‘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.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/09 at 01:59 AMHey Jerry,
A few things to consider:
1. Reutimann and Logano’s wins came from luck, nothing to do with their performance. How can you say that parity “led to” their wins? based on their cars alone neither of them would’ve been a factor in the race they won.
2. 11 of the (now) 19 wins were with Hendrick or Hendrick-affiliated cars. (Would’ve been 12 if not for Logano’s rain shortened win)
This doesn’t sound like parity to me -Maybe once you take hendrick out of the equation there’s parity, but at this point Hendrick is definitely a step above the rest.
Talk to us about parity again at the end of the season when Jimmie Johnson is hoisting up his 4th consecutive Cup trophy.
whYME953 is absolutely correct; Hendrick and its satellite teams are so dominant that a victory by any other driver (not named Kyle Busch) is the exception and not the norm. THAT’S parity?
I think what’s more telling is that races this year have been nothing more than a slow plod until about the last 15-20 laps, whereby the usual suspects are up front and the only way you see a non-Hendrick or Kyle Busch win is if there’s a crash or some ill-advised jockeying for position and someone sneaks by for the victory (ala Brad Keselowski).
It’s usually the same cast of characters who we hear about dominating a race and winning, or dominating a race only to have some crash or other misfortune take him out of the running. When was the last time we heard something like “Marcos Ambrose dominated that race” or “Sadler had a strong run today”? Nope, it’s usually “(Insert Hendrick/satellite driver here) dominated” or “Kyle Busch dominated but lost because of some ill-advised move”.
We are FAR from having parity.
Speaking of parity, this analysis also confirms Jerry’s point, that 2009 has been a very competitive season, from a statistical point of view:
http://36races.blogspot.com/2009/06/2009-is-closest-most-competitve-season.html
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