First off, congratulations to Jimmie Johnson for a stellar Chase performance in route to his 6th career championship. There were several drivers who were absolutely solid in the Chase. Dale Jr. only had 1 finish outside the top 15 (35th at Chicago), Kyle Busch only had 1 finish outside the top 15 (34th at New Hampshire) and 3 finishes outside the top 10, Kevin Harvick only had 2 finishes outside the top 10 (20th at New Hampshire and 12 at Talladega) and 2 wins, and Matt Kenseth had 3 finishes outside the top 10 (23rd at Phoenix, 20 at Talladega, and 11th at Kansas) with 2 wins. But Jimmie Johnson made it impossible for those guys to rebound from their little hiccups by having 2 wins, 7 top 5's, 9 top 10's and a worst finish of 13th (Talladega). So again, congrats Jimmie. Also give a congratulations to Ricky Stenhouse Jr. for winning Rookie of the Year. I know it was a tough battle this year......or maybe not.
So Jimmie may have had the most dominating performance in Chase history, but was anybody really surprised by it? I certainly was not. So who was the most impressive driver in the 2013 season? This was a tough decision. Jamie McMurray had a great year finishing 15th in points and winning at Talladega. It looked like he was a lock to be the highest finishing non-Chase driver in points until Keselowski surged at the end of the year. Casey Mears was running top 20 in points for the entire first half of the season, but then started running the way that team was supposed to run late in the year, finishing 24th in points. With Matt Kenseth coming over to Gibbs I really thought Kyle Busch would struggle this year and miss the Chase. Boy was I wrong, but I can't say I was totally surprised that he won 4 races and finished 4th in points. Joey Logano definitely exceeded expectations by winning at Michigan and making the Chase for the first time in his career. But the most impressive this season, in my opinion, was Kurt Busch. Coming off a rough season last year, Busch winds up at Furniture Row Racing, a single car operation based out of Denver, Colorado with only one victory and a best points finish of 24th. Kurt came in roaring with 2 runner up finishes, 11 top 5's, and 16 top 10's. That performance put FRR into the Chase for the first time, winding up 10th in points. Kurt's performance also caught the eye of Gene Haas, which landed him a ride with a top tier organization after spending 2 years with under funded single car teams.
As for the opposite end of the spectrum, who was the most disappointing driver this year? One could argue Denny Hamlin. Even though Denny did miss a month due to the broken back vertebrae he got in the California race, he was so terrible after he came back that he actually had a streak of 13 consecutive finishes of 18th or worse. But I firmly believe that if Denny never had the back injury, he wouldn't have had those struggles this year. One could also argue Tony Stewart. Tony got off to the worst start of his career. He was 20th in points when he picked up his first win of the year at Dover (the 13th race of the season), but he had put together a solid string of runs and was 11th in points and looking like he was going to make the Chase when he broke his leg in a sprint car crash. Had Tony not broken his leg, I have no doubt he would've made the Chase. Which leaves one driver, Brad Keselowski.
As many of you may remember (probably you don't), I predicted Brad to have a rough start to the year and then get hot midseason and compete for the title. Well, I had that backwards. Brad had 7 top 10's in the first 8 races and sat 3rd in points. The next 18 races were quite the opposite, posting only 4 top 10's and having 6 finishes of 30th or worse. Needless to say, our defending champ did a poor job defending his championship and missed the Chase.A Look Back
Looking back at my "Bold Predictions", I got about 47% of them right. Kind of disappointing after getting 52% right last year. I had some pretty good predictions like Kevin Harvick having a good year, Jeff Burton leaving RCR, and Ryan Newman joining RCR. The prediction I am most proud of though is predicting Brian Vickers to win a race.
There were some bad predictions too, such as Keselowski winning it all, Denny Hamlin winning a bunch of races, Kyle Busch missing the Chase, Aric Almirola and Jeff Burton winning races.....What was I thinking? Oh well, I'll do better next year.Best of the Best (and sometimes worst)
What better way to finish off the year than a Top 10 countdown. Here are the Top 10 most memorable, most exciting, and downright craziest moments of the 2013 season.
10. 20 > 5
No, this isn't just simple 2nd grade math. Matt Kenseth won 7 races this year beating out guys like Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Jamie McMurray, but 3 of those wins came over Kasey Kahne. 3 times Kenseth and Kahne finished 1-2 this year, all 3 Kenseth got the win, all 3 Kahne was the faster car charging at the end. Add 5 more laps to any of those races and Kahne wins. And to make things more interesting, they were 3 of the closest finishes of the year. Kenseth's .594 second margin of victory in Vegas was the 8th closest finish of the year, his .188 second margin of victory in Bristol was the 3rd closest, and the .15 second margin of victory in Kansas was the 2nd closest of the year. So basically if you put these two in the mix at the end, it's going to be a close finish.
9. Depends....
Juan Pablo Montoya in the #42 Depends Chevrolet was running away with the Toyota Owners 400 in Richmond. He had taken the lead with 71 laps to go and was cruising to his coveted first career victory on an oval when Denny Hamlin spun in turn 3 with 5 laps to go. Montoya pitted, but others stayed out. Jeff Burton led the field to the Green-White-Checkered, but it was Kevin Harvick (who restarted 5th) that dove 3 wide to the bottom in turn 1 to take 2nd place and eventually take Burton in turn 3 to win the race. Montoya finished 4th.
8. One Man's Empty Gas Tank is Another Man's Trophy
Had circumstances been different this would have been titled "The Kid's Last Hurrah" and been ranked much higher. Mark Martin had gambled on fuel mileage at the Pure Michigan 400, betting that another caution would come out and everyone would pit and he would have a shot at the win. Unfortunately for Mark there was no caution. He ran out of gas with 4 laps to go and Joey Logano, who had led most of the race, re-assumed the lead and went on to win his first race of the year and his first race for Roger Penske. That win would eventually put Joey into the Chase for the first time in his career.
7. Finale Farewells
Homestead is always bittersweet. On one hand you're crowning a new champion and there's a lot of excitement, on the other it's the last race of the season and you realize you're going to have to wait 3 month to watch racing again. But this year at Homestead there were a lot of farewells. Some were small, like Ryan Newman's last race for Stewart/Haas or Martin Truex's last race for MWR. Some were slightly larger, like Kevin Harvick's last race for RCR after 13 years, and Jeff Burton's last race as a full-time driver in the cup series, and Juan Pablo Montoya's last race in the cup series before going back to Indy Car. But the two biggest farewells were Ken Schrader and Mark Martin. Sure we haven't seen Schrader a whole lot over the past few years and he hasn't run up front at all, but he has been a part of this sport for so long that it was sad when he announced that this would be his final cup race. Schrader made 763 starts in his 29 year career, starting at least one race every year (except 2009) since 1984. He only had 4 wins, the last coming in 1991, and his best point finish was 4th in 1994, but he sure is a fun guy to have around the garage. Mark Martin hasn't officially announced retirement, but he seems to have acknowledged that this would also be his final cup race. Mark has been running cup races since 1981 and been in at least 1 race every season since 1986. In 882 career starts he won 40 times, his last coming in 2009 when he won 5 times, and finished 2 in points 5 times (1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2009), but never won the championship. No other driver has won 40 races and not won a championship, making Mark Martin the best that never won the title. And let's not count out that Bobby Labonte, who did not run at Homestead, very possibly made his final Cup start in Phoenix. It is widely rumored that the former champ will run full time in the truck series next season.
6. A Popular Win
5. Jumpin' Jimmie Flash
He hit the gas, gas, gas on the final restart of the FedEx 400 at Dover with 19 laps to go and took off to a huge lead. There was only one problem....HE WASN'T THE LEADER! Juan Pablo Montoya was leading the field to green when Jimmie jumped the start. Nascar black flagged Jimmie and Montoya retained the lead. For the 2nd time in 5 races it looked like Montoya would finally get the win on the oval, but Tony Stewart had other plans. Looking for his first win of the year after a dismal start to the season, Tony ran Montoya down and passed him for the lead with 3 to go and ran off to victory. That was the 2nd time JPM was leading with 5 to go this season and didn't win. Which begs the question, if he would've won those races, would he still be leaving for Indy Car?
4. Spingate
In what was probably the biggest controversy in Chase history, if not Nascar history, Ryan Newman nabbed the lead with 10 laps to go at Richmond, the last race of the "regular season". It looked like Newman would win which would solidify himself in the Chase, knocking out Martin Truex Jr. (as a side note Jeff Gordon was also in position to make the Chase and Joey Logano was out....more on that later). With 7 laps to go Clint Bowyer, Truex's MWR teammate, spun out in turn 4 seemingly on his own, bringing out the caution. Newman lost the lead on the pit exchange and would finish 3rd. Brian Vickers, another MWR teammate, randomly pitted after the restart, giving Truex (and Logano) another position on track. At the end of the race Truex and Logano had made the Chase and Ryan Newman and Jeff Gordon missed out (Logano beat Gordon by 1 point). Newman cried foul, saying that Bowyer spun out intentionally to help Truex and radio chatter confirmed that Vickers's crew had told him to pit. Nascar ruled with Newman and penalized all 3 MWR cars 50 points. The penalty knocked Truex out of the Chase and gave Newman the wild card spot. Incidentally, Vickers and Bowyer's actions also caused Joey Logano to surpass Jeff Gordon in points as well, so in an unprecedented move, Nascar added Jeff Gordon into the Chase as a 13th driver, not wanting to penalize the 22 team for actions not of their doing. In the end this lead longtime Waltrip sponsor, Napa, to end their relationship with the team. Lack of sponsorship caused MWR to have to shut down the 56 team operation, leaving Truex and crew without a job. Luckily, Furniture Row Racing, who had just lost driver Kurt Busch, brought over both Truex and crew to the 78 team for the 2014 season.
3. He's Coming For Me
Fourth race of the year. Jeff Gordon had the lead in Bristol, but Joey Logano was faster and looking for a way to get around. For several laps Joey was working on Jeff, but between lapped traffic and Gordon having the preferred line, he simply could not get around. As the two battled, Denny Hamlin slowly crept into the picture to make it a 3 car battle for the lead. Joey dove hard to the bottom of the turn and lost momentum coming off. At that point, instead of trying to go around his former teammate, Denny elected to put the bumper to Logano send him around. After the race, a furious Logano walked up to the 11 car and stuck his head in the window to say something to Hamlin. The 11 crew shoved him away and the two teams engaged in a small scuffle. When asked what Logano had said to him, Denny responded, "He said he's coming for me... I usually don't see him, so it's usually not a factor." All of this led to.....2. The Straw That Broke the Hamlin's Back
One week later at California, Hamlin and Logano find themselves duking it out for the win on the final lap. Logano had put a bumper to Hamlin with 7 to go when Denny pulled a slide job on him. Hamlin returned the favor with 2 to go when Joey pulled the slide job. Now the two are rubbing fenders down the back stretch and both dive in hard to turn 3. Logano gets loose and slides up into Hamlin and has the edge coming off turn 4. Hamlin then turns down into Logano's right rear quarter panel and sends him into the wall, but Denny loses control of his car spins down to the apron and slams nose first into the inside wall, giving the victory to Kyle Busch. Emergency crews rushed to Hamlin's car after the race and Denny laid on the ground immediately after getting out of the car. Hamlin was diagnosed with a compression fracture in his spine and would end up missing the next 4 races. But wait! There's more! On pit road after the race, Tony Stewart walked up to Joey Logano and started throwing punches. Tony, upset by Joey blocking him on a restart with 12 to go, said later in an interview, "I'm gonna bust his ass!" The two met later that week where Stewart bought Logano a beer and they made up.
And finally...
1. Front Row Finish
David Ragan has had an interesting career. After a decent Arca season in 2005 and a mediocre truck season in 2006, Jack Roush brought David up to the Cup series full-time in 2007 to replace departing Mark Martin. After some rookie blues, Ragan had a solid 2008 season finishing 13th in points with 6 top 5's and 14 top 10's. It looked like he could become one of the next big stars in Cup. But the next 2 years he had a total of 5 top 10's and finished 24th and 27th respectively in points. In 2011 David needed to prove something or he would lose his ride at Roush. He did. He won the July Daytona race and it looked like he might have a shot at a Chase wild card. Unfortunately Ragan faltered down the stretch and finished 23rd in points, losing his ride. He wound up at Front Row Motorsports, an underfunded 2 car team (which was expanding to 3) whose best points finish was 30th with David Gilliland in 2011. Ragan ran well at the restrictor plate tracks getting the team it's 2nd ever top 5 finish and wound up 28th in points, another team best. At Talladega in May, Ragan and teammate Gilliland were in the mix all day. Ragan had been pushed to the front several times to lead a few laps. After a multi car wreck with 7 laps to go, the David's were near the front for the green-white-checkered. Gilliland quickly got to Ragan's bumper and on the last lap pushed him ahead of Carl Edwards. Ragan would win the race and Gilliland would finish 2nd in an incredible David's vs. Goliath finish and the two celebrated together in victory lane.
Honorable mentions: Danica's Daytona Pole, Truex's dominate performance at Sonoma, Keselowski's valiant effort to dump Kyle Busch for the win at Watkins Glen, Jamie McMurray's emotional Talladega win, and Paul Menard's tire explosion at Homestead.
That's all for this season folks. Enjoy your winter and we'll see you at Daytona in February. Until then, Happy Racin'!
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