2009 Awards: Plenty of hardware left after J.J. collects Cup

The calendar has turned to December and we turn our attention to the best and worst from this past NASCAR season.

The 2009 campaign was memorable in many ways, topped by Jimmie Johnson's record-breaking fourth straight championship. Along the way there were other highlights -- and lowlights. Truth be told, not every moment from the past year will be remembered as cherished.

Though Joey Logano won only once in 2009, the rookie's future looks bright. (Getty Images)

Without further ado, we bring you this year's list of winners (and losers) from the CBSSports.com NASCAR Awards festivities (black tie is encouraged, but optional):

Best Driver Not Named Jimmie: Kyle Busch won 20 times across NASCAR's top three divisions and added a Nationwide Series championship to his résumé, the first title in his entire racing career. Busch missed the Chase and did not have a chance to run for the Sprint Cup crown, but he did find Victory Lane four times in NASCAR's premier series and demonstrated he can win in just about any kind of racing vehicle.

Best Non-Cup Series Driver: Ron Hornaday became a four-time NASCAR champion with his 2009 Camping World Truck Series crown. The veteran driver scored six wins in the potent Kevin Harvick-owned truck, including a record five in a row during the mid-summer stretch. He'll be back in 2010 for his personal drive for five.

Best Start-and-Parker: A dubious honor to be sure among drivers and teams who couldn't afford to compete in entire races due to budget constraints, and were forced to take the green flag and head to the garage early in order to save equipment and still collect a paycheck. Dave Blaney was the best of this bunch with 30 starts and a 41st-place finish in the driver standings.

Best Junior: Hornaday is a Junior, but over in the Cup Series, Martin Truex was the best of the next-generation namesakes with a 23rd-place finish in the standings. That was two spots better than Dale Earnhardt Jr. and six ahead of Sam Hornish Jr.

Best First-Time Winner: Brad Keselowski's Talladega Sprint Cup win in April was one of the most memorable of the year and no doubt helped catapult him into a full-time ride for Penske Racing in 2010.

Best Rookie: Joey Logano was also among the first-time winners this year, albeit in a rain-shortened race at New Hampshire. But the heralded freshman was much more than that living up to expectations in his first season that began with a rocky Speedweeks and showed great improvement as the season progressed.

Best Driver Without a Win: Juan Pablo Montoya showed the promise many saw in him when the fiery driver moved into NASCAR from open-wheel racing. Montoya used a planned strategy in the regular season to make the Chase, and once the playoffs began he turned up the wick considerably and demonstrated the aggressive talent he had in Formula One and Indy Car Racing. He came up short of finding Victory Lane but will no doubt be a force in 2010.

Best Driver Over 50: Mark Martin, who turns 51 in January, enjoyed one of his best seasons in 25-plus years at the Cup level in his first campaign with Hendrick Motorsports. The veteran was in contention for the championship until the very end and felt so rejuvenated he signed on for a couple more years behind the wheel of the No. 5 car. Honorable mention goes to Hornaday, 51, who can actually call Martin "Junior."

Best Finish: As usual, both Talladega races were packed with exciting yet harrowing moments, none more than the April slam-bang finish that saw Keselowski score his first career win while Carl Edwards flew through the air and into the front-stretch catch fence, thankfully not winding up in the grandstands.

Worst Finish: The Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway turned into a two-day, waterlogged affair marred by persistent rain showers around the Charlotte area. The final interminable wait for David Reutimann to be declared the winner while cars sat covered on pit road for what seemed like hours was not one of NASCAR's finest moments.

Best Non-Restrictor Plate Finish: Fuel-mileage races aren't everyone's cup of tea, but the June Michigan race had enough good racing tied into the fuel-strategy game to be entertaining. One by one, drivers ran out of gas on the last lap until Mark Martin was somehow the last man standing in Victory Lane.

Best Paint Scheme: The iconic colors of Jeff Gordon's DuPont Chevrolet have been a fixture in NASCAR for 16 years and the No. 24 ride looked sharp again in 2009.

Worst Paint Scheme: Ryan Newman's No. 39 entry for Stewart-Haas Racing was a good-looking car in U.S Army colors, but the Haas Automation paint scheme was definitely a rip-off of the Goodwrench No. 3 days of the late Dale Earnhardt.

Best Specialty Paint Scheme: A.J, Allmendinger topped off some great late-season runs by piloting a Richard Petty Motorsports No. 44 Dodge that had the famous STP colors sported by "The King" himself in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Best Chevrolet: Johnson and the Lowe's Chevy made history this year to help give the Bowtie brigade bragging rights again in the manufacturer's race.

Best Dodge: Despite working with a lame-duck crew chief during the Chase, Kurt Busch won twice this season and finished fourth in the point standings to give Chrysler something to smile about.

Best Toyota: Denny Hamlin ended the year with a win at Homestead and wound up the season with four victories, tying fellow Toyota pilot Kyle Busch. Hamlin is an early candidate to unseat Johnson for the 2010 title, based on his strong close to the 2009 season.

Matt Kenseth won twice in his No. 17 Ford. (Getty Images)

Best Ford: The Miss Congeniality Award goes to Matt Kenseth, who began the year with a win in the season's biggest race the Daytona 500, certainly a highlight during a down season for the blue-oval bunch.

Best Owner: Rick Hendrick has nine Cup Series trophies on his mantle for a reason, and becoming the first owner in the sport's 60-year-plus history to have drivers sweep the top three spots in the Cup point standings is another example of why he may be the best NASCAR owner ever.

Best New Owner: Tony Stewart took a middle-of-the-pack (at best) organization at Haas-CNC Racing and turned it into a championship-contending team overnight. Stewart won four times and put his car, as well as teammate Newman's, into the Chase in Year 1, an impressive achievement for a new owner, albeit one with an affiliation to Hendrick.

Best Quote: "It's never Junior, it's always the crew chief." --Kyle Busch on Lance McGrew replacing Tony Eury Jr.

Best Rivalry: Hands down, the Keselowski-Hamlin feud added to the late-season stretch in both the Nationwide Series and Cup Series. Things boiled over with Hamlin's payback at Homestead, but don't expect this to quiet down in 2010. Honorable mention goes to Stewart and Montoya, who will also be a pair to keep your eye on next season.

Best Starting Command: Assembling drivers' moms to start the Mother's Day weekend race at Darlington always touches the heartstrings.

Worst Starting Command: ZZ Top put the crowd to sleep with its snooze-festival performance at Texas Motor Speedway.

Best Rule Change: By far, the introduction of double-file restarts was a stroke of genius by NASCAR and changed the races dramatically. It also turned out to be a great PR move by the sanctioning body, as the rule was nearly unanimously embraced by fans who had been asking for a change in policy for years.

Worst Rule Change: The decision to limit truck series teams to either change tires or fill-up for fuel on pit stops was put into play as a means of saving money and lowering expenses. It turned out to be a complete mess that cost several drivers wins and created mass confusion.