NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
  • Peg It on GarageMonkey
CUP: Here Are 10 To Remember From ‘09
2009 is almost in the rear view mirror...
John Sturbin  |  Posted December 30, 2009   Charlotte, NC
Jimmie Johnson picked up his fourth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup championship trophy at Las Vegas in 2009. (Photo: Getty Images)

For those of us still fortunate enough to be involved in this profession, the 2009 motorsports season was not all about Jimmie and Junior and Danica.

For this writer, 2009 was about transitioning from a 35-year career in the daily newspaper industry into the 24/7 world of cyberspace. Away from the keyboard of this Sony Vaio, it was learning about “networking” and the “elevator speech” and “hidden jobs” – and something economists are calling a “jobless recovery.”

Wonderful. Thank you. Where do I sign up for that?

Meanwhile, armed with the proper credentials as “Citizen Journalist,” 2009 was about rediscovering the satisfaction of writing a solid game story on deadline; of tuning into a teleconference largely overlooked by the competition, of cranking out that oddball Pikes Peak or X-Games feature.

Keep that bit of self-indulgence in mind, please, as I list my top 10 motorsports stories of 2009:

* Jimmie Johnson wins fourth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup championship – Last time I checked, you can’t do better than “unprecedented.” On top of title No. 4, the Hendrick Motorsports ace became the first racing driver selected as Male Athlete of the Year by The Associated Press in the award’s 78-year-history. (There’s a joke here about Athlete of the Decade Tiger Woods and his putter, so have at it).

* Tony Schumacher wins seventh NHRA Top Fuel title – “The Sarge” has bagged six of those championships in a row, the most recent with a revamped U.S. Army Dragster team. Schumacher finished two points ahead of arch-rival Larry Dixon of Al Anabi Racing in the closest Top Fuel championship in history…and largely has gone unnoticed.

* Helio Castroneves wins third Indianapolis 500 – Five weeks after being cleared of federal income tax evasion charges, Castroneves won “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” for the third time since 2001. Conspiracy theorists will tell you this kind of feel-good script typically carries a NASCAR copyright. Instead, the affable Brazilian shed real tears after his “best Month of May ever.”

* Kyle Busch wins a gazillion races and first Nationwide championship – Kyle came this close to an unprecedented sweep of the NASCAR Camping World Truck, Nationwide and Sprint Cup races at Texas Motor Speedway in November…and as the Cup race wound down Sunday I found myself rooting for him to get it done. That would have been one helluva deadline story…

* Dario Franchitti wins second IndyCar Series championship – The Scotsman rebounded from his failed foray into NASCAR with his second open-wheel title in three years. Sure, Franchitti landed a top-shelf ride with Target Chip Ganassi Racing. But at age 36, Dario declined to second-guess his NASCAR decision, declaring that getting out of his comfort zone after 12 seasons made him a better driver.


Page 1 of 2
Prev
12
Next
john_sturbin's avatar

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Sturbin

MORE BY THIS AUTHOR
Advertising | Jobs | Feedback | FAQ | Terms of Use | NEW Privacy Policy | Ad Choices | Site Map
Fox Sports | FUEL TV | FX Network | National Geographic | IGN | AskMen
The Motor Sports Authority, SPEED and associated logos are registered trademarks of Speed Channel Inc.
All Rights Reserved © Speed Channel, Inc. 2013

All external links will open in a new browser window. SPEED.com does not endorse external sites.