‘Parity’ Defining the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Season
Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR
As we prepare to start the second half of the Sprint Cup season, a lot has been said about the year guys like Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin are having.
But what I haven’t heard much of is how much parity we’ve seen thus far this season.
Parity? What the heck am I talking about, right? There’s no such thing as parity in NASCAR, you’re probably saying to yourself.
Look at last season, you’ll tell me: there was a grand total of just 12 winners across the 36-race season, led by Carl Edwards’ nine wins, Kyle Busch’s eight victories and Jimmie Johnson’s seven triumphs en route to his third consecutive Sprint Cup title.
Well, if you haven’t looked at the standings recently, we’ve had 11 different winners over 18 races in the first half of the season, led by three wins apiece by Mark Martin and Kyle Busch.
Here’s another statistic to consider: Six wins have come from drivers that aren’t even in the top 12 in the standings, which means if the Chase for the Sprint Cup was to start today, one-third of the wins would have come from guys that didn’t even make the playoffs.
And now, there’s still another 18 races to go, starting with this Saturday’s LifeLock 400 at Chicagoland Speedway.
I may be going way out on a limb on this one, but given the way the first half went, I’m willing to bet you’re going to see at least six additional winners in the second half. I thoroughly expect to see guys that have been held winless thus far to light it up in the second half, including Edwards (to go from nine wins to zero in one year is almost beyond belief), Ryan Newman, Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer, David Ragan and even Marcos Ambrose, who has knocked on victory’s door several times already this year.
Heck, Dale Earnhardt Jr. might even join that bunch if things finally go his way for once.
So why so many wins spread across so many drivers already? The COT is finally starting to show the promise NASCAR and chairman Brian France said it would. Have patience, they kept telling us, and the car will come into its own – and that’s exactly what has happened.
It’s tightened the performance gap between teams and even led to several unlikely winners this year, including David Reutimann and rookie Joey Logano (yes, even though both won in rain-shortened events) as well as Brad Keselowski.
I finally can agree with NASCAR that the racing has gotten better, particularly the number of exciting finishes we’ve seen thus far – and they don’t get much more exciting than the one we saw last Saturday at Daytona.
The second half of the season has a lot to live up to, let alone to surpass, what we witnessed in the first half. But you know what? I can’t wait to see it.
Catch ‘ya Friday.
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