Driver of the #98 Menard's Ford, Paul Menard Getty Images/Sam Greenwood
This is the third installment of our look at the 2009 Sprint Cup season, and this is the third team, we have looked at that seems to have some questions for 2010. We do know that Menard will drive a car sponsored by his Father’s Chain of Stores, Menard’s.
We just don’t know exactly if that will be under the Richard Petty Motor Sports banner, the Yates Racing banner, or a possible switch to be the fourth team at Richard Childress Racing.
We do know however, that so far in his Sprint Cup career, Paul has underachieved. This was his third full year on tour, and he does not seem to be progressing.
That may be due to the simple fact that he does not have to progress, unlike all 42 other teams in the garage, Paul does not have to perform to attract sponsorship, his father’s company seems, content to just be a part of the Sprint Cup series, with Paul as their driver regardless of where he finishes.
Paul had no top 5’s, and no top 10’s in 2009, he did however qualify for all the races and complete 96.4% of all the laps run. His average start was 31 and his average finish was 26.9. He had four DNF’s for the 2009 season all due to on the track incidents, not equipment failure.
At this point in his career Paul just be a Top 20 team. This kid has some talent, he won A Nationwide Series race at Milwaukee in 2006, and in 16 starts in 2009 he had a top five, and four top ten finishes. Maybe Paul would be better served being just a Nationwide Series driver.
While we could argue that his two years at DEI, he was in inferior equipment that is certainly not true racing for Yates in cars prepared by Roush Fenway Racing. Travis Kvapil, driving for this team in 2008 was able to secure four top 10 finishes and able to finish 10 places higher in the year end point’s standings.
While we don’t know where Menard will compete in the Sprint Cup series for 2010 season, there have been some reports that Roush-Fenway Racing is preparing enough cars to run him full time in the 2010 Nationwide Series.
Comments