by Mike Maruska
11/19/2007
In 267 laps there were only about 30 where there was any mystery to the outcome of the race or the Championship. Matt Kenseth dominated, led 213 laps and closed out his time with crew chief Robbie Reiser by winning the race. Jimmie Johnson led the first lap, backed off and sat comfortably in the top ten for the rest of the afternoon, leaving little suspense to the Chase. For Johnson all the heavy lifting was done in the past four weeks when he created the necessary separation from Jeff Gordon to do some light lifting of the trophy on Sunday night.
There is no need to say anything else about Johnson. He had a phenomenal year, and while you can debate the legitimacy of the Chase, everyone enters the season with the same rules and Johnson played the game the best. The bigger issue is how the Nextel Cup can be more like the Craftsman Truck Series. They race on most of the same tracks, have the same manufacturers and many of the same owners supply the top teams, but there is a huge gap in the competition level between the two series. I don’t have an answer, but imagine if fans could look forward to each weekend seeing the best drivers in NASCAR’s top series and knowing that more often than not, the finish would be close, the racing would be good and the points would remain close the entire season. NASCAR can talk about marketing globally and finding new fans, but when they figure out how to get a better product on the track on a regular basis, new fans will figure out what the big fuss about.
Other Thoughts
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Jeff Gordon ran well, especially after the sun went down. The finish was his 30th top ten of the season, which is simply amazing. Only six races outside the top ten, and two of those races were finishes of 11th and 12th. He also led laps in 23 races and had 21 top fives. The season was an amazing one, but unfortunately it might be considered in the category of the 2001 Seattle Mariners. A record setting year that didn’t end with a championship.
Gordon’s post race comments were interesting too. “Not saying they didn’t deserve any of them, but they definitely got the wins at a crucial time when we got a little conservative. We didn’t get the cars to where they needed to be. And those guys beat us, that is the bottom line.”
Gordon’s strategy was sound. Finish in the top ten every week, win a few races and force everyone else to get aggressive. Unfortunately for Gordon this year it wasn’t enough.
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I used to think Homestead wasn’t worthy of the final race of the season, but the racing has really improved. Had someone else had a car equal to the #17 it may have shown more. The few times that Martin Truex Jr or Denny Hamlin were within striking distance of Kenseth, the racing was good and passing was tough. I would have liked to see how it would have been if someone else was in the same ballpark as Kenseth.
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I happened to catch a little of the Cup Happy Hour coverage on Saturday. ESPN did a feature on how they do the Draft Tracker. I didn’t realize there was actual telemetry equipment installed on every car. This poses a problem. If teams are able to gain access to this information during the race, what kind of advantage would that be? Is this the first step towards an increased reliance on in-car technology like Formula One?
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ESPN’s pit reporters are one of the strengths of their broadcast. It’s good when they tell the audience something they didn’t already know, it’s great when they tell us something we would never know. Example, Dave Byrnes relayed a story about the #42 team and how they intentionally had Juan Pablo Montoya practice driving a loose racecar. Montoya had a nice run and ran in the top five for a good part of the race before settling for 15th.
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It was neat to see how excited Robbie Reiser was after the race. In his last with Matt Kenseth, he built a bullet. Now Reiser can focus all of his time and energy on the Car of Tomorrow for all of the Roush/Fenway(Yates) cars. It’s too bad Kenseth won’t be able to use his bullet next year.
Speaking of the old cars, if I had some room in the driveway I’d contact a team about how to get me a car. Imagine the drivers in the ARCA and Busch East Series. They are the lucky benefactors of cars and chassis as a result of millions of dollars in research rendered obsolete by the country’s top racing series.
The in-race reporter idea is a good one, but ESPN could take it even further. Follow that driver’s in-car camera for 10-20 laps at a time, play the best of their in-car audio, especially when they discuss changes to the car. TNT did it with Kyle Petty as a one time deal, but a network should do it on a weekly basis next year.
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