NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
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CUP: Money – That’s What I Want
Champion Tony Stewart cashed checks for more than $12 million for the 2011 season…
Mike Hembree  |  Posted January 06, 2012   Charlotte, NC
Tony Stewart poses with the 2011 champion's check in victory lane after winning the Ford 400 and the Sprint Cup title at Homestead-Miami Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)
After the trophies, after the champagne, after the speeches and interviews and other niceties that wrap up a racing season, what’s left is the money.

And there’s a lot of it.

The final tabulations of money won during the 2011 Sprint Cup season reveal that 10 drivers won at least $6.5 million for the year. Even the driver a distant 25th in points – Brian Vickers – totaled $4.4 million, and 36th-place Michael McDowell, who had a best season finish of 30th, won $2.4 million.

At the top of the list, as might be expected, was champion Tony Stewart, who totaled $12,671,071. Stewart’s race winnings – $6.5 million and post-season awards – $5.7 million – were quite close.

Second – and the only other driver over $10 million for the year – was Carl Edwards at $11,351,964. Edwards also was second in points.

The points top 10 does not match the money top 10, however. Brad Keselowski, who finished fifth in points, was 10th in dollars at $6.5 million. And Kyle Busch was sixth in money won at $7.1 million despite finishing 12th in points and missing a race.

Jimmie Johnson, who took home a boatload of money in five straight championship seasons, was fifth on the cash list last year with $7.5 million.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., seventh in points, didn’t make the money top 10 with $5.3 million.

Part-time Cup driver Trevor Bayne scored the season’s single biggest payday – $1.4 million – by winning the Daytona 500. The only other race-purse figure over $1 million was the $1.1 million Edwards won for finishing second to Bayne at Daytona (although Edwards got $1.2 million for winning the Sprint All-Star Race, a non-points event).

A look at the money numbers from NASCAR’s other two major series starkly illustrates the differences in the Big Time and the Not So Big.

Nationwide Series champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished the year with winnings of $2.3 million, more than half of which came from the season-end point fund. His race purses totaled only $1.1 million.

Sprint Cup invader Carl Edwards had the second-biggest Nationwide money total at $2.0 million.

Third was third-place points driver Elliott Sadler at $1.6 million.

Camping World Truck Series champion Austin Dillon also topped that series’ money list with $792,250. Second was fourth-place points finisher Ron Hornaday Jr. at $677,499.

Sprint Cup Top 10

1. Tony Stewart, $12,671,071
2. Carl Edwards, $11,351,964
3. Kevin Harvick, $8,072,369
4. Matt Kenseth, $7,901,409
5. Jimmie Johnson, $7,599,034
6. Kyle Busch, $7,160,043
7. Jeff Gordon, $7,126,719
8. Kurt Busch, $6,714,991
9. Denny Hamlin, $6,578,688
10. Brad Keselowski, $6,503,444

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 29 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
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