10 Things To Watch In 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup
May 09, 2008
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At the season-opening Daytona 500, all the talk was centered on Hendrick Motorsports and its expected continued dominance, especially with the addition of Dale Earnhardt Jr., the sport’s most popular driver.
Through 10 races, here are 10 things we’ve learned:
1.Kyle Busch is on fire: He has seven top-10s and two wins in his first year with Joe Gibbs Racing. And it’s not just in the Sprint Cup series that he has distinguished himself, although that’s clearly what defines him. Busch still has not decided whether he will run the full Nationwide series since the Cup series is his priority, but why not keep a good thing going?
2. Silly season begins earlier: Six months remain in the Sprint Cup season, but already the drama about who will be switching teams has begun. It got underway a few weeks ago, just before the Talladega race, when Tony Stewart, who is under contract with Gibbs through 2009, said he has had conversations with other teams. He was very elusive about his future and even indicated that he might be interested in ownership.
Will Casey Mears, the “forgotten” member of Hendrick’s team, be back?
3.Gibbs-Childress slugfest: The Cup championship might be a two-team race between Joe Gibbs Racing and Richard Childress Racing. RCR’s Jeff Burton was leading the points until this week. Burton is now second, and teammates Clint Bowyer, who won Saturday night at Richmond, and Kevin Harvick are fourth and fifth, respectively.
4. Don’t overlook Carl Edwards: Well, first of all, that’s hard to do, since he has that patented back-flip off his car following a win—and we’ve seen three of those this year.
5. Drug testing: After Craftsman Truck series driver Aaron Fike revealed to ESPN the Magazine in April that he used heroin on the day of races, Sprint Cup series drivers said they would be strongly in favor of mandatory drug testing. As it stands now, NASCAR will drug test if there is reasonable suspicion. NASCAR officials recently said they will look into the possibility of stricter drug testing.
6. Dale Earnhardt Jr. still winless: The pressure is on—or is it? One of the big stories of the early Cup season has been Earnhardt settling into his new digs at Hendrick Motorsports. Clearly, he is comfortable there and is enjoying himself.
7. Burden on fans: Has the high cost of fuel hurt racing fans who want to attend races? Of course it has. Roger Curtis, president of Michigan International Speedway, said a few months ago that he doesn’t anticipate a sellout of the Sprint Cup race on June 15 because of the current state of the economy.
8. Open-wheel transition: No one said it would be easy for drivers with open-wheel backgrounds to make the move to Sprint Cup racing.
Juan Pablo Montoya, with one Cup season under his belt, has done well. He is 16th in points, having spent last week in 12th before the race at Richmond. Montoya’s 2007 experience had clearly paid off.
9. Is Jeff Gordon struggling? The four-time Cup series champion is 13th in points, just outside the Chase for the Championship cutoff. He is in a far different situation than he was a year ago, when he was dominating the series.
10. New cars: Two accidents this year have given credibility to claims the new Sprint Cup series car is safer. Rookie Michael McDowell’s terrifying wreck during qualifying at Texas Motor Speedway made all the highlight shows, and while most expected the worst, he managed to climb from the car and walk off with a slight limp. Jeff Gordon endured what he called one of the hardest wrecks of his career with five laps left at Las Vegas. The car did its job, but Gordon did question the lack of SAFER walls at the track.
