Tommy Baldwin Racing Helps Lock Danica into Daytona 500

The pre-season owner points swap has become an annual tradition the Nascar Sprint Cup Series. Teams scramble to lock into the Daytona 500 at the last minute, and the simplest way to do so is to buy another teams owner points to guarantee that coveted slot on the starting grid.

This year, the big winners are Danica Patrick, Stewart-Haas Racing and Tommy Baldwin Racing.

It was announced Tuesday morning that SHR would use the owner points accumulated by TBR's Dave Blaney during the 2011 Sprint Cup campaign to lock the rookie Patrick, and sponsor GoDaddy.com, into the "Great American Race."

In return, Baldwin's four-year-old operation will receive technical support and a pit crew from SHR, the 2011 championship winning team. This will allow David Reutimann, who will drive a TBR-prepared No. 10 Impala in the 26 events Patrick does not, access to the same information and technology as the defending champion, Stewart.

The only real loser in this deal is Blaney, who will now have to race his way into the Daytona 500 after being assured a spot since November. He will not be able to take advantage of his hard-earned owner points, while Patrick, who has never even attempted a Cup Series race, will roll into the big track by the beach already locked into the starting field.

Essentially, Patrick will be driving a Tommy Baldwin-owned Chevy, just as Reutimann will. But if you thin both driver's cars will be prepared by TBR, you're kidding yourself. Danica's cars will no doubt be prepped by SHR, while Reutimann will be strapped with the lesser equipment of Baldwin's shop.

This is a positive for both teams and drivers, but the deal itself stinks. Hopefully, Nascar will look at their top 35 rule more closely for 2013 and make this the last points swap in the sport.

2012 Will Prove Pivotal for Logano, Truex and the Busch Brothers

When Mark Martin praises your driving ability before your old enough to drive a street car, people are going to take notice.

Such was the case for youngster Joey Logano at the start of the 2009 season. After finishing sixth in his first Nationwide Series start and winning in his just his third start at Kentucky, management at Joe Gibbs Racing felt the Middleton, Conn. teen was ready to fill some of the biggest shoes in the sport: Replacing Tony Stewart in the No. 20 Home Depot car he won two titles and thirty-three races in.

Even with the driving talent that earned him the moniker "Sliced Bread," (as in, the greatest thing since), Logano only managed one win in his first season. The team won a rain shortened race at Loudon after blowing a tire, spinning out and staying out when the thirty or so cars ahead of them made pit stops. It was one of the ugliest wins in the sport as of late, but a win is still a win.

This is Logano's only Sprint Cup Series win to date, as he appears to be going the way of New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez. Both have been in their respective positions long enough that they should be getting better, not worse.

It's time for the folks at JGR to face the facts. Logano was called up to Cup much to early and it's time to send him back to Nationwide while an experienced driver wheels the No. 20 car.

Home Depot has been more than patient, and this year they have relinquished a few of their races to Dollar General after backing the full season for Logano since his rookie year. Seeing Lowe's win five straight titles from 2006 to 2010 and the guy who used to drive for them win it last year while their car has only managed twenty-nine top-tens in those same Logano's 111 races has to be bothering the home improvement giant to no end.

With that in mind, this season is going to prove pivotal for Logano. He needs to win with the fastest car and not the best luck. If he doesn't do that and contend for the Chase, Home Depot may do some renovating of their own, either with another driver or another team altogether.

When move to a new team with a lucrative sponsorship after three years of being a "lame duck" driver, people expect you to win.

This was the situation for Martin Truex, Jr. After driving the Dale Earnhardt, Inc. No. 1 car to a win and a Chase berth in 2007, he never reached the same level of success in the years that followed. This was also the season the team merged with the struggling Ginn Racing. In 2008, DEI merged again with Chip Ganassi Racing, forming Earnhardt-Ganasi Racing, and leaving the future of the team even more unstable.

After years of change and racing as the proverbial "lame duck," Truex left for greener pastures and was tabbed at the beginning of the 2010 season to replace Michael Waltrip as driver of the Napa Auto Parts car. This was done so Waltrip could focus on running his race team and less on driving. Truex has had some success in his tenure at Michael Waltrip Racing, contending for a Chase spot in each of the last two seasons, only to fade late in the year.

2012 is a contract year, not only for Truex, but also for longtime Waltrip sponsor Napa. Truex, really is the only reason Napa didn't leave MWR after 2009. They signed with the two-time Busch Series champ after MWR promised he would win races for the auto parts distributor. But while Truex has come very close to netting that first victory in his No. 56 car, his lone Cup victory remains the spring race at Dover way back in 2007.

If Truex can't deliver this season, this may be his final year in an MWR car. We have already seen the class and professionalism with which Waltrip handles things when his sponsors want another driver. Aaron's wanted Mark Martin in their car this season, so Waltrip sent a text to then-driver David Reutimann to notify him he had been terminated with just three races left in the season. If Napa wants another driver, they will get just that (and Truex can probably expect to be notified just as promptly as Reutimann was).

But the bigger problem for Waltrip and his organization may just be that Napa will want a new team entirely, giving the fledgling team an unsponsored car and two with just partial sponsorship. Their departure would be a big blow to an already financially strapped operation.

When you are two of the most polarizing, opinionated and volatile personalities in the garage area, but you can win on any given Sunday, people are going to scrutinize everything you do.

Kurt and Kyle Busch are definitely the villains of the Nascar garage. They're arrogant, opinionated, polarizing and each has a fuse as short as Jason Lefler. Fans either love them or love to hate them. We have seen their tempers flare in the past, but this season, their weekly tantrums almost ended their careers.

During the fall truck race at Texas Motor Speedway, Kyle intentionally dumped championship contender Ron Hornaday under caution after the two scraped fenders during what a driver would term "one of them racin' deals." This proved to be the last straw for Nascar, which parked him for the rest of the weekend, forcing Joe Gibbs Racing to replace him for the Cup and Nationwide events. This lead to rumors that his family-friendly sponsor M&M's/Mars would bolt following the end of the year.

Despite this, Kyle will return to Cup for JGR with the snack food giant as his backer this year. Under the advice from JGR management, Busch has significantly trimmed back his schedules in Nascar's other touring series. But while he may not race a truck at all this year, he will race a Nationwide car.

After being unable to land a sponsor for his JGR No. 18 Nationwide ride, Busch, essentially, went behind Gibbs' back and decided to split the series schedule with his brother Kurt in a car backed by Monster Energy. Gibbs knew nothing of the deal and, as he put it, "now we're racing against him."

After all Joe Gibbs did for Busch in the wake of his Texas controversy, never wavering in his support of the hot-headed driver, you can be sure that if Busch slips up one more time, he won't have the support of Coach Gibbs to fall back on.

Kurt, on the other hand, had a much more public meltdown. Well, actually it wasn't, but it sure ended up that way. After falling out of the race in Homestead with transmission issues, Busch was approached by ESPN pit reporter, Dr. Jerry Punch, for an interview. After being forced to wait to do the interview live, Busch went off on a profanity-laced tirade that would've made John McEnroe blush.

Nobody would've even heard about this run-in if it hadn't been for a fan with a cell phone and a YouTube account. The video of Busch unloading on Punch and his crew went viral almost immediately. After the Sprint Cup awards banquet, Roger Penske canned... I mean... "mutually agreed" to part ways with Busch and replaced him with A.J. Allmendiner (who will also be looking to prove he belongs in the Sprint Cup Series this year).

This year, Kurt will run the No. 51 Chevy for Phoenix Racing. This team does get its cars and engines from Hendrick Motorsports, but without corporate backing, success has long eluded the Spartanburg, South Carolina single car team.

If Busch's ability can't bring this team to the next level (and if he still can't control his temper) Busch may be resigned to running for second-tier teams trying to prove to the big teams he can still get it done.

2012 will be an interesting year, filled with new drivers in new places trying to prove what they can do and why they deserve to race at the Sprint Cup level. But there will be several drivers who are with the same teams they ran for last year trying to do that exact same thing. The free agent market looked pretty good after last season. Following 2012, it may get even more interesting.

Reutimann Finds New Home With "Racer" Tommy Baldwin's Team

David Reuitmann was both taken by surprise and hurt when Michael Waltrip Racing let him go with just three races remaining in the 2011 season. With hardly any rides open, it looked as if the driver of the No. 00 would need to find something else to do.

That is until the news broke late Tuesday morning that Reutimann did, indeed, have a ride with Tommy Baldwin Racing. On the surface, this looks like a poor move on Reutimann's part, signing with an unproven, underfunded operation like TBR. But the Zephrhills, Fla. native made his name racing for the mid-pack, mediocre, Michael Waltrip Racing and winning two races in their equipment. The other plus side to this deal is that, like Reutimann, Baldwin is a racer and nothing else.

"One of the things I like about Tommy and what's refreshing about him is that he is just a racer" Reutimann said in a statement. "As you walk through the garage and you build relationships through the years, there are not as many of what I would consider to be a racer, and having a true racer's mentality, as there used to be. James Finch [owner of Phoenix Racing] is one of them who just works his butt off to go race, and so is Tommy."

Reutimann knows all too well about racing to pay the bills, spending his childhood racing with his father, dirt racing legend Emil "Buzzie" Reutimann, around the Florida area. Baldwin also raced around the northeast with his father, modified legend Tom Baldwin so both he and Reutimann are wheelmen. "It's the way I was raised with my dad, so we are on the same page" Reutimann said. "I'm just really looking forward to the season to see what we can do."

"How he was brought up and what he's done in his career definitely raises my comfort level," Baldwin said of Reutimann. "He's won a couple races in these cars and that's only gonna help our program."

Baldwin made his name in Nascar as crew chief for Ward Burton at Bill Davis Racing. The pair managed to win the 2002 Daytona 500 and, in later years, Baldwin went on to Robert Yates Racing and crew chief Elliott Sadler's No. 38 entry.

Baldwin started his own team in 2009 and they have been gaining momentum ever since. 2011 saw Dave Blaney lock the team's flagship No. 36 car into the top 35, land sponsorship from Golden Corral and finish third in the fall Talladega event, the team's best finish to date. Who knows what TBR will be able to achieve in 2012.

"In addition to having Blaney, Reutimann will come in and help us with that; raise the bar a little bit on our program" Baldwin said." Just where [Reutimann] has been and the successes that he's had [made me want him for our team]. We feel like he can help Dave and Dave can help him and hopefully we can pick up on our competition."

As of now, Reutimann will run 26-races, ten short of the full schedule, but the team is hoping that sponsorship will materialize so they can race the full Cup Series tour. They will also show up to race each and every event they start. Starting and parking is not in the works for this scrappy, little team.

Reutimann was impressed by the progress TBR had made over the past season, finishing 33rd in owner points when the checkers waved in Homestead. TBR will also field cars with Earnhardt-Childress Racing engines, some of the best, most reliable power in the garage. But what really drew Reutimann in was Baldwin's no-nonsense, aggressive, racer mentality.

"Tommy would be a success no matter what he chose to do, but he's a racer" Reutimann said of his new boss. "Some team owners would race and make money, but a racer comes up with money so he can go race, and that's Tommy Baldwin. He wants to come up with the money so he can go and be competitive, and to me that's the definition of a racer."

Yes TBR is underfunded and Reutimann may not run a full schedule, or even the Daytona 500, but in this era of corporate sponsors manipulating every move an owner makes and those same owners demanding their drivers to be clean cut and dressed up, Reutimann's move is refreshing. Both he and Blaney grew up racing dirt cars, while Baldwin raced modifieds so racing is all they have ever known. This is a blue collar team made up of hardcore racers and they are building their operation up the right way.

If Blaney and Reutimann can run like they're expected to, there may be two different faces in victory lane in 2012. Best of luck to TBR and their new tandem of wheelmen.