Many more disappointments than success stories this season
Asked about his 14th-place finish in NASCAR's season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday, Jeff Burton had this to say: "Really looking forward to next year, that's the best I can tell you."
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| Dale Jarrett, the 1999 Winston Cup champion, has fallen on hard times.(Getty Images) |
"I'm really glad the whole season is behind us now," he said.
Burton and Wallace summed up the feelings of many at the end of the 2003 season.
For every Matt Kenseth, the series champion, or Ryan Newman, the series leader with eight victories, there were three or four Burtons and Wallaces, drivers who failed to realize their potential in 2003 and wound up having disappointing seasons.
In fact, nearly everyone who finished outside the top 10 in points can be classified as a disappointment. The top 10 will be on stage at the Waldorf-Astoria Dec. 5. The rest won't.
For guys like Wallace and Burton, drivers used to winning races and finishing in the top 10, 2003 was a bitter disappointment.
Add Sterling Marlin and Mark Martin to that list. Martin, a perennial championship contender, finished 17th. Marlin, who led the points race most of last year, was 18th this year.
Then there were veteran stars like Ricky Rudd and Dale Jarrett. They were contenders just a couple of seasons ago, but have slipped so far down the charts they are barely blips on the radar anymore. Rudd went winless for only the third time in the past 21 years. Jarrett, the 1999 champion, scored his lone victory so long ago it seems like a distant memory.
Even some of the winners had bitter pills to swallow at the end of the season. Michael Waltrip won two races and was in the top five in points the first half of the season. In the second half, he fell so far and so hard he wound up 15th.
Robby Gordon also won two races and was in or around the top 10 in points much of the season. He finished 16th.
Ricky Craven won one of the most thrilling races of the season, beating Kurt Busch by inches at Darlington on March 16. Yet he was so bad in the season's second half, sinking all the way to 27th, he probably couldn't wait for the season to be over.
Young Elliott Sadler was supposed to be the next rising star, winning multiple races for Robert Yates Racing this season. Yet he was winless and finished 22nd in points, one spot above Rudd, the driver he replaced.
Ward Burton won two races last season, yet was cast aside by his team late in the year and finds himself already driving for another team.
Johnny Benson won the next-to-last race of the season last year at Rockingham, yet he is without a job after being released after a 24th-place finish in points.
Joe Nemechek won the May 3 race at Richmond, yet has also switched teams after an otherwise dismal season.
The list goes on. Dave Blaney, Jimmy Spencer, Kenny Wallace, Todd Bodine, Steve Park, Jeff Green, Casey Mears, Ken Schrader, Kyle Petty, John Andretti.
All are glad to get 2003 behind them after a more than disappointing year.
All, no doubt, can't wait to move on to 2004.
Yet, there is also another group of drivers. Those are the ones who aren't so anxious for the calendar to flip.
Those are the drivers who, along with having a disappointing season, have no idea what they will be driving, or for whom, next season.
As the season ended last week, 10 drivers who had full-time rides in 2003 either have no team for next season or a team with no sponsor.
Benson, Park, Green, Schrader and Andretti are all looking for rides, hoping one of several teams still without sponsors for next season will land a deal and come calling.
Some of them are hoping to land in Petty Enterprises' No. 43, the others hoping Richard Childress calls with an offer to drive the No. 30. At least those teams still have sponsors.
Others, like Burton's No. 99, Spencer's No. 7, Andretti's No. 1 and Bodine's No. 54, are holding their breath and hoping their teams find sponsors for next season.
They all can't be optimistic, not in an economic climate that is suddenly far worse than it seems in NASCAR. While the sanctioning body has no trouble landing multi-million sponsors to attach their name to the sport, numerous teams are having extraordinary problems finding backers.
Kodak, which has been in the sport longer than almost every other team sponsor, is leaving Morgan-McClure Motorsports -- yet another team looking for a sponsor -- after this season. So many teams were clamoring for those dollars that they had to narrow the list to five, then cut from there.
And that is for a deal that doesn't even pay the big bucks most top teams are looking for.
The No. 1 team belongs to Dale Earnhardt Inc., where Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr. reside, yet has spent all season looking for a sponsor to replace Pennzoil. This is the team that was winning races just a few years ago with Park.
Burton used to be a consistent winner and is just three years removed from a four-win season. He is still an occasional threat and a contender for the top 10 in points. He also drives for one of the most powerful organizations in NASCAR in Roush Racing.
Yet, his team can't find a sponsor.
Jimmy Spencer was in the headlines all year, if not for his off-track aggression, then for his colorful personality. And despite his dismal points finish, he runs up front often enough and stirs things up enough to still warrant the nickname, "Mr. Excitement."
Yet, his team can't find a sponsor.
Bill Davis Racing, last year's Daytona 500 winner with Ward Burton, looks like it will scale back to one team next season, moving Cup veteran Kenny Wallace to the Busch Series.
Why?
His team can't find a sponsor for its second team.
In all, nine teams that began the 2003 season at NASCAR's highest level don't have sponsors for next season. Even more drivers are either out of work or have already made plans to drop down to the Busch or Craftsman Truck series next year.
Most of them have spent the latter part of 2003 worrying about 2004. No wonder Jeff Burton was so anxious to get 2003 out of the way.
Surely, his No. 99 team will find a sponsor, allowing Burton to stay with the team that helped make him a star.
Or will it?
At the end of a bleak season for many drivers, sponsors and teams, he can't help but wonder.
At least he, like many others, finally has the relief that 2003 is over and he can look forward to 2004.
