Image details: Dodge Challenger 500 Qualifying served by picapp.com

Bill Marx recently wrote an article called Who Turned the Standings Upside Down over at sportingnews.com, and to be quite honest, I just plain ol’ found it rather interesting. All Bill did was simply compare the standings this year as they sit now to what they looked like at this point last season, and highlighted some of the top comers and goers along the way. As I stated, the article peaked my interest, so I wanted to go ahead and touch up on it here as well.

Comers:
Not to be confused with rookies such as Sam Hornish Jr, or drivers who were without a ride in the Cup Series last year like Travis Kvapil, here are some of the drivers that have shown the most improvement from a purely statistical standpoint between the first portions of 2007 and 2008.

- Brian Vickers tops the list by jumping up 27 spots in the standings over the past year. After wrecking out of the Dodge Avenger 500 at Darlington in 2007, Vickers sat 43rd in points, and was well on his way to dismal season finishing outside of the top-35 in points. Now, with a new look to the Toyota-powered Camry’s, Brian has accumlated four top-15 finishes throughout the first 11 races of the season and now sits in 17th place, still holding out hope to be able to make a charge towards the Chase field.

- Kasey Kahne struggled through a nightmarish 2007 campaign. Following last year’s race at Darlington, Kahne sat 30th in points with his only top-ten finish coming in the season opening Daytona 500. This year, Kahne’s got a new sponsor and has been driving with a more patient look.  It seems to have paid off, as he now five top-10’s already - nearly matching his total from last season - and sits 14th in points, trailing the 12th place cutoff spot by a mere two points.

- David Ragan may very well top the list of surprises in 2008 by the time all is said and done. David came into the season completely under almost everyone’s radar, and was widely expected to be competing with teammate, Jamie McMurray, to maintain the fourth spot with Roush-Fenway Racing following 2009. At this point last year, Ragan was 26th in points and eventually finished 23rd. Now, he is the envy of several drivers behind him in the standings, as he sits in 12th and has the looks of a kid on the verge of attaining his first Cup victory.

Go’ers:
- Matt Kenseth has to be as much of a surprise to the average NASCAR fan as anything else that’s happened this year. Matt has made the Chase field ever since the format’s inception into NASCAR, but could very well be on the verge of missing out this year. At this time in 2007, Kenseth was third in points with a win, five top-5’s, and eight top-ten’s under his belt. After a losing crew chief, Robbie Reiser, for “the sake of the team”, he’s a lowly 20th in points with only one top-5 and five top-10’s to his credit, and he trails the Chase cutoff by 153 points.

- Kurt Busch was in 7th place at this point last year, but started to struggle shortly after. Things appeared to be back on track, though, after adding crew chief, Pat Tryson, to the mix late in the season and making some strong runs to close the year out. Kurt came into ‘08 with high expectations, but so far, it’s been all younger brother, Kyle, as far as the Busch family’s concerned. He is now 22nd in the standings - a distant 194 points from the Chase cutoff - and, his only top-ten finish came in the season opener at Daytona.

Season’s Biggest Points Movers:
Brian Vickers (+17) - 2008 Rank:  17th  /  2007 Rank:  43rd
Michael Waltrip (+24) - 2008 Rank:  32nd  /  2007 Rank:  56th
Kasey Kane (+16) - 2008 Rank:  14th  /  2007 Rank:  30th
David Ragan (+14) - 2008 Rank:  12th  /  2007 Rank:  26th
Paul Menard (+14) - 2008 Rank:  24th  /  2007 Rank:  38th

Season’s Biggest Points Losers:
Matt Kenseth (-17) - 2008 Rank:  20th  /  2007 Rank:  3rd
JJ Yeley (-16) - 2008 Rank:  36th  /  2007 Rank:  20th
Kurt Busch (-15) - 2008 Rank:  22nd  /  2007 Rank:  7th
Jamie McMurray (-11) - 2008 Rank:  23rd  /  2007 Rank:  12th
Elliott Sadler (-11) - 2008 Rank:  28th  /  2007 Rank:  17th

DYN Imposes:
This week, Do You NASCAR also asks its readers …

1. Will David Ragan be able to maintain his current streak and make the 2008 Chase field?
2. Can either Kurt Busch and/or Matt Kenseth rebound in time to make this year’s Chase?
3. What driver has had the most pleasantly surprising turnaround between this season and last?
4. What driver has been the biggest disappointment in 2008?

In a related article, please visit Trouble in Turn 2 to read Mike Muraska’s article, Elevators and Imitators, where he distinguishes between some of the drivers’ current position in the points standings and their actual driver ratings.

The 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season officially got underway with the drop of the green flag Saturday night for the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway. Finally, after months of talking about whether or not Dale Earnhardt Jr would find success driving for Hendrick Motorsports. All the debate about if the Toyotas would be able to compete with the competition after adding Joe Gibbs Racing to the mix. And, all the doubts about the Car of Tomorrow being able to handle the monster speedway that is Daytona. Many question marks still linger, no doubt about it, but Saturday night’s Shootout gave us a small glimpse of what we might be able to expect in the highly anticipated 2008 NASCAR season, and the excitement level has raised to a whole new level as we gear up for the 50th running of the Daytona 500.

After an absolutely catastrophic weekend of practice heading into the Budweiser Shootout, the race itself actually had somewhat of a calm atmosphere to it. I spent the entire race just waiting to see if Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch would continue their Daytona feud and get into each other. I waited to see some of the guys that had to turn to backup cars completely lose the handling of their race cars. And, I waited to see if one of the Shootout virgins would make a bold move to get out front and cause a pileup behind him in the process. None of that happened. In fact, the only accident that occurred during the race as a result of actual contact between cars was when Jamie McMurray got into Denny Hamlin with 46 laps left on the ticker. Everything else that happened was the result of cut tires by Bill Elliot and David Gilliland.

So, now that you know what we didn’t see, here’s what did happen. The Toyotas of Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin, and Dave Blaney looked very strong throughout the race, and even Michael Waltrip’s car early on. In fact, the only cars that ever looked like they may be faster than the trio of Camri’s were the cars belonging to Rick Hendrick, who had all four of his teams in the race. With 38 laps to go, the restrictor plate duo of Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr finally hooked up and took control of the race. Earnhardt had actually been up at the front of the pack since he led his first lap in a Hendrick car back on lap 6, but Stewart had to work his way up all the way from the back where started the race as a result of Friday’s incident with Kurt Busch, and it took him quite some time to work his way to the front of the field. Meanwhile, Junior’s new teammates – Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson – had lagged toward the back of the field all night long. After being collected up in the big accident that took place during the practice runs, both drivers had to turn to backup cars to run in the Shootout. The problem was that their backup cars were actually cars that were used to run at Darlington and Richmond in 2007. After making significant changes to the car at the end of the first race session and during the first caution in the second session, though, the numbers 24 and 48 quickly started moving toward the front.

With 32 laps left - just six laps after Stewart and Junior initially hooked up – Gordon and Johnson caught up to the two race leaders and Junior pulled away from Stewart to run with his new teammates. Dave Blaney and Reed Sorenson fell in line behind Stewart, and we spent the next several laps watching Smoke try and lead a charge to pass the Hendrick dynasty, which he finally did.

After a late-race caution, the green flag dropped once more and it was a shootout to the end with only a few laps remaining. Junior and Stewart ran neck and neck with Johnson pushing the 88 car and Gordon pushing the 20. When Gordon pulled to the middle of the track and started to drop back in the field, Junior appeared to have the advantage over Stewart, who was now being pushed by Denny Hamlin … and, it stayed that way as Junior brought home the checkered flag – leading a record 47 of the 70 laps - and Stewart came home in second. Though there were no points involved and it won’t go down as an “official” race win for Earnhardt, he gave Junior Nation plenty to rejoice about and plenty to hope for in 2008.

Race Results (from nascar.com):

On Sunday, September 23rd, Carl Edwards picked up his third victory of the season at Dover International Speedway, and it couldn’t have come at a better time … just two races into his bid for the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup Championship.  Edwards later went on to fail post-race inspection as his car did not meet NASCAR’s minimum car heights according to the series rulebook.  As a result, the driver of the No. 99 was penalized 25 driver points and Crew Chief Bob Osborne was fined $25,000 for the incident.  The penalty assessed by NASCAR took him from third place in the standings – just 3 points back from leader Jeff Gordon – and has dropped him all the way down to sixth place.  He is, however, still listed as the winner of the Dodge Dealers 400.

Roush Racing president Geoff Smith is obviously appealing NASCAR’s decision to dock Carl Edwards of 25 points in the midst of his bid to win his first Cup Championship.  Smith stated that the rule infraction actually hurt Carl’s car rather than helping it, and that the rule is actually in place to address restrictor plate races (as opposed to downforce races).  The Roush President also claims that if you do the math that a 25 point penalty assessed to a Chase contender serves as a much harsher penalty than to a non-chase contender based on the total number of points they’re competing for.  Smith says that the team should have been hit with no more than ten driver points.

Let me ask you this, Mr. Smith … shouldn’t a team be scrutinized more harshly because they’re competing for a championship?  It’s no secret that NASCAR has some serious issues with their schematics for awarding penalties, as there’s absolutely no consistency there.  Earlier this year at Darlington in May, the number 8 Budweiser team was levied with a $100,000 fine, a six-race suspension for their Crew Chief, and Dale Earnhardt Junior was penalized 100 driver points, which ultimately cost him his chances of making the Chase four months later.  Granted, that incident involved an actual illegal part on the car, but all the same, an infraction is an infraction, and an infraction is usually caused by somebody attempting to cheat.  Regardless of the consistency issues that NASCAR has with their penalties, though, what it all really comes down to is the fact that somewhere along the way somebody has to be accounted for.  This is not little league baseball where the umpire might be willing to turn the other cheek for an unintentional rule violation, this is NASCAR – the competition is the absolute best of the best and the dollar signs are huge.  As an avid fan of the sport, I expect more from the teams that fall into the upper tier.  Now, I know, I know … it is very likely that this particular incident was not a blatant attempt to gain an advantage, but all the same, I also expect those teams to have such a level of attention to detail that these things do not happen.

Did the infraction help Edwards’ car?  Probably not.  Did it hinder the car’s performance?  Doubtful.  Am I being too harsh on the no. 99 Office Depot team?  I don’t think so, but then again, maybe I just expect too much from guys that consider a six-figure annual salary to be a bad year.  I actually like Carl Edwards, and I very rarely ever complain when a fellow Missourian brings home a trophy, but I find it absolutely appalling that this race team was only hit with the loss of twenty-five points for this incident.