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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
JENSEN: Back Draft At Daytona
After two months off, it’s high time to start settling these bench-racing debates about who will win what on the track and not simply talking about them...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted January 26, 2009   Harrisburg, NC
The Florida sun sets over Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images)

Ten days from now, we leave for Daytona and it can’t come a moment too soon for me.

The 2009 NASCAR season is shaping to be one of the most interesting in a long, long time. The prospects are excellent for a titanic points battle among three-time defending Sprint Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch, with a second pack of about 10-12 drivers with the potential to crash the party.

After two months off, it’s high time to start settling these bench-racing debates about who will win what on the track and not simply talking — or in my case, writing — about them. Boogity, boogity, boogity and all that.

Realistically, I don’t expect much to change in the top five or 10 from the last couple of years. The aforementioned three title favorites, along with most of the rest of the Hendrick, Roush Fenway, JGR and RCR drivers will make up the bulk of the Chase. Again.

Any driver outside of NASCAR’s Big Four has to be considered a long shot to win the series championship or even a race. Recall that last year the Big Four won 32 of 36 races and swept all 12 Chase spots. That isn’t likely to change a whole lot this year.

But in the last two weeks a new and interesting storyline has cropped up as Daytona nears: With only about 31 confirmed Sprint Cup cars that have year-long sponsorship, drivers and crews in place, the race at the back of the pack this season is going to be downright fascinating.

There are quality drivers on quality teams — Travis Kvapil at Yates Racing and AJ Allmendinger at Richard Petty Motorsports, to name two — who have competitive cars but sponsorship for only a handful of races. They’ll be under enormous pressure to deliver quality finishes early in the season to lock themselves into the top 35 in points and, hopefully, find more sponsor dollars that will allow them to run all or most of the season.

You also have a cottage industry of low-buck teams attempting to run full seasons with little or no sponsor funding and a dozen or so employees. There’s Front-Row Joe Nemechek, who will campaign Toyotas out of his own NEMCO Motorsports operation. Veteran crew chief Tommy Baldwin has hired Scott Riggs and has vowed to enter every race. Long-time NASCAR Nationwide Series team owner James Finch likewise said he’s on the deal for the entire 36 Cup races in 2009 and so is Kirk Shelmerdine, who finished 20th in the 2006 Daytona 500.


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