Driver’s on my Radar

These are a few drivers that I have been watching this season. I catch them at different times and different tracks. And obviously don’t get to see their every lap but I have been keeping an eye on these drivers. There are many other young and up and coming drivers out there but these have caught my attention lately.


Joey Logano

For the past two weeks we have heard a lot about Joey Logano. For the most part I think he has done a real good job. Last week at Dover I was able to watch him live. One thing I always look for when a new driver comes in is his/her on track awareness. He seems to know where he is on the race track and seems to already know how to make sure he doesn’t put himself in a bad situation (although at Nashville he could have been a little more patient). It will be interesting to see if he learns from his mistakes. One of the things I respect about Jeff Gordon is he always learns from his mistakes.

Logano has shown a lot of maturity in his first two races. He finished in the top 10 in his first start and led plenty of laps in his second start. He has the talent as a driver, he has great equipment, and he has great people around him. The post race and post accident interviews will get better.

Chad McCumbee

Chad McCumbee finished 6th in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway. This race was a nice recovery after failing to qualify for the Sprint Cup race at Dover last week. Hopefully, he will have more opportunities in the Sprint Cup Series in the future.

Josh Wise

Josh had a good run going at Nashville Superspeedway but his night was ended short when contact from Mike Wallace took him out of contention. If owners and sponsors will just stick with him you will see a lot of him in the future.

Bryan Clauson

An early pit road mistake was costly for Bryan Clauson and his team. He has been getting faster every week so if he learns from those mistakes he will be fine. This is another situation that will be fine if his sponsors and team stick with him.

He finished 22nd at Nashville Superspeedway

Kelly Bires

Kelly Bires is fast. He got my attention again last night while I was watching the Nashville race. The thing I am noticing about Bires is he is learning to finish. When I first saw him race, he was fast but seemed to not be able to finish. If he continues to get top ten finishes you could see him at the Sprint Cup level in the next few seasons.


Landon Cassill

Landon makes some mistakes but he has good equipment. If he will learn when to race and when to give a little he will get better quicker. He needs to learn that keeping the fenders on the car is more important than protecting 9th or 10th place on lap 20.

He did a good job at Nashville and was able to finish in the top ten (9th)

Marc Mitchell

Marc Mitchell has had a solid season in the #15 truck. From what I have seen he has had some bad breaks. Although he finished 12th at Texas I remember seeing him get stuck behind the 99 truck on a restart. He recovered nicely and that move showed that he has enough maturity to settle back in and race back toward the front.

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