I just picked up Athlon Sports racing preview. It has all the stats of who earned points where and here are some things to look at.
First off, as has been widely known on here for a while, Robby was 2nd in plate track points. Performance is good there, but there is always a certain amount of luck involved at these tracks so we can't depend on them for our points. Plus these only comprise 4 races.
Flat Tracks (Phoenix, Indy, Pocono, NH)(7 races) Robby ranked 36th overall at these tracks, worst among drivers that started every race. We obviously need to pick up the performance here. Qualifying is an issue here, as these are the toughest tracks to pass on.
(Intermediate Tracks )(17 races)Atlanta, Cali, Chicago, Darlington, Dover, Homestead Kansas, Vegas, Lowe's Michigan, Texas.)Robby is 34th overall here. Only Hornish and Smith did worse. However, I do believe this will pick up based on last year's results with the TT chassis. I also beleive the Toyota horsepower will help here. It's important to get a top 15 program here because these compromise the biggest amount of races in the season
Short Tracks (Martinsville, Richmond, Bristol)(6 races) Robby is 36th overall, once again worst among full time drivers. Once again, qualifying makes a difference here.
Road Courses- (Infineon, Watkins Glen)(2 races) We know that the performance is there on these tracks but the results have not. Robby and the team have the make a concentrated effort into finishing these events where they should. Last year they were 32nd over all in road courses. This is a biggie, these both can be max points or at worst, top 5 points results. We need to finish these races this season.
So, in looking over things, I think the flat track/short track program and finishing the road course events should be priority one for this season. The flat track/short track programs are related, especially when talking about NH and Phoenix, so we need to get that up to snuff. We know Robby can get around these places, its a matter of getting our "stuff" up to par and qualifying better.
Any other thoughts?