Johnson won title No. 3; economy was story No. 1

The season may be over, but the bad news does not yield to the checkered flag. One team lays off 116 employees, another 60, still another 65. One historic organization cuts back to a partial schedule, while another fights just to stay alive. One track gives up a Truck race because it can't afford to host it, while several others lose marketing revenue because of pullbacks by near-bankrupt car manufacturers. All the while, the roll of fabricators, engine builders and crewmen forced into the unemployment line increases with every passing day.

David Caraviello

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These are very, very difficult days for NASCAR. The series will surely race in 2009, and all the top names will still be there, and fans whose favorites run at the front of the pack may not notice anything different at all. But beneath the surface, there are real concerns about teams fading away. There are whispers about whether 43 cars will show up. These are worries about when this economic recession, which has crippled corporate sponsorship and in turn squeezed the life out of some NASCAR organizations, will finally come to an end.

It's been like that for months now, long before a recession was declared and the Big Three chief executives went to Washington asking for money and NASCAR teams began to cut payroll. In mid-September, just as the Sprint Cup championship chase was beginning to heat up, securities firms that had been buoyed by imprudent lending practices began to fail. Then credit dried up, and the stock market began to tank, and corporations put their marketing funds on lockdown, and the one sport in America that relies most on sponsorship dollars began to feel the pinch.

The result has been an almost tectonic shift in the NASCAR landscape, one where teams short on sponsors are aligning with one another in order to get by, other organizations are perilously close to shutting their doors, and so many people who were hired during the boom years of the early 2000s are finding themselves suddenly out of work. Yes, Jimmie Johnson won a record-tying third consecutive championship, Carl Edwards led the Sprint Cup circuit in victories, and Kyle Busch won a combined 21 races in NASCAR's three national divisions. But they're all rather transient accomplishments when measured against the faltering economy and its impact on NASCAR, which is indisputably the sport's top story of 2008.

No question, the exploits of Johnson, Edwards and Busch were phenomenal, presenting the sport with a three-headed rivalry that provided a season's worth of interesting storylines. But somehow, all that just doesn't seem quite as important when compared with Petty Enterprises, an organization that's been a part of the sport since the beginning, barely hanging on. It feels like playtime when put up against the real-world concerns of the Wood Brothers scaling back operations, or Dale Earnhardt Inc. cutting 100 people, or the prospect of teams losing a chunk of their budgets if a manufacturer pulls out. People are losing their jobs. Businesses are close to failing. It all puts race wins and trophies in stark perspective.

Yet it needs to be restated that, however dire the current economic forecast, NASCAR isn't going away. The sport's premier organizations are still going to be there, battling for the championship once the 2009 season begins Feb. 15 at Daytona International Speedway. But even those teams have felt the effects of the financial crisis, and even some of them have resorted to layoffs. The media corps covering the sport has been gutted by a floundering newspaper industry and a dearth of advertising revenue. Some top drivers have lost personal services deals. Some fans can't afford to attend races. No one is untouched by this recession, a story that's dominated NASCAR this season like no other, and one that shows no signs of quietly going away.

Rest of the top 10 stories of 2008:

Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images

Jimmie Johnson became an even bigger figure in NASCAR history in 2008.

2. Jimmie's three-peat. In a more prosperous economic time, it would be the clear-cut No. 1. It's hard to argue against Johnson, who looked hopelessly behind early in the season, rallied to take the series lead early in the Chase, and ran away to become the first driver to win three consecutive titles since Cale Yarborough did it 30 years ago. He didn't win the most races, but he won the ones he had to, and ultimately took home the biggest prize. Four-peat, anyone?

3. Busch's rise and fall. NASCAR's tragic hero looked like the driver to beat for the first two-thirds of the Sprint Cup season, winning eight races -- some in spectacular fashion -- and leading the points for 17 weeks. One broken heim joint, one engine valve failure, and one phantom air pressure problem later, he was hopelessly buried. His days of dominance now seem long ago. But while they lasted, they were spectacular.

4. Edwards' ascent. Now we know, the guy's for real. It had been a while -- 2005, to be exact -- since Edwards had been a serious title contender down to the very end. This year he showed real staying power, leading the series with nine race wins and putting a real scare into Johnson late in the year. Now he has to show he can do it two years in a row. Few doubt he can; meet your likely consensus championship pick for 2009.

5. Tony starts a team. It would take a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pull Tony Stewart away from Joe Gibbs Racing, the only NASCAR home he's ever known. Half ownership in a Sprint Cup team was enough to do it. Stewart ended his 10-year run with Gibbs, became a partner in the renamed Stewart-Haas Racing, added Ryan Newman as a teammate and coaxed big-money sponsors to jump on board right before the economy went south. Now, all he has to do is win races, which might seem simple by comparison.

6. Gordon goes winless. One year he dominates two-thirds of the Cup season and nearly wins a fifth championship, the next he goes winless for the first time since his rookie season of 1993. It's been a neck-snapping transition for Jeff Gordon, who struggled to get a handle on the new car on intermediate tracks, and as a result took his first goose egg in 15 years. The scary part? Some of his best finishes, like third at Sonoma, were products of track position or circumstance. His car was rarely good enough to get up front on its own. That will have to change in 2009, or the whispers about his future will begin.

7. Petty's pitfalls. The 11th-hour merger negotiations with Gillett Evernham Racing were only part of the soap opera that seemed to surround the legendary team all season. There was the confusion at the spring Texas race, when Kyle Petty either pulled himself out of the No. 43 car, or didn't. There was the sale to investment firm Boston Ventures. There were the five missed races, the nine events that Terry Labonte started, the loss of sponsor General Mills, and Bobby Labonte's eventual departure from the organization. The team always seemed to be in the news, even though that news was rarely good.

8. Brickyard debacle. It was painful to watch, a NASCAR race at mighty Indianapolis Motor Speedway marred by tires that couldn't keep up. Rubber turned to dust. Cars limped into the pits after 10 laps, the tires worn down to the cords. NASCAR issues one competition caution after another to try and keep drivers out of the wall. Drivers called it ridiculous. It was. And Goodyear and NASCAR have since taken great pains to ensure that it never happens again. On July 26, we'll find out if they were successful.

9. Earnhardt settles in. Remember Dale Earnhardt Jr.? Nice kid, good driver. Wanted to buy his daddy's team, but his stepmother wouldn't let him, and so he left to go somewhere else. That prolonged saga was the top story of 2007. Then he got in a high-powered Hendrick Motorsports car, and a strange thing happened -- everyone kind of forgot about him. Sure, he snapped a 76-race winless streak, and returned to the Chase for the first time in two years. But he managed to do it all rather quietly, which was probably all right by him.

10. Shove off, Captain. OK, so maybe that's not quite what Newman said when he split from Penske Racing, the only team he's known since he broke into NASCAR eight years ago. But a season that started off so promising, with a Daytona 500 victory, rapidly deteriorated because of poor performance. Newman eventually left (or was asked to leave, depending on who you believe) and will race for Stewart's team in 2009.

Surprises

Autostock

David Ragan completed more laps than anyone in 2008.

3. ESPN. The network rebounded quite nicely from its rather clumsy return to NASCAR in 2007, de-emphasizing the ridiculous Draft Tracker, pairing down the number of talking heads crowding the telecast, and letting the racing tell the story. Andy Petree and Dale Jarrett are very good together. It's still not perfect, and it will never be FOX, which does NASCAR better than any other network has ever done it. That's a tough act to follow. But let's just say ESPN is off the top-35 bubble, and safely in the race.

2. Yates Racing. A tip of the cap to Doug Yates, who with little sponsorship but some help from Roush Fenway Racing fielded two cars that recorded six top-10 finishes, netted $8 million in prize money, and were never in danger of falling outside the top 35. Of course, the alliance with Roush helps. But less than two years ago, Yates was running this team out of his own pocket. Sponsorship has proven elusive. What might he be capable of with a little corporate backing? Now that Paul Menard and his Menards sponsorship are on board, we may find out.

1. David Ragan. Is this really the same kid who was running into everyone at Martinsville when he first broke into NASCAR's top series in 2006? Hard to believe, but it's true. Ragan showed so much progress this year, Stewart said he should earn votes for driver of the year. That may be going a bit too far, but no question the guy has improved by leaps and bounds. He scored 14 top-10s in 2008, gives great feedback over the radio, and is a safe bet to notch a first victory and break into the Chase in 2009.

Disappointments

Autostock

Dale Earnhardt Jr. had only five top-10s after his win at Michigan.

3. Goodyear. OK, let's put this in perspective. The guys in the blue shirts work hard, and 99 times out of 100 they put a solid product on the race track. But that one miss can be a doozy, as the Indianapolis debacle proved. The tire supplier caught heat from drivers for much of the year, particularly after a spring Atlanta event featuring a compound that drivers thought was too hard. Of the 36 Sprint Cup races, 34 went off without a hitch. But two, Atlanta and Indianapolis, colored Goodyear's reputation for the entire year.

2. Junior's finish. It's difficult to say that Earnhardt, in his first season driving for Hendrick, had a bad year. After all, the guy did win a race and make the Chase, two prominent goals he had coming into 2008. But his No. 88 car was so good early on, often the class of the Hendrick field, that his second-half nosedive has to be viewed as a disappointment. Five top-10s in the final 20 races, and a 12th-place finish in points, weren't exactly what he came to Hendrick to do.

1. Dodge. Newman won the Daytona 500. Kasey Kahne was one of just six drivers to record multiple victories on the season. Kurt Busch strategized his way to a win in the rain in New Hampshire. And that was basically it for Dodge, the only Sprint Cup manufacturer to not place a driver in the Chase. Its teams could never seem to get it together -- internal strife wracked Penske, sponsorship woes plagued Petty, Chip Ganassi and Juan Montoya took a step backward, and Kahne and GEM collapsed in the second half. Now they've lost Ganassi in the merger with DEI, and lost one Petty car to budget cuts. It wasn't the best of years for the Dodge boys.

Awards

Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images

Bob Osborne was at the forefront of the 99 car's success.

Driver of the Year: Johnson. No question. Tie a record that's stood for 30 years, and you deserve every accolade.
Runner-up: Busch. Mechanical woes stopped him when no other driver could.
Honorable mention: Edwards. Nine back flips this year, and surely many more to come.

Crew Chief of the Year: Bob Osborne, Roush Fenway Racing. Wasn't afraid to take chances that paid off and kept Edwards in the hunt.
Runner-up: Chad Knaus, Hendrick Motorsports. Tremendous rebound from a horrible start.
Honorable mention: Steve Addington, Joe Gibbs Racing. Cool mentality offsets Busch's fire.

Owner of the Year: Rick Hendrick. With eight championships, his shop is the gold standard.
Runner-up: Jack Roush. Made personnel shuffles that helped mold the teams of Edwards and Greg Biffle into title contenders.
Honorable mention: Richard Childress. Three cars in the Chase for a second consecutive season? No small feat.

Race of the Year: Chevy Rock & Roll 400, Richmond International Raceway. Ragan and Kahne battle to make the Chase. Earnhardt spins Busch. Stewart and Johnson fight for the victory. Even though it was pushed back a day because of Tropical Storm Hanna, the event had a little of everything.
Runner-up: Amp Energy 500, Talladega Superspeedway. Regan Smith won, and then he didn't.
Honorable mention: Sharpie 500, Bristol Motor Speedway. Edwards and Busch tangle before and after the checkered flag.

Move of the Year: Joe Custer, Haas CNC Racing general manager, offering Stewart a deal he couldn't refuse. Turned a fringe organization into a budding powerhouse.
Runner-up: Jay Frye joining Red Bull as general manager. Added needed professionalism and knowledge to a team that seemed clueless without him.
Honorable mention: Edwards feathering the throttle around Texas Motor Speedway, and closing the gap on Johnson late in the Chase.

Jimmie Johnson. For all the exploits of Edwards and Busch, this was still statistically Johnson's easiest path to a championship. Nobody's proven they can stop him. Enjoy sharing that record while it lasts, Cale. Because there will be a new one next year.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.