toyota manufacturer join the party but think for a minute and you be able to see that NASCAR had to do something about loosing the audience that hold the sport together, so why not bring the Toyota to shake things up. A Japanese manufacturer vs our American manufacturers, really NASCAR? What stupid idea, that’s why this is my last year as a ticket holder. If I want see those cars only running after each in line I will go to a train station to see a train pulling the rail cars behind because that the best description of NASCAR right now, a Train Wreck ready to happen.
the france family who owns NASCAR outright has it up for sale but they first have to buy out the stock holders in the international speedway corp which owns some of the tracks. where does this leave burton smith who owns some of the other tracks.
Toyota is more American built than GM or Ford but to get the fans to come back and attract sponsors,restore ratings nazcar has to undo their idiotic mistakes.Screw the heat races(this accounts for 46 percent of lost fans) Next,put the team trailers back at the track and let the fans buy things they want(instead of nazcar selling only select items from select teams not much choice) this accounts for 60 percent loss of grandstand crowd.Laser inspection station? ,to insure all competitors cars are within a postage stamp thickness of each other?When I watch a race if I see a mustang it should look like a mustang,not a nazcar identicar.if they are that touchy over minnute rules they need to supply all the cars used in competition,teams bring there crew with them,draw a car and qualify it.Back to single car qualifying.END THE CHASE! If they keep the chase format at the end of regular season skip a week for awards ceremony and only 16 eligible drivers compete being eliminated to the final 4 who will be the only ones on the track at Miami.TV ratings? Give it back to Fox they know what they’re doing,not nsbcbsnsc or whatever it’s called.Points need to be 45 for win and work backward to last place,NO BONUS POINTS EVER.
The old saying about family business’ usually last 3 generations seems in play with the France family business. Looks like they are selling while NASCAR is still worth something? They ran it into the ground. The Chase and Stage racing is a joke.
Toyota might build a lot of cars in the US but it clearly has a much smaller positive effect on the USA than GM, Ford, or even Fiat-Chrysler, and it is still a foreign company. You want the facts, check Kogod’s auto index below. Toyota’s entry into such an American sport did turn of lot of fans off, me included.
https://www.american.edu/kogod/research/autoindex/2018-autoindex.cfm