Nascar Race Today

By: Al Pearce on January 14, 2014

After a few years of relatively dull Rookie of the Year campaigns, NASCAR expects to have a fairly competitive and spirited scrap this year, especially in its Sprint Cup Series.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won the 2013 award over Danica Patrick in a virtual one-sided runaway. The year before, Stephen Leicht was ROTY after running fewer than half the races and beating one other underfunded rookie in Josh Wise That followed the 2011 and 2010 classes that featured Andy Lally against nobody and Kevin Conway against one part-time rookie.

Stenhouse still has a solid ride with Roush Fenway Racing, but Leicht, Lally and Conway have disappeared from the Cup scene.

The 10 ROTY winners before them have enjoyed solid careers, each with at least one Cup victory. Backward from 2009, they were Joey Logano, Regan Smith, Juan Pablo Montoya, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Kasey Kahne, Jamie McMurray, Ryan Newman, Kevin Harvick and (in 2000) Matt Kenseth.

And now here come potential stars Austin Dillon, Kyle Larson, Parker Kligerman, Cole Whitt and Michael Annett as the Class of 2014. Dillon (with Richard Childress Racing) and Larson (with Ganassi-Sabates Racing) have solid, quality, competitive Chevy rides. Annett is in a Chevy from low-budget Tommy Baldwin Racing and Kligerman and Whitt are teammates at Toyota-based Swan Racing, another low-budget team.

Without question, Dillon and Larson are the rookie favorites.

Dillon was the top Camping World Truck Series rookie in 2011 and its champion in 2012. He was the top Nationwide Series rookie in 2012 and its champion last year. All told he has 22 poles, seven victories, 49 top-five finishes and 87 top-10 finishes in 132 combined Truck Series and Nationwide starts. He was third and first in his two full Nationwide seasons and fifth and first in his two full Camping World seasons.

He hopes to become the first NASCAR driver to win Rookie of the Year in the three major national touring series. A handful of drivers - Harvick, Dillon, Biffle, Edwards, Stenhouse, Jeff Gordon, Johnny Benson Jr., Kyle Busch and the late Kenny Irwin - have won rookie honors in two series.

Larson's stock car resume is relatively slim. He had no poles, no victories, nine top-five finishes and 17 top-10 finishes in last year's 33 Nationwide races. But that consistency was enough for eighth in points and the Rookie of the Year trophy. He also won a Camping World race, had two other top-five finishes and two other top-10 finishes in just six starts over two seasons. He won the 2012 K&N East title with a pole, two victories, eight top-five finishes and 12 top-10 finishes in 14 starts driving Toyotas for Max Siegel's Rev Racing, part of the NASCAR-funded Drive-For-Diversity program.

Compared to Dillon and Larson -- particularly with their well-funded, time-proven teams -- it seems Whitt, Kligerman and Annett are in over their heads. (FYI: Many NASCAR-watchers felt the same way when virtual unknown Lennie Pond beat overwhelming favorite Darrell Waltrip for Rookie of the Year in 1973).

Kligerman has 102 combined Cup (two), Nationwide (51) and Truck Series (49) starts, plus 23 in the ARCA series. He's won three NASCAR poles, has a Truck Series victory at Talladega, 16 top-five finishes and 43 top-10 finishes. But he has nine ARCA victories, 14 top-five finishes and 20 top-10 finishes, a clear sign of some potential. Also, he was fifth in 2012 Truck Series points for owner Brad Keselowski and ninth in 2013 Nationwide points for owner Kyle Busch. He seems a ROTY year long shot, but stranger things have happened.

Whitt, his teammate and ROTY rival, has only one Camping World pole to show for his 92-start NASCAR career: 14 in Cup, 51 in Nationwide and 27 in the Truck Series. His stats: one pole, no victories, six top-five finishes and 29 top-10 finishes. He was ninth in 2011 Truck Series points for owner Stacy Compton and seven in 2012 Nationwide points for Dale Earnhardt Jr. He divided last year among the Cup (seven starts) and Nationwide (15) series with modest results.

Annett got his ride with Baldwin's underfunded team by bringing a sponsor, the Pilot Travel Center/Flying J chain of truck stops. His resume is top-loaded with Nationwide starts, 163 of them for three teams. He was 10th and 13th in points for Germain Racing in 2009 and 2010, ninth for Rusty Wallace Racing in 2011 and fifth for Richard Petty Motorsports in 2012. An injured sternum kept him from eight races last year, when he was 15th in final points. He's run a handful of Truck Series races, and has a pole, two victories, five top-five finishes and eight top-10 finishes in just 10 ARCA starts.

Most eyes will be on Dillon and Larson, especially given Dillon's seat in the iconic No. 3 Chevrolet that hasn't been run since Dale Earnhardt died on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. Dillon's strong resume in the Camping World and Nationwide series makes him a huge favorite to snatch yet another ROTY trophy.

Of course, that's what they said about ol' DW 41 years ago, too.

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