It's an Even Season

March 18, 2008

By Brian Watkins

Brian Watkins

As we head toward the first weekend off of the 2008 season, it’s hard to believe there have only been 5 races. Between oil tank lids, tires, Toyota and unapproved front ends, we’ve yet to go a weekend without some sort of controversy or big story. I could go into them all again, but seriously, haven’t we heard enough about them?

One thing that I haven’t read much about is that no one manufacturer has yet to dominate the Sprint Cup series. I know, it’s only 5 races in, but given the hold Hendrick Motor Sports had on the series last season, it was predicted by many that that streak would continue. The reality is quite the opposite. Despite a couple pit strategy miscues, the only HMS driver currently running in the top 12 is “new guy” Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Jimmie Johnson, the current Sprint Cup champion and the guy voted most likely to be leading the pack in the 2008 season is a respectable but unexpected 13th in points, followed closely by Hendrick cohort Gordon at 13th and just a little further down he list we find Casey Mears at 33rd.

The end of last season showed some steady improvement by the Toyota teams, and their best performing driver of the 2007 season, Dave Blaney, was expected by many to put on an even better show this year. So far though he’s had an average finish of 32.4 and currently sits at a below average 37th in the points standings. Toyota’s best finishes and performers have been the most recent addition to the Toyota stable; Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch. Busch is currently leading the cup points race in both the Sprint Cup Series and the Craftsman Truck Series. Hamlin put the first Cup Camry in victory lane and Smoke has been a strong performer this season as well- but while there has been a lot of excitement in the Toyota camp thus far, there has been as of yet no hogging of the checkers by the “foreign” guys as predicted by Jack Roush.

Speaking of Roush-Fenway, Ford has been the only manufacturer to take the checkers twice so far this season, with back to back Carl Edwards wins at California and Las Vegas. An asterisk on his Las Vegas win takes some of the shine off Ford’s performance, and the 100 point penalty attached to that asterisk kept Edwards from being king of the points mountain. In addition to the controversy and weeks worth of debate the oil cover lid bolt provided, it also gave us one of the here-to-fore best Jack Roush quotes of the season; “Jack is Mad”. That quote can be taken several different ways, and in my opinion, they all work. His quote however wasn’t a declaration of deteriorating mental health. Nor was it his reaction to finding out that his team had “not cheated” or that they’d been caught “not cheating”. Rather it was a declaration espousing his frustration that an executive of another manufacturer, his most favorite manufacturer I might add, insinuated that the 99 team had, um, not “not cheated”.

Jeff Burton gave Chevy its first win of the season in a last minute dash to the finish at Bristol, much in the same way Ryan Newman and his #12 Dodge stole the show at Daytona. Both wins were unexpected and both were long in coming.

All in all it’s been a pretty even season. Each manufacturer has met with controversy, and each manufacturer has had a win (some have even had 1 and a half wins).

While it’s too early to make any solid predictions, it looks like the new car has thus far proved itself as not only a “racier” car, but also that is seems to have truly leveled the playing field quite a bit. Martinsville will be a welcome return after a raceless weekend, and we’ll see then how the rest of the season will start to take shape.

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.

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