NASCAR

Reviewing the top five stories of Sprint Cup racing

BY JIM PEDLEY

McClatchy Newspapers

The five biggest stories in NASCAR in 2008 all had scope.

None were about individual moments, at least not completely, but involved accomplishments over time or the beginning, the continuation or the interruption of trends in the sport.

The two biggest stories dominated the headlines as the season closed and could, depending on how things turn out, be right back at the top of next year's list as well.

5. WONDER WHAT HAPPENED?

One of the most remarkable streaks in NASCAR history ended when Jeff Gordon didn't win a Sprint Cup race this season.

Gordon

Gordon had not only won a race in every year since 1994, as he earned the nickname "Wonder Boy," he'd won at least two races in each of the previous 14 seasons. That's the kind of streak that distinguishes the sport's greatest careers. Richard Petty won more than one race for 18 straight years. Cale Yarborough had a 13-year streak of two or more wins, while Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip each had 10-year streaks.

It wasn't exactly a dismal season for Gordon - the four-time champion finished seventh in the Chase and had 13 top-five finishes - but he and crew chief Steve Letarte admitted they never really found the feel Gordon was looking for in their No. 24 Chevrolets.

4. "A" ON SAFETY, "INCOMPLETE" ON RACING

As soon as Michael McDowell's Toyota first wiggled when he headed into Turn 1 on a qualifying lap at Texas Motor Speedway, you knew it was going to be trouble. But his jarring, head-on impact and the wild, rolling crash that followed was horrifying to watch.

The fact that McDowell walked away from that wreck without serious injury was a triumph for the "Car of Tomorrow," which was used in all races for the first time this year. The new car's safety initiatives needed no other testimony than that incident.

The other part of the new car's equation, though, is how well can it be raced. Jimmie Johnson and his team started the year struggling, especially at intermediate tracks, but he and his team found

RUSTY JARRETT FOR NASCAR

Jimmie Johnson, left, tied Cale Yarborough's, right, record of three consecutive Sprint Cup titles.

a way to work with the race car. Teammate Jeff Gordon, however, never quite got there.

In the broader sense, there were competitive races with the new car but many of them seemed to come at smaller venues. At the 1.5- mile and 2-mile tracks, though, track position - especially the first position - was more important that ever. NASCAR can't be happy if the new car's aerodynamics make the leader all but impossible to pass.

3. "SHRUB" FLOWERS FAST, THEN FADES

Kyle Busch moved to Joe Gibbs Racing after basically being shifted out at Hendrick Motorsports to make room for Dale Earnhardt Jr. It seemed for the first part of the year that Busch took that personally.

Busch won eight of the season's first 22 Cup races and became a lightning rod for fans. Some admired his all-out driving style, but others found him too aggressive. A bumping incident with Earnhardt Jr. in the spring race at Richmond cemented Busch's role as the driver some fans most loved to hate.

Still just 23, Busch also won 10 Nationwide Series races - in three different cars - and had three more wins in the Truck Series to give him 21 victories in the sport's top three series.

But after a win at Watkins Glen, giving Busch a sweep of this year's Cup road-course races, Busch and his No. 18 team saw their season sputter curiously.

They opened the Chase with finishes of 34th at New Hampshire, 43rd and Dover and 28th at Kansas, and their title hopes were done. The fact that Busch wound up 10th in the final standings was, after the way he'd run for six months, perhaps the season's biggest surprise.

2. MR. JOHNSON, MEET MR. YARBOROUGH

Halfway through the season, two-time defending Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson had one victory, eight top-10 finishes and was 367 points out of first in the Sprint Cup standings.

But when it came time to present the hardware after the season's final race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, once again it was Johnson and his team holding the trophy.

Johnson won five of the final 12 races, three of them in the Chase, and had no finish worse than 15th in the 10-race playoff to become only the second driver in history to win three straight Cup titles.

The only man to do it before Johnson was Cale Yarborough, the 1976-78 champion, who made a memorable surprise appearance at the Cup awards ceremony in New York to give Johnson, who said Yarborough was his racing hero growing up, his championship ring.

1. THE REAL WORLD RACES IN

As the 2008 season marched to its close, a gathering storm in the American economy began to rain on NASCAR. Hard

The story at the season's final race was that as many as 1,000 race team employees could be about to lose their jobs. While a specific number of layoffs is hard to pin down, there have been hundreds who've had their careers - and their dreams to be part of bigtime racing - end or at least be placed on hold.

It's not clear how many teams will be fully sponsored for 2009. It's not even clear, for that matter, how much support teams will be able to depend on from Ford, Chevrolet and Dodge as the American auto manufactures fight their own battle to survive beyond the current crisis.

Will NASCAR race on? Yes, but that doesn't mean there aren't potentially perilous days ahead of it.

Kyle Busch won eight Sprint Cup, 10 Nationwide Series and three Truck Series races in 2008.

NICK LAHAM FOR NASCAR

THIS WEEK'S QUESTION

What would you vote as the top story in NASCAR for 2008?

Cast your vote at: www.thatsracin.com

LAST WEEK'S QUESTION

Should NASCAR be shut down, as an article at Slate.com suggests?

Number of votes: 2,711

Response	No. of votes	Percent
No, let it live or die on its own merits.	2,303	85%
Yes, in this economy auto racing is silly.	408	15%

Modified series to race at Bristol

The modifieds are coming to Bristol. NASCAR's oldest series will be part of Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway's August weekend with a race on Wednesday, Aug. 19. The 150-lap race will join the Camping World Truck Series in a doubleheader that evening.

Drivers will get points in both the Whelen Modified and Whelen Southern Modified tours for this event.

"This is an event we have wanted to host at Bristol Motor Speedway for some time," track president and general manager Jeff Byrd said. "There is a tremendous history up north and in the New England area for modified racing with guys like Richie Evans, Jerry Cook, Mike Stefanik and my buddy Jimmy Spencer. But there is an incredible passion for this racing in the south as well."

- David Poole

Coleman out of limbo, back with Gibbs team

Brad Coleman's head must have been spinning at one point this year.

One week he was named to replace J.J. Yeley in the No. 96 Sprint Cup car at Hall of Fame Racing. He earns the very last spot available for the field in his first try at Michigan in August.

But then, after finishing 38th in that race, Coleman was suddenly out and Ken Schrader was back in it. Coleman, meanwhile, was also out of his Nationwide Series ride. The whole thing left the 20-year-old driver in a scary state of limbo.

Coleman

Things are looking up again for Coleman, however. Last week, Joe Gibbs Racing announced Coleman will join Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin in sharing the No. 20 Nationwide Series ride in 2009.

It's a homecoming for Coleman, who ran 17 Nationwide races for the Gibbs team in 2007 with three top-five finishes.

"I never would have left Gibbs in the first place, but the team just didn't have the sponsorship available to put me in a full-time Nationwide ride in 2008 and we felt like I needed the seat time," Coleman said.

J.D. Gibbs said Coleman is impressive. "Brad showed us a lot of natural talent when we launched his Nationwide career here in 2007 and has matured a great deal by going through some tough challenges since then," J.D. Gibbs said. "He has a bright future ahead of him and our entire organization is happy to have him back on the team."

Coleman's pretty happy, too.

"I feel like I got two years of experience all rolled into one in 2008," he said. "Not only racing experience at the top two levels of the sport, but life experiences as well. I can promise you this, you will be hard pressed to find a harder working, more focused driver in the garage next year."

- David Poole

Let's hope settlement isn't the end of diversity discussion

The lawyer for Mauricia Grant, the former Nationwide Series official who sued NASCAR for $225 million for racial discrimination and sexual harassment, says his client is pleased with the settlement reached in that suit.

"She'd been out of work a long time," Benedect Morelli told the Associated Press on Friday. "We thought it was in the best interest of our client not to drag this out two to three years. She needed closure. She's a young woman, and when you make the sort of allegations she did, it's difficult to move forward and get on with your life."

Both sides agreed to keep the settlement terms confidential and neither side admitted wrongdoing in the settlement, reached after mediation suggested by the judge in the case.

Morelli also told the AP he thought NASCAR "wanted to put this behind them, as well."

I hope he's wrong about that.

The thing that has bothered me since Grant filed her suit in June was NASCAR never substantively denied the thrust of lurid allegations leveled in the complaint.

NASCAR said Grant never reported the hostile treatment she was getting to her supervisors (Grant says she did). Some officials also hinted Grant's suit had no merit because she was a willing participant in the jokes and other behavior she wound up complaining about.

Legally, that might be a defense. In reality though, that makes it no less reprehensible,

I don't care how much "fun" a bunch of people think they're having, when the atmosphere is such that attacking others regarding their sex, their color, their nationality, their religion or their physical appearance you're setting yourself up for trouble.

Let's hope this lawsuit leads to a commitment from NASCAR to ensure its officials treat each other with more respect and more dignity than what was apparently happening between January 2005 and October 2007 when Grant worked there.

That's the least the sport should settle for.

Micah Roberts, who works for the Station casinos in Las Vegas, has sent over the opening line odds for the 2009 Sprint Cup championship, the Daytona 500 and the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona.

Jimmie Johnson, fittingly, has 4-1 odds to win a fourth straight Cup title. Carl Edwards is the next choice at 9-2 while Kyle Busch is 5-1.

Greg Biffle is 10-1 and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 12-

Edwards

1. Jeff Gordon and Denny Hamlin are each 13-1, while Mark Martin and Matt Kenseth are 18-1. Jeff Burton is 20-1 and Kevin Harvick is 22-1.

Clint Bowyer, Tony Stewart, David Ragan and Kurt Busch are 30-1. Kasey Kahne, Jamie McMurray and Joey Logano are 40-1. Brian Vickers is the longest shot at 75-1. Everyone else would be part of the 30-1 "field" bet.

Kyle Busch is the favorite, at 7-2 odds, in both the 500 and the Shootout.

Earnhardt is 6-1 in the 500 while Johnson is 7-1. Gordon and Hamlin are 12-1 with Martin and Kurt Busch is 15-1. Edwards is 17-1 to win the 500. Stewart is 18- 1 and defending 500 champion Ryan Newman is 40-1. Michael Waltrip is 75-1

Edwards

and he's won the Daytona 500 before. Logano hadn't run a lap at Daytona until he did an Automobile Racing Club of America test there last week, but his odds to win the 500 are 25-1.

Originally posted on David Poole's blog, "Life in the Turn Lane," available online at turn-lane.blogspot.com.