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GREAT EIGHT
JIMMIE JOHNSON Since he burst onto the Cup scene six seasons ago, Johnson and his Chad Knaus-led team have dominated NASCAR's elite division, winning 33 races, scoring 86 top-five and 134 top-10 finishes in 131 races. They're starting the season as two-time defending series champions and have never finished worse than fifth in the standings. When Johnson and Knaus left Homestead-Miami Speedway last year after clinching their second title, they were already taking about a third. "We're in elite company winning two championships.Winning back-to-back championships is something I'm very, very proud of," Johnson said in his champion's interview. "The good thing, I feel, is we're just really hitting our stride. I think we have a lot of good years ahead of us, and we'll be fighting for more championships and certainly winning more races as years go by.
Said Knaus: "They say a dynasty is anything over three, and we're on two. So we'll go for three, and then we'll try to break that. That is something that I would be very, very proud of." DALE EARNHARDT JR. Earnhardt Jr.'s decision to move from his longtime employer, Dale Earnhardt Inc., to Hendrick Motorsports was one of the biggest racing stories of 2007, which means that one of the big stories of the upcoming season will be whether he made the right move. Mechanically speaking, it looks like he did. His downfall in 2007 was engine failures, six of them in all, a number that no driver can be expected to overcome. Now he and his crew chief and cousin, Tony Eury Jr., who moved with him from DEI to Hendrick, will have Hendrick's nearly bullet-proof powerplants at their disposal.
"These guys have welcomed this deal with open arms," Hendrick said. "We all decided this was something we should do and could do. It's not like this is something that we're going to have a bunch of hiccups on. I just don't foresee it. I think it's going to be fairly smooth. And I'm looking forward to the challenge." JEFF GORDON The four-time Cup champ finished second to his Hendrick Motorsports teammate in 2007, but he put on a championship-level effort. He dominated the standings for most of the season and would have won the title by a comfortable 353 points over Jimmie Johnson under NASCAR's old season-long points formula. And he was amazing during the Chase, too, posting an average finish of 5.1, just a fraction off Johnson's 5.0. When Gordon met with reporters at Homestead, he sounded as if he planned on taking a more aggressive approach toward the championship this season.
"So those are all things we're going to have to look at. ...With the points the way they are, it definitely pays a good amount of points now to win races." TONY STEWART With 32 victories and two championships since his Cup debut in 1999, Stewart and his Greg Zipadelli-led crew have established themselves as one of the toughest teams in motorsports. The question for Stewart this season is how he and his Joe Gibbs Racing team will adapt to the switch from General Motors cars to Toyotas, which so far are winless in Cup. Lowe's Motor Speedway President H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler said they'll do just fine, especially considering the depth of the team, from Jimmy Makar, the senior vice president of racing operations, on down to the mechanics on the shop floor.
MATT KENSETH With a first-, a second- and a fourth-place points finish in the last five years, the Wisconsin native and his powerful Roush Fenway Racing team have earned a place among the sport's elite. Kenseth's challenge this year is adjusting to a new crew chief. Robbie Reiser, who has led Kenseth's team since their rookie season in 2000, is moving up to a management position with the team. Chip Bolin will be his replacement. Kenseth told reporters at Homestead last November, where he won the season-ending Ford 400 and moved to fourth in the final points standings, that's he ready to make another title run. "The thing I'm most fired up about is I've seen the direction of the company going the right way," he said. "I feel like we're gaining momentum. We had a new head engineer and new driver/crew chief combination, and we've been adding people. The whole momentum of the company feels like we're gaining on it." CLINT BOWYER Last year, Bowyer finished a strong third in the Chase, which started off with his first Cup victory at New Hampshire. His entire season, his second on the Cup circuit, was rock solid with five top-five and 17 top-10 finishes in 36 races. And his Richard Childress Racing team has been on the upswing with all three drivers, including Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton, making the Chase in 2007.
RYAN NEWMAN Although he failed to make the Chase in 2007, Newman seemed to have recaptured a good bit of the magic he had from 2002-2005, when he won 12 races, including a series-leading eight in 2004. He was winless on the season, but he had three runner-up runs and seven top-five finishes, three of which came in the final five races of the season. He starts the season with a new crew chief, Roy McCauley, but the two have some positive history together. In 2005, they won six Busch races in nine starts. Newman also has the benefit of a cooperative teammate, Kurt Busch, who has said on numerous occasions that he likes to see both Penske Racing teams performing better than they have the past two seasons. KYLE BUSCH The talented youngster has plenty to prove this year after being displaced from Hendrick Motorsports to make room for Dale Earnhart Jr. If his performance in a late-season test session at Atlanta Motor Speedway is any indication, Busch's new team, Joe Gibbs Racing, might wind up being the winner in the driver shuffle. Busch soared to the top of the speed charts in his first ride in a Gibbs vehicle and stayed there for the majority of the AMS session.
"The guys were great and really made me feel welcome,"
Busch said afterward. | ||||||||||||||||||
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