Now that the final race on the 2013 season has been run and a new champion crowned, let’s take a look at some winners and losers from the 2013 Sprint Cup season.
Winners:
Jimmie Johnson – The 6-time Chase Champion has now cemented his place among NASCAR’s greatest. The question now is how many will he win before he puts the helmet away? If Chad Knaus stays on as his Crew Chief we may be seeing a lot more of this before all is said and done.
Matt Kenseth – New team. New Car. No problem. Kenseth gave Johnson all he could handle during the Chase and finished the season with the most victories. If not for that one stinker of a car in Phoenix this story may have had a different ending. We can’t wait to see what he has in store for us next season.
NBC – Welcome back! NBC last broadcast a NASCAR race in 2007. They outbid ESPN for the final 20-race package beginning in the 2014 season. Attendance may be down at the tracks but the television broadcasts still bring in huge audiences. This is a huge win for the peacock.
Kurt Busch – If anyone had any doubt about the elder Busch’s driving skill it was erased this season. Busch took a single team car and willed it into the Chase. Then he gets hired as a 4th car for the heavily funded Stewart-Hass team for 2014. That’s a great year by anyone’s standards.
NAPA – In the world of corperate greed we had a long time NASCAR sponsor draw the line at integrity. Although it probably cost the company millions of dollars in lost advertising campaign money, NAPA felt strong enough to dump sponsorship of Michael Waltrip Racing (MWR) after MWR manipulated the finish of the race in Richmond. A major corporation with morals. Plus, NAPA appears to be all in on continuing to sponsor NASCAR in the future.
Losers:
ESPN – The network lost the broadcast rights to NASCAR for 2014. I guess they’ll have more money to spend on their signature broadcast, the NBA. We’ll miss Rusty Wallace and Rickey Craven though, unless they hitch on with NBC or FOX.
Clint Bowyer – The once popular driver has now become a partner with the Busch brothers as NASCAR’s most booed driver. The intentional or otherwise “spin” was bad enough but it paled in comparison to the ugly public relations tour he did immediately after that race. That was just plain embarrassing.
MWR – This team seriously put the sports integrity in question with the “spin”. For weeks the sport was under attack by the main stream media. Not the kind of publicity a sport wants. NASCAR handed out penalties and suspensions and then introduced new rules – but the damage was done.
Danica Patrick – Just a miserable season for the popular driver. There were several races where she was just in the way. I don’t know if she’ll make it in this sport or go the way of Juan Pablo Montoya and return to open wheel racing. I wonder if a few seasons in the Nationwide Series would have served her better as opposed to rushing her into the Sprint Series. She’s in danger of losing confidence and the respect of her fellow drivers.
Martin Truex Jr. – First his place in the Chase was voided because of the actions of his MRW teammates. Then he loses his longtime sponsor, NAPA. Then MRW, because of the loss of a sponsor, drops Truex. Fortunately, Truex lands a ride with the single team, Furniture Row Racing but still – talk about a bad year!
NASCAR – We all saw the empty seats. Attendance continues to take a nose dive. Add to that some of the most God awful racing you’ll see anywhere and it’s easy to see why. You only need to look at the final 10 laps of the second Talladega race for an example of this season’s crappy racing. Add that to the injuries to Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin, the Spingate Scandal, the loss of NAPA sponsorship, and it adds up to a bad season for NASCAR.
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