Another NASCAR season is under way with the racers already getting the first race of the season under their belts.
Heading into the season, there have been a few situations since Jimmie Johnson won his fourth consecutive NASCAR Championship last November.
First, the rear spoiler, which deflects the unwanted air away from the car, has made a return to NASCAR this season. The teams have already started to test with the rear spoiler at Charlotte, North Carolina and down in Texas as well.
Second, Danica Patrick has decided to make the move from Formula One stock car to NASCAR after finishing sixth in her first stock car race on February 6 at the ARCA race at Daytona. However she will be racing in NASCAR’s minor league circuit known as the Nationwide Series this upcoming season.
Third, the green and white-checkered finish. Basically it is a term used for a restart with two laps to go after a caution; a yellow flag is waved when there is a sign of trouble on the track, such as a wreck, and freezes the field.
NASCAR has decided to have three attempts of this feat, if deemed necessary at the end of a race, instead of finishing under the yellow. They began to talk about this after the scrimmage races at Daytona over the first weekend of February.
You might be wondering why I might be wasting everyone’s time talking about something very few people hold an interest in.
Well, it’s more than a non-athletic-sport-created-around-Rednecks. Here are three reasons I’ve noticed through the years of watching NASCAR:
First, it takes skill which is difficult to image when it’s just driving a car and making a grand total of 4 left turns. When you’re going more than 200 miles per hour, with some tracks as short as a half-mile, alongside 42 other people riding your rear like a driver late for work, you need some skill to drive those two-ton animals around the track.
Second, it takes strategy. This too is hard to image because it doesn’t seem like it takes strategy to drive a car. Not in this case. NASCAR drivers have to think of the best time to refill their care wth gas and make adjustments like getting new tires or fixing rear spoilers or other technicalities. They also have to take the risk and go without those needs if they’re racing for the winning points towards the championship.
Also, you must have strategy of how to adjust your car for different race tracks. You can’t have the same car setup for Talladega a Superspeedway, as you do for Bristol, a half-mile track. This is because Talladega is more of a speed race track than Bristol, which is more of a defensive race track.
Third, it’s ESPN. You hear about NASCAR on Sportscenter, and they even have their own show on ESPN and ESPN 2 during the season called, “NASCAR Now.” If ESPN and fans consider The World Series of Poker, hot dog eating contest and the occansial spelling bee as “sports,” then NASCAR should be consider as much of a sport as thee three aforementioned. NASCAR is to the National Football League as the World Series of Poker is to the National Basketball Association and as to the Hot Dog eating contest is to Major League Baseball.
Now to whom I think is going to be in the top five at season’s end.
At the end of the 2009 season we had Jimmie Johnson edging out then 50-year-old Mark Martin for first place and the title; then we had Jeff Gordon finish third; 2004 Champion Kurt Busch finishing fourth; and, Denny Hamlin finishing fifth.
For this season, things are definitely going to change but they will be close. In fifth, Jimmie Johnson with four titles already, will most likely not gain a fifth. Fourth is Carl Edwards, a regular in the chase and is a very solid racer with 16 career wins and a 13.3 career average finish. Third goes to Dale Earnhardt Jr., who will be making his way back into the top 12 for the Chase for the Championship this season after a season absence.
Tony Stewart is set for second and despite already nabbing two championships and 37 career wins, he will come short for the championship this year. With a career that started in the ‘80s, Martin seems the most likely to win it all. This might be the year for the man who has has never won a championship to go along with his 40 career wins at the Sprint Cup level.
The next race for the Nationwide Series, the minor league circuit, is February 20 in Las Vegas on ESPN 2 at 2p.m.
The next race for the Sprint Cup Series is February 21 in Fontana, California on FOX at noon.
