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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Two For The Ages
NASCAR may already have used up its quota of feel-good stories. Maybe for the whole year...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted February 12, 2009   Daytona Beach, FL
Jeff Gordon's daughter Ella Sophia got a front row seat in victory lane after her Dad won the first Gatorade Duel at Daytona race on Thursday afternoon. (Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)

With the three preliminary Daytona Speedweeks races in the book and the three main events still to go, NASCAR may already have used up its quota of feel-good stories. And not just for Speedweeks, either. Maybe for the whole year.

Thursday’s Gatorade Duel 150 qualifying races ended with a veritable tidal wave of joy for many of the participants. In the opening Duel, Jeff Gordon won for the first time since the 2007 season, just as Kevin Harvick had done in the Budweiser Shootout five days earlier. Tony Stewart’s excellent launch of Stewart-Haas Racing continued with a strong runner-up effort, while rookie Joey Logano shook off a shaky first week with a brilliant drive to fourth place right behind three-time defending Sprint Cup Jimmie Johnson.

In the second Duel, Kyle Busch, Mark Martin and Brian Vickers staged a furious, but exceptionally clean last-lap battle for the victory, the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota prevailing in a great finish, just like in the first Duel and the Shootout.

Then there were the longshots: Scott Riggs and Jeremy Mayfield raced their way into the Daytona 500 driving for two teams that didn’t even exist as recently as December. So did AJ Allmendinger, who suffered through an off-season of not knowing whether he’d have a job or not, and Regan Smith, who was the odd man out in the merger that produced Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates and moved to the newly part-time Furniture Row Racing team.

It’s tempting to attribute the collective Kumbaya in the NASCAR Sprint Cup garage to the diversion being on track provided after a winter of devastating economic news. Or maybe it’s just relief after a longer than normal offseason with no testing this year. But the truth is, a huge part of the reason for the good vibrations, is that all three races so far have produced exciting finishes, close competition and some damn fine racing in each instance. And that simply made the success stories that much sweeter.

It also demonstrated that there is a toughness and a resiliency in the NASCAR community, guys determined to put on a good show despite — or maybe because of — all the adversity of the off-season.

Whether it was drivers who hadn’t won in a while or those who didn’t even have a team two months ago, these Speedweeks have been a big deal, a sorely needed shot in the arm for the racers and the sport, too.


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