Updated Nov. 17
Sorry Jimmie, you'll have to settle for your third consecutive Sprint Cup trophy, because the title of 2008 CBSSports.com NASCAR Power Ranking's champion belongs to -- drum roll please -- Carl Edwards.
|
|
| Carl Edwards has more wins, more top fives and more top 10s than J.J. (Getty Images) |
Jimmie Johnson fans will raise hell, but if you take a good look at the standings, it is pretty cut and dried that Edwards had the better season.
Edwards had more wins: 9-7
Edwards had more top fives: 19-15
Edwards had more top 10s: 27-22
Edwards had a better average finish: 9.5-10.5
Even within the confines of the Chase, while Johnson and Edwards each won three races, Edwards picked up eight top fives to six for Johnson. Edwards won three of the season's final four races.
But NASCAR's points system is such that a poor finish is punished far more than success is rewarded. And a bad finish hurts doubly during the 10-race Chase.
Therefore, a back-to-back stretch in which he finished 29th (Talladega) and 33rd (Lowe's) proved too much for Edwards to overcome. He'll have to shoulder the load for the Talladega debacle, but a parts failure proved his undoing at Lowe's and all but put the nail in his coffin.
Before the advent of the Chase, it could be argued that NASCAR had the fairest system to crown a champion in any sport. He was on the same track week in and week out with every other driver and delivered over the entire course of the season. What other sport could say that?
The only complaint was perhaps rewarding a driver a larger amount of points for winning. Other than that, it was near perfect.
But what did NASCAR officials do? They invented the convoluted Chase, artificially tightening the points in hopes of creating buzz for the stretch run. Does anyone else find it strange that NASCAR has a "playoff" system and college football does not?
More than anything, the Chase has alienated longtime fans of the sport.
For his part, Edwards made no complaints while recognizing the strong performance of his team.
"I'm glad that we won the race so that we can go into the offseason knowing we won more races than anyone else in this series," Edwards said after his victory Sunday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
"I think that's a big accomplishment, especially considering how well Jimmie and Kyle (Busch) both ran all season. Second in both series is not first, but it's definitely not something to be ashamed of. I'm proud of what we did this year."
Final Power Rankings:
| POWER RANKINGS | ||
| Current | Driver | Previous |
| 1 | Jimmie Johnson | 1 |
| Johnson started the 2006 Chase with four consecutive finishes outside the top 10. In 36 Chase races since, he has just five finishes outside the top 10 while picking up 12 victories. | ||
| 2 | Mark Martin | 2 |
| His seven poles were a career high. His second-place points finish was his best since finishing second in 2002. His five wins and 805 laps led were his most since winning seven and leading 1,730 in 1998. | ||
| 3 | Jeff Gordon | 3 |
| Finished top five in nearly half of this season's races and his 25 tops 10s were tied for third most in 17 years of full-time Cup duty. | ||
| 4 | Denny Hamlin | 4 |
| He and his 11 team struggled with consistency at the start of the season, but once they found their groove, they were as good as anyone. He earned a career-high four victories and 15 of his 20 top 10s were top fives. | ||
| 5 | Kurt Busch | 5 |
| Easily his best season since joining Penske Racing in 2006 with his 21 top 10s matching his career-high set in 2004, when he captured the championship with Roush Racing. His 10 top 10s tied for second-most of his Cup career. | ||
| 6 | Tony Stewart | 6 |
| Sure he exceeded many expectations, but after such a dominating regular season where he was knocking off top fives with ease, the late-season struggles surely left the team somewhat disappointed. | ||
| 7 | Juan Pablo Montoya | 7 |
| When he started the Chase with four consecutive top fives, it looked like he had a chance to shock the world. But then things fell apart, with wrecks leading to three finishes of 35th or worse over the final six races. Overall, though, Montoya made huge strides in his third season, earning the first two poles of his career, seven top fives, 18 top 10s and 0 DNFs. In his first two seasons, he had managed just five top fives and nine top 10s while failing to finish 13 races. | ||
| 8 | Kyle Busch | 8 |
| Though he enjoyed much success with crew chief Steve Addington -- 12 wins together over the past two seasons, including four this year -- there was also much inconsistency, which cost him a spot in the Chase this season. Will new crew chief Dave Rogers be able to keep Busch in check? | ||
| 9 | Clint Bowyer | 9 |
| Though he missed the Chase, finishing 15th in the final standings, his 2009 season wasn't all that much worse than 2007 and 2008 when he finished in the top five overall. A streak of nine consecutive finishes outside the top 10 through April and May proved too much to overcome. Started to make some waves toward the end of the season. | ||
| 10 | Greg Biffle | 11 |
| While it was a down year for Roush Fenway Racing, Biffle still managed to have a relatively successful season by his standards. Though he failed to win for the first time in six years, his 10 top fives and 16 top 10s were third most of his career. His 551 laps led were his most since 2006. | ||
| 11 | Jeff Burton | 14 |
| During the last month of the season, only Johnson and Hamlin were hotter. The problem was the other nine months of the schedule. After a crew chief change to Todd Berrier, Burton ended the season with four consecutive top 10s of which three were top fives and two were runner-up finishes. However, in the season's first 32 events, Burton had managed just two top fives and six top 10s. | ||
| 12 | Matt Kenseth | 12 |
| Two wins and a cloud of dust. Kenseth started the season with his first career Daytona 500 victory and followed up with a win the next weekend in California. It was a nightmare year after that, especially during the second half of the season. Over the final 18 races of the year, Kenseth managed just five top 10s. | ||
| 13 | Ryan Newman | 10 |
| Newman came to Stewart-Hass off of three sub-par seasons at Penske Racing. He enjoyed a slight resurgence, making the Chase for the first time since 2005, but performance dipped a bit during the Chase. He ended the season with just one top 10 over the final eight races. | ||
| 14 | Kasey Kahne | 13 |
| Amidst all the chaos at Richard Petty Motorsports, Kahne still managed to make the Chase and snag two wins, seven top fives and 14 tops 10s. With his contract expiring after the 2010 season, he's ready to start listening to offers. | ||
| 15 | Carl Edwards | 15 |
| Coming off a season in which he notched nine wins, 19 top fives and 27 top 10s, a 0-win, seven-top five and 14-top 10 performance can't be considered anything but highly disappointing. All were career lows. | ||
