when I hear folks say Jimmie Johnson didn’t have success in Nationwide before being moved up to Cup. My take on success is how well do you finish with the equipment that you are driving. A driver who can take a 15th place car and finish 7th is doing what they should be doing. A driver in top equipment who should be wining races but finishes 8th or 9th may not be at the level they should be. An example would be Danica running 6th in her first ARCA race at Daytona; the media was in love with the finish. To me it was unimpressive; the car she was driving was far superior to 98% of the cars in the field. She took a winning car and finished 6th big deal a number of rookie drivers could do that.

Now lets look at Jimmie Johnson In Nationwide prior to his Cup deal. Jimmie didn’t run for Hendrick in the Nationwide Series prior to his Cup deal. In 1998 he ran three races for Tad Geschickter he took a 35th place car and ran very respectable. At Gateway in only his second Nationwide race he finished 15th, but more impressive is that he ran up front and actually held the lead for a time in that race. The next year he started 5 races for Herzog Motorsports. Herzog was a start up team and right off the bat he finished 7th; again in a car that was at best a 30th place car. His worst finish that year was 39th at Homestead because of a crash, but he also had a 12th and 18th place finish. He consistently ran ten positions better than his equipment. At Memphis he place 12th but ran up front and again was in the lead for a short time. In 2000 and 2001 he ran full time for Herzog. In 2000 he had an average finish around 19th place again ten positions better than what his car should have been capable of. 2001 was his breakout year his average finish was up to 16th with 9 top 10 and 4 top 5 with 136 laps in the lead. The win at Chicago that year was what turned heads. By that time Herzog had a car that was about a 20th place machine but Jimmie took it to victory lane. So did Jimmie have success in Nationwide yes given what he was driving he had a ton of success. That was what Hendrick saw he looked past the raw finishing numbers and put them in context with the equipment Jimmie was driving.

In Jeff Gordon’s’ case he was in the same position. No one recalls what he did to make his very first Nationwide race; fans and most media only remember the 39th place finish. He ran a Pontiac for Hugh Connerty (you talk about underdog) at Rockingham (a very difficult track) in his second attempt in a car that should probably have missed the field he put it on the outside pole. Bill Davis hired him that week. He ran in Nationwide for Bill Davis for 2 years prior to signing with Hendrick. Jeff had even more success than Jimmie. Davis had better cars than Herzog, but prior to Gordon’s arrival Davis had yet to run a full Nationwide season. His Nationwide program was part time until 1991 when Jeff ran the full season. In 1991 Jeff was the ROTY in Nationwide with 5 top 5 and 10 top 10 Davis had three wins in Nationwide prior to Gordon coming in but they were all with Mark Martin who would drop down out of the Cup series to cherry pick a few races. Davis was putting out top 10 cars in 1992 when Hendrick hired Jeff away from Davis. What everyone doesn’t remember was why and when Hendrick hired him. Hendrick hired Jeff early in the 92 season at the 4th race of the year at Atlanta. Why did he hire him, well prior to Atlanta Jeff had pole runs at Rockingham and Richmond and both those also translated to top 10 finishes. At Atlanta Gordon again sat on the pole his third in a row then he won the race. Hendrick offered him a contract that night and stole him away from Bill Davis. Jeff would finish his Nationwide Season with Davis as a lame duck, but go on to set a NASCAR record that year with 11 poles. He finished 4th in points leading 1160 laps with 3 wins 10 top 5 and 15 top 10 finishes. If not for 7 DNF’s he might have won the championship. To say he didn’t show talent in Nationwide prior to moving up to Cup I think is a mistake. He like Jimmie showed a ton of talent and success when put into context.

So while the simple truth is you can either drive a Cup car or not there are a number of indicators that one can look for, and simple finishing position isn’t always one of them. Does a driver get more out of his or her equipment than they probably should; that is big. In Kyle Larson’s case no I don’t think he has. He is a talented driver who won the East Series Championship last year, but he didn’t run away with it. He had a winning car in every race last year but won the championship by finishing in the top 5 not by driving to wins. Kyle had two wins; Corey laJoie running for his family team had 5 wins and if not for one DNF would have won the championship. LaJoie was the smaller fish last year, but he proved that he could take equipment slightly inferior to some in the field and finish ahead of where he should. Larson has been ok in Nationwide this year, but has zero wins and he is in a winning car. Finishing 8th in a winning car is not a sign that you are ready to move to Cup. Wining in a winning car or finishing 8th with a 20th place car gets you ready for Cup. If he can’t win in a winning car when he only has to compete against six or seven Cup guys how is he going to run well against 42 of them. Add in the factor that he will be in equipment that is one notch below a number of cars in the field.

The last thing he lacks is seat time; he will adapt given time but prior to Jimmie and Jeff moving up they had 72 and 62 starts in Nationwide respectively. That means they saw a number of the tracks that they would run in Cup two and in some cases four times before they jumped up. There is no substitute for seat time on tracks you are going to be running. You don’t have to get seat time in Cup to translate things over. Throw him in a Cup car on a track he has seen once and he will spend most of his time trying to figure out the track his feedback on the car will be minimal. It will hurt them the most on the 1.5 mile tracks where he will in all likelihood be lost. Nationwide is tough, but Cup is a whole new animal and I have not seen anything out of him in Nationwide that makes me think he will run better than mid to upper 20s in Cup. His biggest bright spot is he has very well developed car control; if he can keep the right rear tire under him he might pull out some 20th place finishes near the end of next year.