The biggest surprises came in all three series, first with the Truck Series Championship battle, this one was close just about all season long, no one driver ran away with it and amazing enough the championship came down to the final race, 29 points going in and one mistake (with a part), that’s a real championship battle. Congratulations to Ron Hornaday Jr and Kevin Harvick Inc., what a season.
Of course, in Nextel Cup, one NASCAR writer wrote “The championship belongs to Jimmie Johnson, but the season belongs to Dale Earnhardt Jr.” and that sentence is right on, on big surprise was Dale Earnhardt Jr’s announcements, first leave DEI and then join Hendrick Motorsports (and I might add leaving without the #8 and Budweiser), that’s going to be a good combination and with that Hendrick Motorsports creating the most powerful racing teams with Johnson, Gordon, Mears and now Earnhardt Jr… all winners
The Busch series seeing two championships, let’s be honest here, by the halfway point in the Busch Series, did anyone really think Carl Edwards wasn’t going to win the championship, but it was interesting (who we kidding, it was funny) to see the owner’s championship not won by Roush-Fenway Racing, but by RCR by a combined effect of Jeff Burton and Scott Wimmer.
The biggest disappointment was NASCAR’s decision to penalize Kurt Busch for the Dover pitroad incident, not suspended him. To me “This is not about points, but rather Busch’s reckless driving on pit road and endangering the life of person namely a crewmember.”
On-track had to be both Kasey Kahne and Greg biffle, both driver’s showed so much promise in 2006, Kasey Kahne had the most victories and was in the chase and yet both teams struggled so much.
Finally, one of the biggest disappointments came from DEI and Joe Gibbs Racing… DEI and Dale Jr. for 10 DNF’s including 6-7 blown engines and Gibbs Racing for leaving General Motors (Chevrolet) and switching to Toyota… Toyota didn’t have such a good year, but I will go on record as saying some is do to the top 35 rule, the go or go homers.
The biggest thriller of the season by far was the Daytona 500 with a good race and a thriller of a finish – Kevin Harvick edging out Mark Martin for the victory while a huge wreck broke out behind them with Harvick’s teammate Clint bowyer sliding across the finish line on his roof. With that said, racing fans were treated to several exciting finishes beyond just Daytona, how about both Martinsville races with Johnson vs. Gordon, Texas with Burton vs. Kenseth, Bristol (first COT race) Kyle Busch vs. Burton, the Busch race at Las Vegas with Burton vs. Kyle Busch, like I said thriller finishes.
Previously I asked the question, what was the biggest story in racing of 2007 and while I said Dale Earnhardt Jr. for both his On-track and Off-track season, one person said “Lewis Hamliton”… however that got me thinking, I would love to see Lewis Hamilton in a McLaren vs. Michael Schumacher in a Ferrari vs. F. Alonso in a Renault for the World Championship, that would be entertainment. Comments…
- Racedriven
