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NASCAR: 10 small-team drivers who deserve Danica Patrick’s ride

By Asher Fair

LOUDON, NH - JULY 14: Danica Patrick, driver of the #10 Aspen Dental Ford, practices for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Overton's 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 14, 2017 in Loudon, New Hampshire. (Photo by Chris Trotman/Getty Images)
LOUDON, NH - JULY 14: Danica Patrick, driver of the #10 Aspen Dental Ford, practices for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Overton's 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 14, 2017 in Loudon, New Hampshire. (Photo by Chris Trotman/Getty Images) /
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KANSAS CITY, KS – MAY 12: Cole Whitt, driver of the #72 RTIC Coolers Chevrolet (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
KANSAS CITY, KS – MAY 12: Cole Whitt, driver of the #72 RTIC Coolers Chevrolet (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images) /

#9 – Cole Whitt, TriStar Motorsports, No. 72 Chevrolet

Of the 10 drivers on this list, Cole Whitt, 26, is without a doubt the least proven. He has driven off and on in the NASCAR Cup Series since the 2011 season, but only in the 2014 season did he really start driving in pretty much every race, with the 2016 season being an exception, as he only drove in 26 of the 36 events that year.

Whitt, like Reed Sorenson, who was discussed on the previous slide, has driven for all kinds of smaller underfunded teams. In the 2011 season, he drove two races for Team Red Bull. In the 2012 season, he drove three races for Turn One Racing and two races for Circle Sport.

Then in the 2013 season, he drove seven races for Swan Racing Company before driving full-time in the 2014 season for Swan Racing (renamed from Swan Racing Company) and BK Racing. In the 2015 season, he continued driving full-time for Front Row Motorsports before driving the majority of the 2016 season’s races for Premium Motorsports. He currently drives for TriStar Motorsports.

Whitt’s statistics over the course of his 135 career Cup Series races, unlike the statistics of many of the other drivers in this article, are actually worse than Danica Patrick’s. In fact, he has never finished a single race in the top 10, although he has come close with a 12th place finish at Indianapolis this season, an 11th place finish at Daytona last season and a 13th place finish at Talladega in 2015. He also has several other top 20 finishes.

The reason why Whitt is more deserving of Patrick’s ride in the #10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford than she is despite the fact that her numbers are better than his is due to the fact that her numbers are only slightly better than his and hers have been generated by driving for a top-tier team, the same top-tier team, for five seasons. Driving for a top-tier team, she has just seven top 10 finishes in 167 starts with no finishes inside the top 5.

Whitt, on the other hand, has switched teams at least once per season throughout his Cup Series career, and he’s never driven for a team that has anywhere near the resources that Stewart-Haas Racing has to offer. The fact that he has even come close to finishing in the top 10 driving for some of the teams he has driven for shows he is more deserving of Danica Patrick’s ride than she is.

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