NASCAR Cup Series

Highs and lows: The best and worst of the 2015 season to date

Published May. 28, 2015 2:30 p.m. ET

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Jeff Hammond

So after Sunday we are officially at the halfway point of our 26-week NASCAR Sprint Cup regular season, as we call it. There will be 13 races done, with 13 to go until the Chase field is set. There have been some really good things happen so far and, to be fair, some quite not so good.

Let's start with the positive things. I think Jeff Gordon winning the pole for his last Daytona 500, back in February, was pretty darn special. We followed that up with young Joey Logano winning his first-ever Daytona 500. So those two things right out of the box got me excited about the 2015 season.

The other bright spot all season long to date has to be the resurgence of Martin Truex Jr. and the No. 78 car. Let's be honest, last year was pretty dismal both on and off the track for Martin. His longtime girlfriend, Sherry Pollex, battled Stage III ovarian cancer. The team wasn't running that well. Martin and the team finished a disappointing 24th in the points with only one top-five finish and three top-10 finishes in 36 races.

This year it's been a completely different story. After 12 races so far, Martin has three top fives and 11 top-10 finishes. He also is sitting second in the points. Bar none, they are the top team in our sport right now that doesn't have a win yet. I really believe there is a win just around the corner for Martin and, quite honestly, it might come Sunday. Dover is his home track plus it's where he got his first-ever NASCAR Sprint Cup win. Once he gets into the Chase -- and he will -- this guy could be the sleeper who surprises a lot of people in those final 10 races of this season.

So that's some of the really cool high points so far. Now, the not-so-good points after 12 races, in my book, start with the 2015 rules package. I'm really concerned about the change NASCAR made in the off-season with the reduced horsepower and handling package. It really hasn't improved the racing at all from what we had all hoped.

To me the racing in 2014 was very exciting. We had fast speeds every week and some new surprise almost every week. We got into the Chase and we had Kevin Harvick, who literally had to win the last two races of the year, do just that to seal his first NASCAR Sprint Cup championship.

So I'm disappointed in that part of things. I just don't think this is the race package of the future. We aren't getting the side-by-side racing that we were expecting. A lot of drivers have expressed to me that they want their horsepower back. They also comment that the cars aren't closing up on each other like they think they should.

So from my perspective as a race fan, that's probably my biggest disappointment, so far, of the NASCAR Sprint Cup season.  

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