Trouble in Turn2

The last seven seasons have seen the advent of a youth movement in NASCAR at the Cup level. Young Guns have taken over in large numbers and many have quickly found success. Since 2000 a rookie has won a race in every season except 2004. Going back to 2002 the recent rookie classes have been pretty impressive. 12 of 19 drivers have won races, nine have made a Chase appearance and one has won two championships. Not bad for a wave of drivers that some fans complained were ruining the sport (Toyota and open wheel drivers have since acquired that “honor”). So which rookie class featured the best rookies? It’s a tough decision. I decided to look at the various classes from 2002-2006. I didn’t rate the 2007 class because drivers deserve at least three seasons for a fair assessment. The only reason I included the 2006 class was because it included so many drivers with immediate success it was an exceptional case. We’ll begin with the 2002 class.

2002: Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Newman 47 combined wins

What the class lacked in quantity was easily made up for in quality. Despite moderate results in the Busch Series, both Johnson and Newman both became Cup stars almost immediately. They both won races as rookies, and while Newman earned Rookie of the Year, Johnson actually had the better year, winning more races (3 to 1) and a higher finish in the standings (3rd). Both drivers scored 20+ top tens in their rookie seasons, proving their skill at the Cup level. 2003 they each debunked the myth of the Sophomore Slump. Newman won 8 races and driver of the year while Johnson finished third in the final standings.

Despite winning a season high 8 races in 2003, Newman has tailed off as a championship contender. Since 2003 he has only won 4 races in four and a half seasons. Although he has not reached the elite heights of NASCAR (due to a variety of reasons), Newman is a very solid driver. In six full seasons he has averaged 2 wins, 9.8 top 5’s and 16 top 10’s. Plenty of drivers would take those numbers. Despite those numbers most fans would agree that Newman is talented enough to achieve even more. His point standings in the first four years were 6th, 6th, 7th and 6th, but the last two seasons he has missed the Chase. Among his accomplishments are 43 poles, which already ranks 11th on the all-time list in only six plus seasons. He also won the 2008 Daytona 500 in dramatic fashion.

If Jimmie Johnson was an unknown entering NASCAR, he has blossomed into one of the top three drivers in the sport. Johnson has won 34 races, including a Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400, and the season title in 2006 and 2007. He has also never finished worse than 5th in the standings. His average stats for his first five full seasons are 5.5 wins, 14.3 top 5’s and 22 top 10’s. He has also won at 15 of the 22 Cup tracks, proving his versatility. He and crew chief Chad Knaus have formed one of the longest driver-crew chief combinations and are widely regarding as one of the top pairings in the sport.

Verdict: Obviously it’s easier to assess this class because it’s older. In only 6+ seasons, Johnson is already one of the most accomplished drivers in the sport and could already begin filling out some of the details on his Hall of Fame application. It wasn’t a sure thing in 2002, however. Based on his Busch record, Johnson was a risky hire. Newman began his career with a flourish but has since struggled a bit, although that isn’t entirely his fault. As a class the two drivers have combined to win 47 races and have made the Chase 6 out of a possible 8 times. Overall this class produced one elite driver and another good driver. That’s a pretty good success rate.

Have you ever had a friend that no matter what they do can’t seem to get out of their own way? Maybe they get a raise at work, but then blow it on a new TV they can’t afford? You can’t help but slap your forehead and cover your eyes. In NASCAR that friend is Dodge. For every triumph, there seems to be self-inflicted Dodge has won three of the last six Cup races. When you throw in Kasey Kahne’s All-Star win, that’s 4 in the last seven, which is more than the manufacturer won in all of 2007. On paper, things look pretty good for Dodge and its teams. Of course reality tells a different story, and to anyone that has followed NASCAR in recent years knows how self-sabotaging the Dodge teams can be. Even during high spots, there are more problems than positives.

The big news this week is that Chip Ganassi is putting the #40 car up on cinder blocks for the rest of 2008, meaning Dario Franchitti’s Cup career will also see weeds and grass sprout around it while it sits in the backyard at Ganassi’s shop. The lack of sponsorship was the final blow for the car. While Franchitti entered NASCAR with great credentials like an Indy 500 win and an IRL championship (not to mention the Judd marketing factor), it’s pretty easy to see why companies passed on Ganassi. Their NASCAR teams stink. One Cup win since 2002, no driver has ever made the Chase and since 2005 no driver has scored more than 10 top 10’s in a season. In the middle of 2005 Ganassi announced tentative plans to expand to four cars. It never happened because Jamie McMurray successfully voided his contract and moved to Roush-Fenway, but at the time Ganassi did have enough sponsorship for all four teams. Of course that was before the mortgage crisis (remember Home 1-2-3?) and the overall economic slowdown. It’s a little surprising Franchitti was willing to come to NASCAR despite the lack of funding.

In 2006 Kasey Kahne won a series high 6 races and made the Chase for Evernham Motorsports. At the same time teammate Jeremy Mayfield struggled to stay inside the top 35, was ultimately fired in midseason and threatened legal action. The ugliness only intensified with the inappropriate relationship between Ray Evernham and Erin Crocker. That ultimately played a part in the team’s abysmal 2007 season where the team realized halfway through that their season was wasted due using incorrect data to build their cars. Things are just now returning to normal, almost a year and a half later.

How about Penske Racing? In the summer of 2005 they signed one of the biggest free agents, Kurt Busch, to replace the retiring Rusty Wallace. It was the perfect driver to build upon a successful 2005 season that saw two of the three Penske cars make the Chase. Instead Penske chopped the #77 team (not due to sponsorship) and contracted back to two teams. To make things worse, the Penske teams spent the majority of the offseason and the spring trying to run the older Intrepid instead of the current Charger model. The result was-you guessed it-a wasted season. After two seasons of two cars the #77 finally returned to the track this year, but is again struggling as a new team. Had it been running continuously, the team might be a lot further along and more competitive with the other top teams at Chevrolet, Toyota and Ford.

All of the teams at Dodge (don’t forget Petty Enterprises, who is in serious danger of becoming irrelevant) have struggled in the last five years. It’s fitting given the unstable nature of Dodge. Daimler sold the company in 2007 and they are still struggling to compete. Things could only get worse for Dodge on the competition side. With factory support an unknown quantity, there is no real hope for drastic improvement on the track. And based on some of the rumors, top drivers like Ryan Newman and Juan Pablo Montoya could have other opportunities with different teams next year as well. While the wins might increase with Kasey Kahne and Kurt Busch, the overall picture in the Dodge camp is pretty gloomy.

“Oh, yeah. I don’t know what happened. The 99 wasn’t very good last night, he was so-so and we were really good, and then the weather just swapped it.”
–Greg Biffle on the difference from Sunday to Monday.

It’s funny how cars can change overnight with different track conditions. Some of the changes were subtle. Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch were probably the two fastest cars on Sunday night, but not quite as good on a sunny day. Carl Edwards was showing signs of speed when the rain came last night, but was faster than everyone during the day. Other drivers like Clint Bowyer and Kurt Busch were completely lost during the day. So what else happened?

• For the majority of Speedweeks, all the praise was saved for Hendrick and Gibbs. Last week the big story was how Dodge was finally ready to compete. Now headlines will note how the Roush cars are the ones to beat on the downforce tracks. Next week it will be another team or manufacturer, so let’s all keep things in perspective. It’s very early in the season.

• I wonder how drivers like Dale Earnhardt Jr, Reed Sorenson and Denny Hamlin felt when they woke up today? Usually when you wreck and have a poor finish, at least it’s over when by the next day and you can look towards the next weekend. Today they all had to get back in battered cars with the knowledge that they wouldn’t improve their finishes at all. It’s probably even worse considering how good the weather and track were on Monday morning and realizing that the wrecks wouldn’t have happened today. Well, that and seeing Casey Mears and Sam Hornish have the chance to go to Vegas early.

• It wasn’t a huge success, but the two Yates cars had nice runs. Travis Kvapil used a two-tire pit strategy to sit in 2nd place for over 12 hours. So eleven and half of those hours were during a red flag, but Kvapil actually did have a nice run going before he suffered damage on his car. He spent 71 laps inside the top 15 before his accident. Teammate David Gilliland finished a solid 17th. Excluding restrictor plate races, Gilliland only had 4 top 20’s all of last year. Getting support from Roush-Fenway Racing at least has Yates pointed in the right direction.

• It’s interesting that the big fear was that this was the year of Toyota’s big breakout. Take out the Gibbs cars and Brian Vickers and the Camrys look pretty normal. It’s still up to the teams to build good handling cars and have good drivers. None of the three MWR cars finished on the lead lap, Dave Blaney finished in the 30’s for the second straight race, and JJ Yeley had engine problems and finished 29th. Denny Hamlin has also crashed in the first two races and sits 31st in the standings.

• After the race, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson had some interesting things to say about the CoT on intermediate tracks. First Gordon:

  I was very curious and anticipating a little bit more action out there. You know, right now I think what you’ve got is you’ve got some guys that are really hitting it with this car on this track and some that weren’t. So it kind of spread the field out a little bit.
  Plus, you know, track position on these big tracks is extremely important. Jimmie and I are both fortunate to capitalize on the points from last year. But going forward, we’re going to have to really make sure we qualify good.

  Interesting. It sounds a lot like the old car, which as everyone knows wasn’t always conducive to great racing. That point is emphasized by Johnson’s quote.

  The other thing, I noticed the cars were much more sensitive. Racing nose to tail, you’d catch someone, get to a spot, difficult to run behind him. If the guy in front of you was smart, just look in the mirrors, he could run your line, screw you up, you’d lose 20 car lengths. Seemed to me like the aero was more important in this car than the other car. It’s still the first downforce race we’ve had with it. I’m sure we’ll all make it better. As Jeff said, track position was extremely important even more so than in the past.

  As Johnson admits, it’s the first race and things will probably improve. But what does it say when the two of the top three finishers of the race aren’t convinced that this car will improve the actual racing.

• One lingering thought about yesterday’s rain delay. A lot of sports will show classic footage to pass the time. Fox and Speed are in the same ownership family, how about rolling out some old races? If all else fails get Junior to host and just have an impromptu Back in the Day session.

• The top nine spots in the Nationwide race went to Cup drivers. Tenth went to Stephen Leicht in the #21 Childress car. He’s only running a limited schedule, but Leicht has already won a Busch/Nationwide race and is in one of the top rides in the series. This is his third season in the second tier of NASCAR, but he is still only 21. Keep an eye on him this year and beyond.

• We couldn’t even make it two races before the first Silly Season rumor dropped. According to Yahoo, Bobby Labonte would move to Richard Childress Racing in a new fourth car in 2009. Lee Spencer disagrees. I won’t go so far to say Labonte can’t or won’t wind up at RCR, but consider this: One of the articles quotes Kevin Harvick talking about expanding to a fourth car and hints at Labonte rumors. Spencer’s article has a direct quote from Childress denying the rumor. Things change with time, but I’m more inclined to believe Spencer, especially with her track record and the fact that Yahoo has been erroneous in the past (Jr and Truex to drive for Jr Motorsports, anyone?). I don’t like rumors, especially in February. Who knows what will happen in 36 races?

For more racing news and opinion, check out Racing Nation.

What a way to get your first win in 81 races. And not a bad race to choose either. Ryan Newman gets a well-deserved and popular win (how about that burnout, or was it a smokeout?). The difference came down to a battle of teammates, and the two Penske cars got a better bump draft than the Gibbs cars, who had a bigger gap between them.

On the surface the success by the Dodge teams looks like a big surprise, but all of the Dodge teams have made gains on restrictor plate tracks in recent years. Kurt Busch had a top 5 driver rating at three of the four plate races in 2007. Ryan Newman nearly won the 2006 Daytona 500 had fellow Dodge driver Casey Mears gone with him. Evernham placed two drivers in the top ten in last year’s Daytona 500. Ganassi’s Reed Sorenson finished in the top five in each of his Daytona races this week. They didn’t lead a lot of laps but were all around at the right time and got good finishes. 6 of the top 10 and 8 of the top 15.

California will be a big test for all the teams, but especially Dodge. Penske cars ran well last year at intermediates, but can GEM and Ganassi find consistent speed? That is the bigger test.

Random Thoughts and Notes

• As I mentioned last week I had a soccer game meaning the race was watched on tape delay. I saw the first 8 laps live, left the house and then had to spend the rest of the afternoon avoiding all of my favorite websites, email and even my cell phone to successfully escape the NASCAR world temporarily. If you’ve ever taped a race, you know how tempting it is to look up the winner.

• The Gibbs cars combined to lead 136 of the 200 laps. Obviously a restrictor plate race is different than other tracks, but that doesn’t bode well for pure horsepower for the other manufacturers. Chevy led 31, Dodge 23, Toyota (Non-Gibbs Division) 5, and Ford led 8. Let’s not get carried away yet and crown the Gibbs drivers. Hendrick, Roush and RCR will have something to say over the next three weeks about speedway supremacy.

• Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin (and you could probably throw in Tony Stewart too) are going to have a blow up at some point this season. It will most likely come when they are fighting for the lead in the first third of a race. The team is not going to implode as the Fox booth alluded to, but there will be an incident.

• Dale Earnhardt Jr had the second best driver rating (115.6), hung out in the top 5 all day and looked fairly strong in the nighttime. The one thing missing was any semblance of teammates.

• Other notable finishes: Bobby Labonte narrowly missed a top 10 in 11th. After getting hung out to dry, Jeff Burton sunk to 13th place. Sam Hornish Jr finished 15th and had a very impressive 90.1 driver rating. In his final Daytona 500 Dale Jarrett finished 16th. That’s his best finish since an 11th at Atlanta two years ago.

• Furniture Row’s Sunday didn’t turn out like their big Thursday. Both cars finished in the 40’s. Don’t feel too bad, the two collected over $500,000 in prize money for the effort. That will go a long way towards paying bills for the small organization.

• Does the CoT signify the end of the Big One? The combination of the wing and the heavier body have kept cars against the wall instead of hurtling back towards the pack. Car after car hit the wall and stuck there. Even my wife asked why the cars weren’t creating huge melees. The more cars that are around at the end of restrictor plate races the better.

• Top five commercials: Amp (Junior fighting a Gorilla), Toyota (kids controlling drivers’ cars with remote controls), NAPA (’90 Bristol Car), Fedex (Hamlin speed-reading), UPS (Dale Jarrett finally races—and wins—in the truck)

  Least favorite: Carl Edwards in the Claritin spot. The product may not cause drowsiness, but its ads do.

• Fox unveiled the new Gopher Cam. It’s a ground level camera in each turn that gives another new perspective. As someone born in Minnesota, I’m all for more exposure for Gophers, but I still prefer the crane cam. There is just something about the sweeping shot of the lead pack through an entire turn.

• If anyone has a connection with a Fox Sports producer, I would love to see one simple change. When a pit road reporter is talking, they highlight their name with a yellow bar on the ticker. My immediate reaction is there’s a caution, then realize it’s merely Krista Voda talking. When I was a youngster, I had the Crayloa 64-color box. Almost any of the other 63 colors would work. How about a nice periwinkle or purple mountain majesty?

[Apologies for the late post. Apparently you have to hit “publish” when you want something show up on the World Wide Web.]

If you need more NASCAR goodness (and who doesn’t?) check out news and opinions over at Racing Nation.

A few weeks ago I wrote a list of ten fearless predictions. Fearless as they were, they were also written with my tongue lodged in the side of my cheek. It’s easy to hide behind a satirical list, but it’s time for a list of things that could seriously happen this year, and we’ll start with the boldest one. [Tease: There is something pretty cool at the bottom that I can’t take credit for. So if you were thinking of navigating away because you think this/I is/am lame, at least scroll to the bottom of the post for something entertaining.]

1. Jeff Gordon will barely make the Chase. Gordon had a phenomenal 2007 season. 30 top 10’s, 6 wins and only one DNF are incredible numbers and it will be hard to duplicate. Part of it is simply regression to the mean. The other part is that Gordon typically faces more DNF’s (9 in 2005, 7 in 2006) and that will drain points. In recent years Gordon and the team have also been slow to make, or adapt to, adjustments. In 2005 with the rise in popularity of coil-bound setups, Gordon languished all summer as the team struggled to get Gordon comfortable on intermediate speedways. If Gordon has anything close to a weakness it would be his intermediate speedway program. With a brand new car at this type of track, there’s a very legitimate chance that it takes Gordon a while to get up to speed.

   It’s not simply citing 2005 either. Last year in a spectacular season, Gordon and Steve Letarte were slow to change their gameplan in the Chase while Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus were winning 4 straight races with a more aggressive approach. That cost Gordon the title last year. Gordon is strong at enough tracks to make the Chase, especially a field of 12, but if it’s more of a struggle than normal look no further than DNF’s and how he runs at intermediate tracks.

2. Regan Smith will win Rookie of the Year. Smith got a gradual introduction to the Cup series last year thanks to his apprenticeship with Mark Martin. He does a good job of keeping the car on the track. DEI also provides the top equipment among the companies fielding rookies in 2008. The other rookie candidates will all take more time to adjust to stock cars, not to mention racing at the Cup level. Sure Juan Pablo Montoya surprised last year, but he was in a different class. 2008 will also mark only the second season since 2000 that a rookie doesn’t win a race.

3. Sonoma and Watkins Glen will be the most exciting, and competitive races of the year. Watkins Glen was arguably the most unpredictable and exciting race of 2007 and the road courses will only get better this year. With the infusion of open wheel drivers, the starting field could feature a dream lineup of top road course drivers like Juan Pablo Montoya, Dario Franchitti, Sam Hornish Jr, AJ Allmendinger, Jacques Villeneuve, Patrick Carpentier, Boris Said, Ron Fellows, Scott Pruett. Now factor in the old guard featuring drivers like Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Robby Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman and Jamie McMurray and you have a lot of drivers that could light up the serpentine courses (and their tires). The heavier CoT can also accommodate more bumping without the cars losing control. That means beating, banging, flipping (birds, not cars), shouting, shoving, and for fans excitement.

4. Toyota will win 6 races. At first glance that number sounds like a lot, but think about it. Tony Stewart has never won less than two races and 7 out of 9 seasons he’s won at least three. Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch also figure to win one or two races each. Gibbs alone will approach the 6 win total. Further down, Brian Vickers and Dave Blaney both had several good wins in 2007 despite the weak Camry engine. It’s not crazy to think either driver could find victory lane. In fact Vickers had arguably the best car at Charlotte until he lost the power steering late and Blaney finished 3rd at Talladega.

5. Kyle Busch will be Gibbs’ most successful driver. When Shrub was with Hendrick, the team had Cup champion past (Jeff Gordon), present (Jimmie Johnson) and future (Busch). Busch’s move to Gibbs doesn’t change that the fact that he will win a Cup championship. It probably won’t happen this year, but he is excellent at nearly every type of track. His 97.8 driver rating was 5th best and in his fourth Cup season, he is hitting his stride. This isn’t a knock on Tony Stewart, who should have a great year, it’s just a statement of how good Kyle Busch will be in 2008.

6. A team will alter their full schedule plans Last year it was Ginn, this winter Morgan-McClure quietly closed their doors, and this year could take its toll on another team. With so many teams with high profile sponsors all vying for the same real estate in the 43-car field, simple math shows there isn’t enough room for everyone. As a result some sponsors will not want to hang around if they can’t get exposure for their brand. That will force a team to either dig deep in their own pockets or scale back. Prior to last week this could have easily been Robby Gordon Motorsports, but he is probably safe thanks to Gillet-Evernham’s shelter.

   Now the most likely teams look like BAM, Furniture Row, and Front Row motorsports. They are each alredy on shoestring budgets, but the bigger teams are not immune either. Haas-CNC, Yates and BDR all face sponsorship hurdles and that might result in skipping a few races during the season. Like Metallica says, Sad but True.

Something Cool

I got an email out of the blue yesterday from someone named Ryan Parker. He writes topical sports songs and his latest is sort of an ode to NASCAR and the 2008 season. It’s really well done and he told me it took about 8 hours for the whole process. You can see all of his songs at his website.

81 races and counting. That’s the running total on Ryan Newman’s win drought at the Cup level. It’s part of a downward trend in Newman’s short Cup career. He won 8 races in 2003. 2 in 2004, 1 in 2005 and zero in each of the past two seasons. After making the first two versions of the Chase, Newman has been absent from the past two playoff sessions.

Despite his declining win totals, Newman is still most often found near the front of the pack. He came agonizingly close to winning several races in 2007. Starting from the pole at Dover, he led 135 laps, but finished second to a dominant Martin Truex Jr. He won the pole again the next week at Pocono and was within one turn of taking the lead from Jeff Gordon when NASCAR called the race due to rain. He also nearly won at Charlotte before he blew a tire while leading the race with less than 50 laps to go.

The biggest achilles heel for the #12 team is the high number of bad finishes. Newman had 10 finishes of 30th or worse. 4 of these kinds of results came in the first 8 races of the season, putting Newman in a big hole. Newman is a top 12-caliber driver, but he needs to do better to avoid crashes. There are races where Newman will really struggle with a setup and that usually ends up in a bad finish in the 30’s instead of just a disappointing finish somewhere in the high teens or twenties.

The other element to Newman’s high DNF count was 5 engine failures. It’s surprising since the team had zero engine failures in 2006. Traditionally Penske has had strong, reliable horsepower and this problem will surely be temporary.

Penske does not lack for anything resource-wise (Proposed plans to build their own test track!). The problem is getting everyone on the same page. Look at the failed Intrepid/Charger experiment in 2006. That kind of distraction set the team back for an entire year. Things went better in 2007, especially with the CoT. Newman had a 13.3 average finish in the 16 races featuring the boxier new model. Part of this is probably due to Newman’s strength at tracks 1 mile and under, but the fact that he can run well in the new car is a good sign.

The company cleaned things up in 2007, but now there is a third team to incorporate into the Penske system. That will pull resources and personnel away from the #2 and #12 teams. Is Penske deep enough to handle the changes? The other pressing question is how will Newman and new crew chief Roy McCauley click? McCauley was previously with Kurt Busch and the #2 team, but took most of 2007 off to tend to a family emergency. Thankfully he’s back and his chemistry with Newman will be key. After spending his first four plus seasons with Matt Borland, Newman is now on his third crew chief in two years.

Newman is a threat to win the pole at any intermediate speedway, especially Atlanta and Charlotte. He has 42 career poles in six years, with seven each at Atlanta and Charlotte. Unfortunately he has only won from the pole three times. Of his 42 poles, only 22 have led to top ten finishes.

When it comes to winning races, Newman is a pretty well rounded driver. He has scored top 5’s at every race track except Homestead, but there are a handful of tracks where Newman especially shines. At Dover Newman has 3 wins, 6 top 5’s, and 8 top 10’s in only 12 career races. That’s an impressive line, but his Loudon numbers are almost as good (2 wins, 5 tip 5’s, 9 top 10’s, 4 poles). Pocono and Michigan also represent tracks where Newman is capable of winning.

Newman can make the Chase in 2008. He doesn’t even need to win a race, but that’s probably on his personal checklist. In order for the Chase to be reality, Newman needs to straighten a few things out. Priority one is reducing the number of sub-30 finishes by at least 50%. It’s better to settle for a 20th place finish than wrecking. Penske also must do their part to true up the engine program and make sure Newman has the top 5 and top 10 cars he expects. If he can tighten up his finishes, increase his top 5’s by three or four, the Chase is a real possibility for 2008. After that, wins will be icing on the cake.

If you made a list of sentimental picks to win a race or have a successful season Bobby Labonte and the #43 car would probably each make the list. Since Labonte drives the #43 makes it an even easier call. It seems like everyone roots for good things from the historic Petty operation. Since joining the team in 2006, Labonte has driven the #43 car to heights not seen in years. The next step is a win. Is it possible in 2008?

If 2006 was a return to respectability for the #43, 2007 was about maintaining that progress. Labonte gained three points positions to finish 18th. It was his best finish since 2004, and Petty Enterprises best finish since 1999 when John Andretti finished 17th. In 2006 Labonte had 8 DNF’s including 4 for engine failures. The DNF number dropped to 3 in 2007 with zero engine-related DNF’s. Both figures are significant signs of progress for Petty Enterprises.

Labonte was again solid on short tracks and had several good runs. He also took to the CoT pretty well. His average CoT finish was 21.8. While his top 5’s and top 10’s declined from 2006, he managed to run more laps and finish more races. Labonte also scored one of the more popular Busch wins in 2007 with a slingshot pass of teammate Tony Stewart to win at Talladega. The move was indicative of his plate racing prowess. It’s also seen on the Cup side, although it’s not always seen in the results. That’s the nature of plate racing, though.

The biggest problem for the Petty cars is that they simply can’t run up front on a consistent basis. Labonte is still a capable driver, but without the tools and information that the larger teams have, his success is limited. Moving their shop closer to Charlotte, the capital of NASCAR, will help. Their talent pool for crew and shop members increases immensely. The dividends will show up, but probably not immediately in 2008.

The #43 team is beginning to have a Hendrick flavor. GM Robbie Loomis, former crew chief for Jeff Gordon, recruited former crewmate Jeff Meendering from Hendrick Motorsports to head up the #43 team. Meendering was the car chief for the #24 team. So once again Labonte begins the season with another new crew chief, his 5th in less than three years with PE. He has had relative success with each of the crew chiefs in his time at Petty, but rarely right off the bat. It has typically taken a few months for Labonte’s team to gel and that transition period has to be expected again. If Labonte and company aren’t ready to run for top 10’s right away, any Chase visions will evaporate.

Despite some disadvantages in the equipment, Labonte is still capable of running near the front at places like Bristol, Martinsville, Atlanta, Texas and Phoenix. Given how much he has accomplished at the Cup level, it’s sometimes easy to forget that he’s only 43. A top 20 points finish might be tougher to attain this year, but 5-6 top tens with 1 or 2 top five finishes is probably realistic. Can Labonte win a race for Petty? The competition for wins and top 5’s will be fierce. A lot of things will have to fall into place for Labonte and Meendering to visit Victory Lane. It’s not impossible at a place like Martinsville, but realistically it’s out of reach this year. The short answer is no, but with all of the moves PE is making, the answer could turn into a yes sooner than later.

Rebound. That’s the big buzz word for Kasey Kahne and the #9 team entering 2008. It not only describes his on track performance but also his public image. On the track Kasey Kahne didn’t win a race, scored his first top 5 in August and had only 8 top 10’s all season. He was usually fast on Fridays, but would sink like a mob-hit victim in concrete shoes on Sundays.

His off track image also took a few hits. Kahne appeared entitled at times during the 2007 season. At Richmond he got into a wreck with David Stremme and then blamed Stremme for the crash while taking personal shots at Stremme’s physique. He also insinuated intentionally crashing at Phoenix late in the year. The incident that made the most news was a run-in with a security guard at Homestead. The details are unclear, but the result was a pending lawsuit that claims Kahne shoved the security guard to the ground. Not exactly the squeaky clean, boy-next-door image Kahne had developed in his first three Cup seasons.

The season began on a good note. Kasey Kahne and Elliott Sadler both scored top 10’s at Daytona. When the Cup teams hit the intermediate tracks it was discovered that the Everham cars had miscalculated the baseline when building their speedway cars. This meant the cars were a handful and rendered uncompetitive. So Kahne and teammates Elliott Sadler and Scott Riggs spent the bulk of 2007 turning laps instead of running at the front of the pack.

Evernham was able to at least solve some of the issues on the #9 car and by late summer Kahne was again running in the top ten. His best effort came at Bristol when he dominated. Winning the pole, leading 305 laps and finishing 2nd to Carl Edwards. Of his 8 top ten finishes, 6 came in the final 12 races, including four on intermediate tracks.

Kahne has a lot of positives to cling to entering 2008. His team director Kenny Francis returns for the third straight season. The two won 6 races together in 2006 and obviously have a good understanding. Ray Evernham also has a new, more specialized role at GEM. Instead of trying to do everything at the company, Evernham can now focus on the competition aspect of the company. That means he is free to float among the different departments and address specific problems. All three cars should enjoy this benefit, none more than Kahne’s ride. Another positive is the added funding that new sponsor Budweiser will contribute.

Which way will GEM go in ’08? Given that it’s an even year, Kasey Kahne figures to have a nice season. In ’04 and ’06 Kahne averaged 12.5 top 5’s and 16.5 top 10’s. In ’05 and ’07 his averages were 3 top 5’s and 8 top 10’s. Given the small sample size it says two things. One, it’s probably not a very reliable predictor, but also that Evernham has typically been slow to adapt to changes. 2005 was the introduction of the new aero-package and 2007 was the CoT. 2008 is another year of change with the CoT going full time plus Dodge’s introduction of a new engine midseason. That means Kahne sustaining success is no sure thing. He is still growing as a driver, but his wheelhouse for success stems from intermediate tracks. This program is more reliant on equipment than any other piece of the NASCAR schedule. That means his success is more closely tied to GEM than Sadler’s or Carpentier’s might be. His best speedway tracks are Atlanta, Michigan, and California, but he is also a front runner at Bristol, Darlington and especially Richmond. Since his rookie year, Kahne has also been one of the best qualifiers in Cup. That continued in 2007 when he scored two poles and had an average start of 14.3. A reasonable prediction for Kahne is 1 win, 9-10 top 5’s, and 12-14 top 10’s. Matching his 6 win season of two years ago will be tough, but he will be in the mix for a Chase spot. The keys will be the team’s speedway program and how Kahne does on the other tracks like short tracks and road courses.

In 267 laps there were only about 30 where there was any mystery to the outcome of the race or the Championship. Matt Kenseth dominated, led 213 laps and closed out his time with crew chief Robbie Reiser by winning the race. Jimmie Johnson led the first lap, backed off and sat comfortably in the top ten for the rest of the afternoon, leaving little suspense to the Chase. For Johnson all the heavy lifting was done in the past four weeks when he created the necessary separation from Jeff Gordon to do some light lifting of the trophy on Sunday night.

There is no need to say anything else about Johnson. He had a phenomenal year, and while you can debate the legitimacy of the Chase, everyone enters the season with the same rules and Johnson played the game the best. The bigger issue is how the Nextel Cup can be more like the Craftsman Truck Series. They race on most of the same tracks, have the same manufacturers and many of the same owners supply the top teams, but there is a huge gap in the competition level between the two series. I don’t have an answer, but imagine if fans could look forward to each weekend seeing the best drivers in NASCAR’s top series and knowing that more often than not, the finish would be close, the racing would be good and the points would remain close the entire season. NASCAR can talk about marketing globally and finding new fans, but when they figure out how to get a better product on the track on a regular basis, new fans will figure out what the big fuss about.

Other Thoughts

• Jeff Gordon ran well, especially after the sun went down. The finish was his 30th top ten of the season, which is simply amazing. Only six races outside the top ten, and two of those races were finishes of 11th and 12th. He also led laps in 23 races and had 21 top fives. The season was an amazing one, but unfortunately it might be considered in the category of the 2001 Seattle Mariners. A record setting year that didn’t end with a championship.

  Gordon’s post race comments were interesting too. “Not saying they didn’t deserve any of them, but they definitely got the wins at a crucial time when we got a little conservative. We didn’t get the cars to where they needed to be. And those guys beat us, that is the bottom line.”

  Gordon’s strategy was sound. Finish in the top ten every week, win a few races and force everyone else to get aggressive. Unfortunately for Gordon this year it wasn’t enough.

• I used to think Homestead wasn’t worthy of the final race of the season, but the racing has really improved. Had someone else had a car equal to the #17 it may have shown more. The few times that Martin Truex Jr or Denny Hamlin were within striking distance of Kenseth, the racing was good and passing was tough. I would have liked to see how it would have been if someone else was in the same ballpark as Kenseth.

• I happened to catch a little of the Cup Happy Hour coverage on Saturday. ESPN did a feature on how they do the Draft Tracker. I didn’t realize there was actual telemetry equipment installed on every car. This poses a problem. If teams are able to gain access to this information during the race, what kind of advantage would that be? Is this the first step towards an increased reliance on in-car technology like Formula One?

The in-race reporter idea is a good one, but ESPN could take it even further. Follow that driver’s in-car camera for 10-20 laps at a time, play the best of their in-car audio, especially when they discuss changes to the car. TNT did it with Kyle Petty as a one time deal, but a network should do it on a weekly basis next year.

• ESPN’s pit reporters are one of the strengths of their broadcast. It’s good when they tell the audience something they didn’t already know, it’s great when they tell us something we would never know. Example, Dave Byrnes relayed a story about the #42 team and how they intentionally had Juan Pablo Montoya practice driving a loose racecar. Montoya had a nice run and ran in the top five for a good part of the race before settling for 15th.

• It was neat to see how excited Robbie Reiser was after the race. In his last with Matt Kenseth, he built a bullet. Now Reiser can focus all of his time and energy on the Car of Tomorrow for all of the Roush/Fenway(Yates) cars. It’s too bad Kenseth won’t be able to use his bullet next year.

  Speaking of the old cars, if I had some room in the driveway I’d contact a team about how to get me a car. Imagine the drivers in the ARCA and Busch East Series. They are the lucky benefactors of cars and chassis as a result of millions of dollars in research rendered obsolete by the country’s top racing series.

Well that’s it for NASCAR in 2007, but while the drivers head to their lakes, condos in Mexico or their local dirt tracks, I will be more like a crew member and head right back to work tomorrow. I have some plans for the offseason and nothing changes, just more of the daily stuff that makes this blog the number one search result on Google for the keywords “Trouble in Turn 2″.

If you enjoyed this post, check out more NASCAR news and opinion at Racing Nation.