John Wes Townley Gets Cup Ride, My Thoughts

In probably the most shocking entry we have ever seen in NASCAR this year, RAB Racing's John Wes Townley, is listed to drive this weekend in the Cup Series at Pocono Raceway for FAS Lane Racing.

John Wes Townley (Credit: TheHotLap)

This news, however, has several NASCAR fans fired up, saying that they lost a bit of respect towards FAS Lane Racing and Frank Stoddard (owner of the team) for hiring Townley, cautions ready to happen, hoping their driver isn't involved in his cautions, etc.

First off, lets look at Townley's NASCAR racing stats. Townley has 57 career starts between both the Nationwide and Camping World Trucks Series. How many Top 10's are in there? Zero. His actually picked up his best ever finish in NASCAR, 14th, for the 2012 American Ethanol 225 at Chicagoland in mid-July. Townley currently, has finished on the led lap in only 13 of the 57 career NASCAR starts, which is not a great stat for someone that attempts he full race. Not to mention, Townley has 11 career DNQ's in the NNS and Truck Series combined.

The only positive career stats he has is in ARCA, where he has 3 Top 5's, 10 Top 10's in only 24 starts.

Townley does have sponsorship this weekend from Zaxby's, which his father is a co-founder of. Some may say its pretty much the main reason why Townley was hired to drive for FAS Lane, which is most likely the truth. Saying this is pretty much the reason why I think they hired Jason White to drive the second Pocono race last year, cause he had sponsorship with him.

My thoughts? I honestly said that you know a Cup team has gone insane when they hire John Wes Townley to drive for them for a race. Am I saying that Townley is the worst driver out there? No, of course not. However, with Townley's history of causing cautions, expect some cautions that have the 32 listed involved.

Are we being too hard on Townley? I think yes, we are. We did the same thing with Sam Hornish Jr. in his 2010 and 2011 seasons. We bashed him for causing to many cautions. Now, you rarely see him wrecks now, he's finishing several races on the lead lap, and he even picked up a Nationwide win last year. Is Townley going to be the next Hornish Jr.-like change? Probably not. But if he has a more positive focus, then its possible that he will have more finishes on the led lap, and perhaps get that long awaited Top 10 finish.