NASCAR New Hampshire preview: Revitalized Joe Gibbs Racing looking like team to beat

A constant through the first half of the season was the pervasive dominance of Hendrick Motorsports and Stewart-Haas Racing, which saw their drivers combine to win 10 of 18 races.

But a change appears to be afoot in the power structure as the Sprint Cup Series begins its second half Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. While Hendrick and SHR are showing no signs of regression, Joe Gibbs Racing has noticeably closed the gap.

When Kyle Busch went to victory lane for the second time in three races a week ago at Kentucky Speedway, finishing just behind him were teammates Denny Hamlin (third), Carl Edwards (fourth) and Matt Kenseth (fifth). It’s a remarkable achievement -- the last time a team placed four drivers inside the top five was by Roush Fenway Racing in August 2008 at Michigan International Speedway.

With NASCAR introducing a last-minute track-specific rules package for Kentucky designed to create more passing, it would be easy to shrug off the results as an anomaly. However, the speed JGR’s Toyotas showed last week on the 1.5-mile track has carried over to this week on the flat one-mile New Hampshire oval.

All four drivers were consistently among the fastest in every practice session, and in qualifying Edwards captured his first pole position since November 2013. Busch qualified fourth, Hamlin fifth and Kenseth eighth.

“Right now it just feels right,” Edwards said. “At the beginning of practice, Matt was on top of the sheet and then I got up there and then Kyle got up there. I leaned on Denny’s (Hamlin) data a bunch coming here.”

The resurgence follows what had been a sluggish start to the season for an organization whose expectations were high with the addition of Edwards and the expansion to four cars.

There were glimmers of hope in the first half -- Hamlin, Kenseth and Edwards each won once. But more often than not that promise failed to materialize due to engines lacking horsepower to keep pace with the Chevrolets of Hendrick and SHR, and a redesigned front nose hampering aerodynamics.

And for the first 11 races of the season JGR wasn’t even able to field its all-star driver lineup. A broken right leg and left foot sidelined Kyle Busch, who didn’t return until Memorial Day weekend, with the team forced to use three different substitutes.

But by the time Busch came back, JGR had worked through its issues to become more competitive on intermediate tracks, which comprise the bulk of the schedule. That’s the cyclical nature of NASCAR -- a team will struggle, then seemingly overnight find the missing element needed to elevate itself.

“It’s tough to keep up in this day and age in the Sprint Cup Series,” Busch said. “We kind of saw that a little bit last year and maybe somewhat the year before that we were kind of falling behind.

“Certainly over the last few weeks we’ve done a decent job at being able to run up front, contend for wins and obviously that momentum is just kind of starting to build.”

And with just eight regular season races remaining before the Chase for the Sprint Cup, the upswing comes at an opportune time. Given adequate equipment, all of JGR’s drivers harbor legitimate championship hopes, which explains Edwards’ near giddiness of what’s to come.

“It feels to me like we’re in this sweet spot that I’ve only been in a couple times in my time in this sport where all of us are fast and we’re all pushing one another, but we’re sharing information and it’s really neat,” Edwards said. “It’s fun to have teammates like I have that motivate me and push me and challenge me, but we all do it and at the same time celebrate each other’s successes. It’s really cool and I think there will be a lot of good things to come.

“It’s good to be driving a Toyota with Joe Gibbs Racing right now.”