Rumor: Honda to NASCAR?
As you may of known for the past few years since Toyota joined Nascar, it’s been rumored that fellow Japanese car manufacturer, Honda has been rumored to be joining the works of Nascar. It’s been rumored for some time because of the success of Honda in GT Racing, Formula 1, and the Honda Indy open wheel racing series. The rumors have blown up since a team member of one of the sports biggest team, Joe Gibbs Racing, said that it’s been going around the garage area that Honda is joining the sport for the 2017 season. And because of this, I personally see Honda using the Civic for both the premier series, currently named The Sprint Cup, and their second tier Xfinity Series. And will more than likely use the Ridgeline pickup truck for the Camping World Truck Series.
And judging by some teams alignment, I see these 3 teams joining the Honda works.
HScott Racing, a team who currently runs the 5 Hour Energy #15 Chevrolet driven by Clint Bowyer, and the Pilot/Flying J #46 Chevrolet driven by Michael Annett. I see them leaving Chevrolet because they are a third tier Chevrolet team and with proper funding from Honda, they can be a force.
The second team I see swapping manufacturers is, BK Racing. They currently field the #83 Dustless Blasting Toyota driven by Matt DiBenedetto, and the #23 Dr. Pepper Toyota driven by David Ragan and part-time #93 driven by Ryan Ellis and Dylan Lupton.
The final team I see swapping manufacturers, is Front Row Motorsports. Since the switch from Chevrolet to Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing, Front Row was a third tier Ford team, and since the move, they will now be a fourth tier team. That doesn’t bode well for the team who has had recent success. This year at a rain shortened race, Chris Buescher, driver of the #34 Love’s Travel Shop Ford won the Pocono 500, so with that success, they seemed like a top tier future team, but with the SHR move. It may not happen. Front Row Motorsports currently fields the #34 Love’s Travel Shop Ford driven by Chris Buescher, The #38 MDS Transportation Ford driven by Landon Cassill, and they also field the #35 Shaw’s Southern Belle Seafood Ford driven by David Gilliland part-time at restrictor plate tracks (Daytona, and Talledega).
And after seeing the impact Honda has done for motorsports. It’s easy to see that they can succeed.
The series definitely needs more manufacturers and Honda certainly fits that bill. A Honda entry would need to target smaller teams to help build them up.
I agree, Honda will be able to eventually succeed by doing that, look at how Toyota started, a few small teams then became a monster team, who were able to compete for the win, week in and week out across the 3 main series, they had some problems originally, but essentially, they are the most competitive team in Nascar, especially with the alliance with Furniture Row