2019 Silly Season

It really isn't that surprising when you think about it though. It seems like there's been trouble in paradise between them for a while and with Jimmie not running as well something had to change, I also kind of think the sport has evolved enough now to where guys like Chad have been overtaken by your more engineering focused Cole Pearns of the world.

Copying my post from discord on the JJ thing here:

A few years ago it would have been (earth shattering) But by now things have run their course and the magic they had has been overtaken by how much HMS has fallen. I don’t really think Jimmie will do much better or worse without him next year. No way I’d have said that before.

And considering the fact Lowe’s is leaving also makes it a bit less shocking.

The bigger question is how much will it benefit Byron? In HMS’s current state I can’t imagine it will make a HUGE difference, but we’ll see.

I suspect Jimmie will meander a lot next season.

I don't think Chad's as suited to today's cars as he was to the COT, so I doubt it will help Byron much. Might put him in vague contention to point his way into the chase, if we have another year with few surprises.

Wow, the day I thought would never happen. I'm surprised that Chad is sticking on as a crew chief with another team rather than becoming the head of competition/overseer of all of HMS' cars.

Wow!
Jimmie & Chad have always been a bickering couple on the verge of divorce.
But never though I'd see the day Hendrick actually split them up.
Especially moving Chad to another team rather than him taking a promotion within the team.

Be really interesting to see if Byron improves with Knaus since Knaus is no longer the one of the top five crew chiefs in the sport (it's almost a stretch to say he's even in the top ten of current top CC's).
And if Jimmie can run better with a new crew chief past the peak of his prime and in the twilight of his career or runs much worse.

My guess is that Hamlin will still outperform Jones (I think people here are underrating Hamlin due to one bad season as they did Logano last year and overrating Jones due to one win when almost every other relevant car in the field had crashed) but will still get dumped because he is being paid substantially more than Jones is.  Much like how Roush kept Ragan over McMurray, Gibbs dumped Kenseth for Jones, Hendrick dumped Kahne for Byron...  Even though those were all downgrades, the younger drivers were underachieving vs. salary expectations less than the older drivers, so I would expect Hamlin to beat Jones but still be out.  The Gen-X drivers grew up with NASCAR at big time, near peak popularity (although it was already starting to decline from the absolute popularity peak around 2002) so those that emerged in this period expected big salaries.  As ratings, popularity, and incomes plummet, the teams will replace their very good but not great drivers for clearly worse drivers who are still underachieving less by salary expectations.  So the 6th-12th place veteran drivers are probably more at risk in this environment than any young driver would be.  I could see Kurt Busch and Clint Bowyer being the next drivers suddenly and unexpectedly out of the powerhouse teams very soon simply because in Ganassi's case somebody like John Hunter Nemechek or Ross Chastain might expect much less money, and Chastain especially might get similar results to a declining Kurt Busch...

It's pretty rare however that you see a younger, probably cheaper driver make a significant improvement though it appears we've seen it twice with Montoya being replaced by Larson in NASCAR and Newgarden in IndyCar, although maybe at this point after Larson's ascent to stardom and Newgarden's title in his first Penske season, they're now making Montoya money.  I doubt it though just because racing is declining everywhere...