Redstate Sports

By Darin H Posted in NASCAR — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

This Sunday begins the official start to the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. The Great American Race gets me through the post-Superbowl blues (it's a long time until the NFL draft!), and I'm more of a Braves fan than a baseball fan (I don't know what I'm going to do with TBS dropping the Braves and DISH not having MLB Innings). So it's off to the races for NASCAR fans like me.

Read on for more

Some changes this year include the sponsorship reflecting Nextel being acquired by Sprint, though the Sprint Cup sounds too much like "Sprint Car" which is a whole 'nother thing entirely. I don't think I'm over not calling it the Winston Cup still anyways. Also, this year, the new car is being used full time. I don't know about other fans, but I love the new car. The other big change this year was the most popular driver joining the top team.

A lot of other Junior fans didn't like the move to Hendrick, but not me. I love it. Then again, I don't hate Jeff Gordon either. Junebug was bit by many a motor problem last year which kept him out of The Chase. That shouldn't be a problem this year. It'll be weird getting used to seeing the Budweiser car have a #9 on it or the #8 car being driven by Mark Martin. Seeing Junior in the 88 National Guard Chevy wasn't right, but I guess I'll get used to it. The Hendrick teams are ahead of the rest of the field in terms of development on the new car.

Junior was able to not only win the Budweiser Shootout this last Saturday night, he did so in convincing fashion, setting a record for the most number of laps led (47 of 70). It was his first Cup win since May 2006, alas it doesn't count toward points for the season. Combining Junior's driving ability with Hendrick's garage is going to produce wins for some time to come.

The other big news was Joe Gibbs racing switching over to Toyota. Moving to the new car will help here as it sets all the development back to equal for most of the field - Hendrick seems to be the exception, but they were ahead on the old car anyways. Tony Stewart had a great showing, nearly pulling off the victory, but ending up second to Junior. Dave Blaney also had a good showing in his Toyota.

The Dodges seem to be decent and the Fords are looking like they need a lot of work to get competitive. Though 4 out of the 5 Fords were caught up in accidents on the track and finishing at the back, only Carl Edwards had a respectable 12th place showing - for now they get an incomplete. The new cars are great, allowing teams to save money and still be competitive, as seen by a few teams running previously short-track cars which were their backups when their main cars wrecked this weekend in practice.

File this under "some things never change." Kurt and Tony. Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart got together again in practice the other day, it got heated and both were called to "the trailer" and enjoyed a nice talking to by the NASCAR officials. Seems like they just picked up where they left off last year. It makes for great drama and great racing. Those two have a tendency to find each other on the track (doesn't it always happen like that?) and it's no love lost on either side.

Prediction time:

1. A Toyota will win a race this year. Ok, this isn't that big of a stretch considering that Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin are in Toyotas now. Can Tony Stewart do it at the Daytona 500 though? I don't know.

2. Hendrick will dominate yet again. They've owned the Cup the last couple of years, I don't see this stopping anytime soon. They are just ahead of everyone else right now.

3. Some of the previously smaller, but now combined teams will have much better showings. Thanks to the new car leveling the playing field for those teams without unlimited resources we will see a bit more parity.

4. Earnhardt Jr, will not only win a Cup points race, he will make the Chase.

5. And following that, Junior will be the Champion at the end of the season.