 | | Matt Kenseth made the Chase for the Nextel Cup, but suffered some of his worst finishes in the final 10 races of 2004. Credit: Autostock |
By Ryan Smithson, NASCAR.COM
January 3, 2005
11:23 AM EST (16:23 GMT)
The drivers who disappointed in 2004 ran the gamut -- from the defending series champion to some of the sport's most-recognized names. Here are my picks for the 10 disappointments of 2004: Matt Kenseth Kenseth shot out of the box with two wins in the first three races, leading many to predict that Kenseth would win five or more races and cruise to his second straight title.  |  | VIDEO | |
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But Kenseth never won again, and he suffered through a miserable second half that produced just two top-five runs. Kenseth easily made the Chase for the Nextel Cup, but in the 10-race stretch, he scored just one finish better than 11th. There is irony in the fact that Kenseth was the only Roush driver who didn't run better when the new Yates-Roush engine heads became fully available at mid-season. Tony Stewart Finishing sixth in the points with two wins is a great season for most drivers, but Tony Stewart is already considered one of the finest all-around drivers ever. | | VIDEO | |
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The 2004 season was one to forget. It saw him score match a career low in wins (2) and set a career low in top-fives (10). He was out of the top five in points for the second straight year. Stewart's season might not better, but Robby Gordon contributed to a wreck at Loudon that effectively knocked him out of the Chase before it even started. After his win at Watkins Glen, Stewart went 13 races without a top-five before breaking through with a fourth-place run at Homestead. Stewart was docked 25 points by NASCAR in June after getting into a post-race altercation with Brian Vickers at Sonoma. Brian Vickers Vickers figured to be a top-20 car with a win or two in his rookie season, but it didn't turn out that way. The Nextel Cup learning curve is steep, and the 21-year-old Vickers had a rough time in 2004. | | VIDEO | |
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Vickers qualified well all year, but the rookie bent a lot of sheet metal, as he ended six races on the wrecker's hook. Vickers was enjoying an outstanding run in the Daytona 500 when he was caught up in an accident. That was pretty much a microcosm of his year. Of the rookies who ran the full schedule, Vickers was the only rookie to go without a top-five finish. He will get a new crew chief in 2005, as Lance McGrew will reunite with Vickers. The season wasn't a total loss - Vickers drew a lot of attention and praise in the spring when he started sixth or better in six straight races. He also won two Bud Poles. Bobby Labonte Every year since he'd joined Joe Gibbs Racing in 1995. Bobby Labonte had won a race. That streak ended in 2004, as Labonte's best finish was a second at Darlington in the spring. | | VIDEO | |
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Labonte had a solid season going in the first half, but crew chief Michael McSwain was suddenly fired in July, and Labonte's season went downhill. Brandon Thomas was hired as Labonte's crew chief, but Labonte went through a 16-race stretch without a top-10. Labonte closed the year with three straight strong runs, but the team replaced Thomas with Steve Addington for 2005. Michael Waltrip Waltrip failed to win a race for the first time in four seasons at DEI, and he was not a threat on the plate tracks, where he has scored four wins since 2001. | | VIDEO | |
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Like Bobby Labonte, Waltrip fell off the map in the second half, scoring no top-fives and just one top-10 after August. As a result, longtime crew chief Slugger Labbe was reassigned in October. He eventually left DEI for Evernham Motorsports. Tensions within DEI rose in the summer after Dale Earnhardt Jr. publicly stated that Waltrip might be replaced in 2005, but Waltrip's contract was renewed a month later. In the fall, a DEI official stated that Waltrip needed to finish in the top 10 in 2005, and in the offseason, Tony Eury Jr. was moved from Earnhardt Jr's team to help Waltrip improve. Kevin Harvick Harvick went winless for the first time in his Nextel Cup career. A lot of the blame can be attributed to a sudden rash of mid-season engine failures, which drew criticism from Harvick in October. | | VIDEO | |
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He scored just five top-five finishes, and three of those came on restrictor-plate tracks. Harvick was fined twice for incidents with other drivers, most notably a game of bumper cars with Matt Kenseth in a June event at Pocono. Ward Burton Burton moved to Haas CNC Racing after nearly a decade of faithful service to Bill Davis Racing, but the switch was a disaster. | | VIDEO | |
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Burton finished a respectful 17th at Daytona and a strong ninth at Rockingham, but his season fell apart after that, as he never finished better than 10th the rest of the way. Along the way, the No. 0 Chevrolet team used three different crew chiefs. The Burton-Haas marriage ended in with a bitter divorce with two races to go. Ricky Craven Miracles weren't expected of Craven, but the veteran had won in 2003 and expected to post some decent runs. | | VIDEO | |
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Shockingly, Craven didn't even score a top-15 finish in 2004. Part of the problem was reliability, as Craven suffered three blown engines before August. A crew chief change in July didn't help matters. Craven got into a race-ending accident in the Bristol night race. PPI team owner Cal Wells replaced him later that week. Rusty Wallace Wallace broke a three-year losing streak with his win at Martinsville, but that was the lone bright spot of his year. His 16th-place points finish was his worst in his decade at Penske Racing. | | VIDEO | |
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Wallace went the final 27 races without a top five. He ran out of gas with two laps to go at Sonoma while running fourth. He led 79 laps in the Bristol night race but ran out of gas before halfway. The final blow of the season came in October, when he clashed with Ryan Newman late at Martinsville, costing him a possible season sweep and drawing a fine from NASCAR. Dale Jarrett Jarrett bounced back nicely after an awful 2003, but he was shut out of victory lane for the first time in his 10 years at Robert Yates Racing. He did win an unofficial event (Budweiser Shootout). | | VIDEO | |
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Jarrett scored nine top-10s in a 14-race stretch from July to October, but other than that, there was little to write about in 2004. He had only one top-five in the first half, partly because of two blown engines. → Click here for other Top 10 Lists. | 
