Posted on by Zack Albert

Busch rallies after off year to post best-ever finish in final standings

RELATED: 2013 recaps of every Chase driver

This is the 10th in a series of 2013 Sprint Cup Series driver recaps that will be featured on NASCAR.com

Kyle Busch‘s analytical nature when it comes to his on-track approach carried over into his deconstruction of 2013, one day after the engines went silent on his ninth full season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
 
Sure, Busch had four victories for Joe Gibbs Racing, finished a career-best fourth in the year-end standings and returned to the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup after missing the postseason in 2012. But even after crunching the numbers with imaginary mulligans, the 28-year-old driver was still short of the benchmark set by six-time series champion Jimmie Johnson.
 
"It’s so tough but man, it’s going to be so rewarding when we do because it’s just such a difficult sport to win in," Busch said of the prospect of clinching his first big-league NASCAR title. "To compete at Jimmie’s level that he did this year throughout the Chase, there’s nothing else you can do to beat a guy like that. You’ve got to win a couple races, you’ve got to finish top-10 every week … I mean, his worst finish being 13th (in the Chase) is just unreal.
 
"We all have to improve. My whole team has to improve — myself, (crew chief) Dave Rogers, our engineers, our whole engineering group, pit crew, all of it just has to get better to be in the 48’s spot at the end of the deal."

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

SEASON IN REVIEW

His 2013 improvement was a noticeable upturn from the disappointment of 2012. Busch quickly rallied from engine failure in the season-opening Daytona 500 and lackluster results the following week at Phoenix with a five-race stretch of top-five finishes, including victories at Auto Club Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway that pushed him to second place in the standings.
 
Busch’s next five races were a wash, with a crash that foreshadowed more misfortune at Kansas and a bizarre outcome in the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte. In NASCAR’s longest race, Busch was leading when his car struck a television cable that had snapped and fallen onto the racing surface. His JGR crew worked feverishly to repair the damaged No. 18 Toyota only to see the car’s engine expire just past the halfway point.
 
Busch righted the ship in the second half of the regular season, scoring summertime wins at Watkins Glen and Atlanta. Once the standings were reset for the Chase, Busch ranked second. Although he registered just one finish outside the top 15 in the 10-race playoff, it wasn’t enough to catch Johnson, second-place Matt Kenseth or third-place Kevin Harvick.
 
"Finishing fourth in points, it kind of beats your confidence up a little bit because I feel like we were better than Harvick all year," Busch said. "We should’ve finished better than him. I would’ve liked to have been closer to the top two, obviously, but they had a good Chase. They were competitive, they were fast, and it didn’t seem like I had enough of what we needed on the race track to finish better.
 
"I’ve known all along that I can finish well in the Chase if given the right opportunity and giving 100 percent every week. This year, I tried to go out and prove that and not just give up when we were eliminated, so that was good."
 
The biggest trouble spot in an otherwise solid Chase was a crash at Kansas Speedway, where Busch was saddled with his third straight wreck-related exit at the 1.5-mile track. But Busch said that even a well-placed mulligan wouldn’t have swung the pendulum far enough in his favor in the season-long standings.
 
"Man, I really, really struggle there for some reason. I’m not sure what it is," Busch said. "Even getting that finish back, and let’s say we finish 10th or something like that. We finished 35th, so that’s 25 points back that we missed out on. That only puts us third in points. Even by getting a Kansas finish back, it doesn’t help our picture."
 
Busch candidly admitted after the season that in years past, he would’ve lost his initiative after a similar setback. With a renewed focus this season, Busch forged ahead and notched his best overall finish — one position better than 2007, the year before he joined the Gibbs team.
 
Busch said unseating Johnson in 2014 will be a matter of repeating that ’07 magic, but also making the necessary step of finishing strong with momentum through the Chase.
 
"It’s a long season," Busch said. "You can feel as confident as you want today, but where are you going to be in Week 5, 10, 20, 30, 40? That’s what it all boils down to."

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Aftershocks of fallout from 2013’s final race before the Chase will still be evident in 2014

As darkness fell on Richmond International Raceway on the evening of Sept. 7, it was already clear the remainder of the season would be impacted by the events unfolding on the Virginia short track. This was, after all, the race that set the field for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, the 10-week dash that would decide the championship. For many teams and drivers, seven long months of hard work would come down to 400 miles in the Virginia capital.

But no one — not in the most twisted of prognostications — could have anticipated the effect that one night in Richmond would ultimately have. Oh, it determined the championship field, all right, one that would be changed not once but twice before the first playoff race. For one driver, it altered not just a season, but a career. For one sponsor, it was reason enough to withdraw. And for one organization, it left lasting impressions that will still be evident at Budwesier Speedweeks 2014, when Michael Waltrip Racing arrives at Daytona not with three full-time cars, but with two.

The 2013 NASCAR campaign was overloaded with one major news story after another, from Tony Stewart‘s late-night and season-ending broken leg, to Jimmie Johnson‘s sixth championship, to the Generation-6 car smashing track records and Danica Patrick winning the pole for the Daytona 500. But none of those made quite the impact or left quite the ripple effects of one night in Richmond, where MWR was at the center of a race manipulation scandal that dogged the sport for weeks. The 2014 team rosters of at least three organizations are directly affected by that night, the shadow of which still hangs over MWR like a dark cloud.

"I never would have dreamed in a million years that that would have escalated into what it did," MWR driver Clint Bowyer, whose suspicious spin in the final laps at Richmond was at the center of it all, said in October. "It was a bad deal. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through in this sport."

By now, everyone knows the story — Bowyer spins, teammate Brian Vickers pits unexpectedly, MWR’s Martin Truex Jr. edges Ryan Newman for the final Chase spot. Days later in the face of suspicious radio communications, NASCAR levies arguably the harshest penalty in its history, and Truex is bumped out of the Chase in favor of Newman. After more radio communications surface involving other teams, NASCAR takes the unprecedented step of adding Jeff Gordon to the playoff as a 13th driver. Matt Kenseth takes the checkered flag at Chicagoland, and everyone hopes the scandal is over.

Except it isn’t. The biggest blow is yet to come, in the form of sponsor NAPA departing MWR, and leaving Truex’s No. 56 team without a backer for 2014. In the face of that deficit, MWR contracts from three full-time teams to two. Truex lands at Furniture Row Racing, his crew chief Chad Johnston lands at Stewart-Haas Racing, and Bowyer temporarily becomes a pariah to many of the fan base.

"I think that the repercussions that the team has seen from it are obviously pretty big," Kevin Harvick said a few weeks later. "I think if they look back on it, they would probably say that they would have done things a little bit differently to protect the things and the sponsors that are expected from their fans. You listen to the reaction to Clint and you hear the fans boo and you hear the things that they think about it. I know that bothers him, but it’s had a lot of repercussions. I think if everybody had it to do over again, I’m sure that they would do things differently, but you have to make decisions at the time and those were the decisions that were made. Everybody is trying to move on, and it will definitely be something that is talked about for a long time.”

Even NASCAR chairman Brian France, never one prone to overstatement, admitted to being "pissed off" by the entire episode — likely one reason the penalties to MWR were so harsh.

"I knew that our credibility would be preserved if we did the right thing and we acted swiftly, and over time. So I wasn’t ever worried about that," France said in early December. "But of course, we were disappointed. But that’s just the nature, I guess, of competitive sports. You’ve got human beings trying to do their best, and sometimes they cross lines they shouldn’t cross."

And indeed, that’s what occurred on one now-infamous night in Richmond, the aftershocks of which will be evident well into 2014. Team changes, driver changes, sponsor changes, rule changes — they were all results of a race manipulation scandal that was the biggest story of a NASCAR season full of big stories. The rest of the top 10:

2. Smoke sidelined. After walking away from a pair of high-flying sprint car crashes, three-time NASCAR champion Tony Stewart paid a price for his favorite extracurricular activity in early August. At a dirt track in Iowa, Stewart hit another car and broke two bones in his lower right leg, knocking him out for the rest of the Sprint Cup season. The injury was more serious than many realized, causing muscle and tissue damage and leading to a long and painful recovery process.

The repercussions were massive: One of NASCAR’s most popular drivers was sidelined, SHR teammate Ryan Newman was eventually awarded the Wild Card berth to the Chase that Stewart had been in position for, Mark Martin ended up as a substitute in the No. 14 car, crew chief Steve Addington wound up fired, and co-owner Gene Haas hired Kurt Busch as a fourth driver for 2014 while his partner was incapacitated from the injury. Thankfully, all signs point to Smoke being back in the car for the Daytona 500 in 2014.

3. Johnson takes the sixth. Jimmie Johnson didn’t win the most races in 2013, but he broke a two-year drought by claiming a sixth Sprint Cup title that sets him up to join the sport’s most exclusive club. Then again, six titles in eight years is something that not even Dale Earnhardt or Richard Petty — the greats with seven crowns Johnson hopes to match — could pull off. A victory at Texas in the third-to-last race of the season propelled Johnson into the points lead, and he never let go after that, clinching the title rather easily in the finale at Homestead and placing himself squarely on the doorstep of history.

4. Aches and pains. An on-track feud took a painful turn in late March when final-lap contact with Joey Logano sent Denny Hamlin crashing into an inside wall at Fontana. Hamlin suffered an L1 compression fracture that forced him to miss most of five races, causing him to miss the Chase for the first time in his career. When it came to injuries or medical issues in 2013, he was far from alone. Nationwide Series driver Michael Annett missed two months with a broken sternum, Stewart went out with his broken leg, Vickers sat the final weeks due to a reoccurrence of blood clots, Eric McClure battled a kidney ailment and Trevor Bayne was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Most tragically, former NASCAR racer Jason Leffler lost his life in a sprint car crash, leaving behind a young son.

5. Kenseth’s career year. Given that he’s one of the steadiest drivers in the garage area, everyone expected Matt Kenseth to succeed at Joe Gibbs Racing, his new home in 2013 after a dozen years with Jack Roush’s team. But enjoy a career year? That’s exactly what Kenseth did, nearly becoming the first driver to win a title in his first season with a new organization since Darrell Waltrip did it with Junior Johnson in 1981. He set a new career mark with a season-best seven race wins, and led the points for seven weeks down the stretch. A few slip-ups at the end kept him from the championship, but Kenseth’s prolific debut at JGR certainly sets the stage for more.

6. Danica at Daytona. Jimmie Johnson may have offered a sign of things to come by winning the Daytona 500, but many eyes over the course of Speedweeks were glued to the green No. 10 car of Danica Patrick. And with good reason — the rookie became the first woman ever to win the pole for a premier-series event when she unleashed a lap of 196.434 mph, and then held her own in the Great American Race by finishing eighth. She was third in the final laps when her inexperience showed, and she was unable to put herself in position to go for the victory. But no matter — to many, the final result was a triumph in and of itself.

7. A new Generation. The vehicle that debuted this past season on the Sprint Cup tour was designed with brand identity in mind, to tighten the connections between race cars and their counterparts on the street. But when the Generation-6 car rolled out on the track, it proved to also be something else — extraordinarily fast. That much was evident from the first test at a 1.5-mile track, when Kasey Kahne turned a lap that would have been a record at Charlotte. The records would fall for real soon enough, with the Gen-6 smashing previous marks in 19 of the 32 qualifying sessions held in 2013. All told, 16 tracks now have new track records thanks to the Gen-6 car, which will continue to evolve into 2014.

8. Kurt Busch is back. The 2004 champion of NASCAR’s top series has been on a personal odyssey ever since his surprising split from Penske Racing following the 2011 season. But 2013 was when Kurt Busch finally climbed back to the top, bringing Furniture Row Racing along with him. The No. 78 team became the first single-car entity ever to make the Chase thanks in large part to Busch, who parlayed the breakthrough into a ride at powerhouse Stewart-Haas Racing for 2014. But his 2013 was at times spectacular in its own right, even if growing pains kept his car out of Victory Lane. But with Busch bound for SHR and Truex for his old seat in the No. 78, both sides are better for the experience.

9. Keselowski Chased out. It all started out so well for Brad Keselowski, who finished in the top five in each of the first four races of the 2013 season, and looked primed to pursue a repeat of his 2012 championship. But then came penalties, and a suspension to his crew chief, and mechanical issues, and a inability to get the race win he so desperately needed in the regular season. In the end, Keselowski became only the second champion of the Chase era to miss the playoff the following year. He showed flashes of his usual self all season, and finally broke into Victory Lane at Charlotte in October, but it wasn’t enough to prevent his title defense from ending 10 weeks early.

10. Return to dirt. It may have been a Camping World Truck Series event, but that didn’t stop it from becoming one of the most anticipated races of the year. The July race at Eldora Speedway marked NASCAR’s first national-series event on dirt since Petty won at the North Carolina Fairgrounds in Raleigh in 1970. And it proved worth the wait, with Ken Schrader becoming the oldest pole winner, a fender-banging last-chance race and Nationwide Series regular Austin Dillon besting an all-star field of NASCAR drivers and dirt specialists. The debut event at Stewart’s half-mile track was nothing short of a rousing success, and it whetted the appetite for more.

Surprises

1. Harvick makes it work. A lame-duck season, an angry verbal assault on one of his car owner’s grandkids after an on-track incident — there seemed no way Kevin Harvick and Richard Childress could make it work in 2013. Not with the end coming, not with how they’ve clashed in the past, not with a split looming between them. And yet, they not only held it together, they succeeded amid it all, winning four races and staying in the title hunt until the final weekend. Despite the odds, they kept it professional and managed a memorable final season before Harvick departed for Stewart-Haas.

2. Furniture Row takes the next step. We all knew Kurt Busch was good. But good enough to lift a mediocre single-car team into championship contention? Yes, that good. Before Busch, the No. 78 team had managed just three top-five finishes in its eight-year history. With Busch they notched 11 in this past season alone, to go with nine front-row starting positions, a high point of seventh in the standings, and a near sweep of the May events in Charlotte. Now the challenge is to keep it going with Truex behind the wheel.

3. Joey Logano breaks through. Keselowski saw enough in Logano that when the No. 22 car became open for 2013, the defending champion convinced Roger Penske that the former Gibbs driver was right one for the job. The result was a race victory at Michigan in August, and the first Chase berth of Logano’s career. For a driver who broke in very young and is still just 23, the increased comfort, confidence and maturity levels are noticeable. Keselowski may have missed the Chase this past season, but he laid the groundwork for the one Penske driver who made it.

Disappointments

1. Roush Fenway Racing. While former Roush driver Kenseth was off winning seven times and contending for the title until the final week of the season, his old mates at Roush Fenway Racing were often left scratching their heads. Although Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards combined for three race victories, their highest points finish was Biffle in ninth. Edwards came home 13th, and after a promising start rookie Ricky Stenhouse Jr. fell to 19th. Roush is a proud organization capable of better, and it shuffled some crew chiefs in the offseason in the hopes of finding combinations that work.

2. Rookie struggles. Speaking of Stenhouse, there’s no question he and girlfriend Patrick comprised the strongest Sprint Cup rookie class in years. But there’s also no question both of those first-year drivers struggled more than anyone — themselves likely included — probably envisioned. After capturing headlines at Daytona, Patrick managed a promising 12th at Martinsville, and then plummeted to 27th in final points in a year SHR often struggled with its race cars. Stenhouse enjoyed a decent start and showed flashes near the finish, but couldn’t maintain it in between. But everything is different at NASCAR’s highest level, and more experience can only help.

3. Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing. Once again, the most underperforming race team in NASCAR maintains its usual position in this category. Jamie McMurray got off to a nice start and won the fall race at Talladega, but never found any consistency in between. Juan Pablo Montoya nearly won in the spring at Richmond, but the rest of the year was problematic and uneven, and he returned to open-wheel racing after his contract wasn’t renewed. Their final points results were 15th and 21st, respectively, a little better than past years but hardly good enough. Perhaps the arrival of rookie Kyle Larson will bring some new life for 2014.

Awards

Driver of the Year: Matt Kenseth. OK, nothing against Johnson, whose greatness has been well-chronicled. But what Kenseth did, nearly winning the title in his first year with a new team, crew chief, and manufacturer, is almost unheard of. The fact that he enjoyed his best year ever amid entirely new surroundings is staggering. Runner-up: Jimmie Johnson. Six-time is simply the standard by which all others are measured. Honorable mention: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Returned to the elite even if he didn’t win a race.

Crew chief of the Year: Chad Knaus. The difference in the title race this past season was that Johnson’s cars were better off the truck when it counted most. Knaus also expertly managed a number of changes on the No. 48 team’s road and over-the-wall crews. This title was his as much as anyone’s. Runner-up: Steve Letarte. The voice in Earnhardt Jr.’s ear has worked wonders with NASCAR’s most popular driver. Honorable mention: Todd Berrier. A chronically underrated wrench-turner who oversaw Kurt Busch’s return to the Chase.

Car owner of the Year: Rick Hendrick. Four drivers in the Chase for two consecutive years (even if Jeff Gordon’s 11th-hour addition perhaps requires an asterisk) is a heck of a feat. So is an 11th title. Runner-up: Joe Gibbs. Kenseth had a career year, and Kyle Busch enjoyed his best Chase finish. Honorable mention: Barney Visser. The quiet man from Colorado who turned Kurt Busch’s career around.

Comeback of the Year: Kurt Busch. From Phoenix Racing to Furniture Row Racing to a ride with Stewart-Haas for 2014. Runner-up: Ryan Newman. After missing the Chase in 2012 and losing his job mid-season, Newman made the playoff this year (again, an asterisk) and secured a ride with Richard Childress Racing for 2014. Honorable mention: Jeff Gordon. Don’t tell him he didn’t belong in the Chase. The four-time champion took advantage of the chance, winning at Martinsville and rising as high as third in the standings en route to earning his highest points finish since 2009.

Race of the Year: Aaron’s 499, Talladega Superspeedway. David Ragan and David Gilliland burst up the middle at the finish to steal one for the little guys and ruin a dominant day by Kenseth. Runner-up: Auto Club 400, Auto Club Speedway. Logano and Hamlin crash on the final lap, and Logano and Stewart rumble on pit road in a race that alters the playoff picture. Honorable Mention: AdvoCare 500, Phoenix International Raceway. Harvick wins as Edwards runs out of gas on the final lap, and Kenseth’s setup struggles open the door for Johnson to claim a sixth title.

Quote of the Year: "You mortals have got to learn." — Tony Stewart, admonishing the media at Pocono for making a big deal out of his spectacular sprint car crashes. Runner-up: "If I was going to give Matt (Kenseth) a piece of advice, I’d say use the s— out of him. Every time you get, run him hard, because that’s his weakness." — Brad Keselowski at Phoenix, opining on how to beat Johnson, and stoking the rivalry between the 2 and 48 teams in the process. Honorable mention: "I never lifted." — Norm Benning, after holding off Clay Greenfield in a last-chance qualifier to earn the final berth in the Truck Series race at Eldora.

Early 2014 Championship Pick

Jimmie Johnson. Kenseth will almost certainly be back, Keselowski and the Roush bunch will almost certainly be better, and Stewart-Haas presents a sizeable challenge in and of itself. But it’s just impossible to pick against the guy right now, not with how he dispatched the competition in the final weeks of the Chase, despite a number of changes on his race team and two seasons being elapsed since his last championship. Have we even seen his best yet? At this point, you have to wonder. But for now, history — and a place alongside the King and the Intimidator — awaits.

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READ: Earnhardt not the
only legend to drive ‘3’
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Strong showing in Chase results in Dale Jr.’s best finish in standings since 2006

This is the ninth in a series of 2013 Sprint Cup Series driver recaps that will be featured on NASCAR.com

Dale Earnhardt Jr. knows his best season in seven years could have been even better.

NASCAR’s most popular driver took a big step forward in 2013, using a strong start and an even better finishing kick to record a fifth-place finish in points that was his best since 2006. Earnhardt was especially strong in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, where he posted an average finish of 5.6 over the final nine events of the playoff. It was an engine failure in the Chase opening at Chicagoland, though, that ultimately prevented Earnhardt from challenging Jimmie Johnson for the championship.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

SEASON IN REVIEW

Wait — Earnhardt and championship, used in the same sentence? Yes, his season was that good, and the driver of the No. 88 car is hoping to carry that momentum into 2014. There was only one thing missing this past season, and it was a trip to Victory Lane.

Goodness, he came close. Second in the Daytona 500. Second at Fontana. Second at Dover after starting from the pole. Second at Talladega and Texas. And third in the season finale at Homestead-Miami, where he led 28 laps late in the running and appeared to have the best car until Denny Hamlin snuck in for the victory.

"I enjoyed all the races in the Chase. We ran really well, were real competitive," said Earnhardt, who this year won the Most Popular Driver award for the record 11th straight time. "… I thought the Homestead thing was magic. For some reason, it just kind of lined up. I wish I could have won. I was disappointed, and still think about what I could have done, why I didn’t win. I should have won. I had the best car, had the fastest car. I should have won. I don’t know why I didn’t win."

Earnhardt’s most recent race victory was at Michigan in the summer of 2012, which means he’ll carry a streak of 55 winless event weekends into the Daytona 500. But such a skid is hardly the cause of hand-wringing that it once was, given the strength the No. 88 car showed on a consistent basis throughout the 2013 campaign. What clicked? It’s hard to tell. Crew chief Steve Letarte said the team had a plan to unroll better cars for the Chase, perhaps one reason for the program’s performance in the playoff.

It also can’t hurt that the No. 88 car is stabled at Hendrick Motorsports alongside the Johnson’s team, who this year won his sixth title at NASCAR’s top level. Otherwise it was just business as usual, the same people working better together and improving over time.

"I’ve asked Steve over and over, asked my car chief Jason (Burdette) over and over, and asked everybody on the team at least once or twice what we’re doing different. They said they’re not doing anything different. You know, I really don’t know why. I have the same feeling, like our cars are way faster," Earnhardt said.

"We have been more competitive, I think not just as a company, I think the 88 team has really stepped it up. But each year … we’ve gotten better. As a team, we’ve gotten better. When we first started working together, it’s easy to forget about all this, but when me and Steve started working together, we were working our guts out to finish in the top 10. Each year it’s kind of gotten easier to run a little better."

There were the occasional hiccups, like a trio of engine failures and then a bad alternator that derailed a promising run at Texas in the spring. But Earnhardt clearly left 2013 feeling optimistic, and knowing that race wins are key to his team taking the next step. And not just to earn the payoff of reaching Victory Lane, but also to accrue bonus points that will keep him closer to the Chase leaders once the championship hunt begins.

"We need to win some more races in the regular season to give ourselves some bonus points going into the Chase," Earnhardt said. "… Even with 10 races to go, the bonus points are a steep hill in front of you, when you’re a guy sitting there eighth or 10th or 13th place in points starting the Chase off, and the guy leading the Chase field already has 15 bonus points, or whatever it is this year. That’s a steep hill to climb."

And yet, if this past season was any indication, the No. 88 team is clearly on the ascent. The 22 top-10s Earnhardt accumulated in 2013 were a personal record, and there’s a clear sense of optimism surrounding his program for next year. Not even the lack of a victory can dampen that.

"I expect us to continue our trajectory to get better, and I expect us to have a lot to enjoy and a lot of good fortune next year," Earnhardt said. "I’d be real surprised if things aren’t as good or better than they were this past season, and I’m looking forward to that."

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Seventh annual #Loopies: Probably trending in a city near you

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Dec. 23, 2013) — Sometime in the middle of November, as NASCAR prepared for its 2013 culmination, the good folks at Oxford announced “selfie” as their word of 2013.

Well, since then, a new word has taken the sports world by storm: Loopie. As in: Statistically based awards using NASCAR’s Loop Data. One day, Oxford will wait until the end of December to make its announcement.

A quick primer on the Loopies: NASCAR’s Integrated Marketing Communications squad dug through, deciphered and deliberated on pages upon pages of Loop Data statistics to come up with one final batch of awards. And here they are.

Last but not least, we have the Loopies. The envelopes please …

Most Improved Driver Award: Points position … wins … top 10s … laps led. These are the factors most often used to determine Most Improved Driver. Not here. We use driver rating, the ultimate picture painter when deciding upon a driver’s year-over-year performance. And the winner of this year’s Most Improved Loopie: Kurt Busch, who finished 2012 with a driver rating of 71.0. This year, that number ballooned to 93.0, an increase of 22.0 — the largest in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Interestingly, second and third on that list were Joey Logano (an increase of 12.8 points) and Matt Kenseth (11.0). That means the top three were all drivers who just completed their first full season with a new team.

Least Improved Driver Award: This is what makes the Loopies unique. Not every award is coveted. Like this one. This one goes to the driver who had the biggest drop in driver rating. The unlucky winner: Denny Hamlin. In 2012, he chipped in an excellent driver rating of 100.9. This season, it fell to 82.4, a difference of 18.5. No need to worry for Hamlin, however. He heads into 2014 hot. Three of his last four finishes were in the top 10 (including his season-finale win at Homestead-Miami Speedway), and two of those resulted in a driver rating over 100. We believe Vegas has posted him as even money for the Most Improved Loopie in 2014.

Jimmie Johnson Lifetime Achievement Award: A new award, this one goes to the driver who has assembled a career that most resembles that of Jimmie Johnson, one of the all-time NASCAR legends. The winner: Jimmie Johnson. With its inception in 2005, Loop Data is now nine years old. During that span, Johnson has posted otherworldly stats — and he doesn’t show signs of slowing down. A few superlatives: Series highs in career driver rating (105.9), fastest laps run (8,071), laps in the top 15 (75,070) and average running position (10.206). Additionally, this year, he set Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup records in driver rating (125.8), average running position (5.165) and laps in the top 15 (3,001).

Project Makeover Award: This goes to the driver who switched teams in 2013, and became a completely different competitor. Congratulations, Matt Kenseth. Here’s why: Kenseth ranked second in laps led with 1,783. His average rank in the five seasons prior to 2013 was 9.8. (Another fun fact: His 1,783 laps led were more than his laps led total in the previous four seasons, combined.)

It’s Go Time Award: This one goes to the top "closer" in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The "closer" stat measures the positions gained or lost in the last 10 percent of races. And the Loopie goes to: Dale Earnhardt Jr., who improved 68 positions over the final 10 percent of races this year, tops in the series. That accounts for almost two positions per race, and the reason for his career-high 22 top-10 finishes. In eight races this season, Earnhardt came from outside-to-inside the top 10 with 10 percent of the laps remaining.

No, Really, It’s Go Time, Why Aren’t You Going? Award: While statistics like average finish and laps led tell fans what a driver did, Loop Data tells them how and why a driver did it. Here’s a possible explanation of why the winner of this award went otherwise winless this season for the first time since 2009. The unfortunate winner: Clint Bowyer. The reason: He lost 67 positions in the final 10 percent of races, the second highest figure in the series. That means a very strong season could have been that much better. On the bright side, he did win this Loopie.

Stefan Kretschmann Lifetime Achievement Award: Nothing pleases an awards show crowd — and dictates a standing ovation — like a Lifetime Achievement Award. That’s why the Loopies have two of them this year. (It’s been seven years of this … we do what we gotta do.) A quick explanation on the namesake of this award: Stefan Kretschmann works for our good friends at Stats, LLC in Chicago, and is considered the godfather of Loop Data. The formulas that make Loop Data so interesting and invaluable are his brainchild. Prior winners of this prestigious award included Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch. The winner this year … Jeff Gordon. If not for Johnson, Gordon would lead almost all key Loop Data categories. Since the inception of Loop Data in 2005, he is second in fastest laps run (5,006), average running position (11.9), laps in the top 15 (70,985) and percentage of laps run on the lead lap (89.4 percent). In addition, only three drivers have posted a 90+ driver rating each year from 2006 to present in NASCAR Sprint Cup competition: Gordon, and the two previous winners (Johnson and Busch).

And that’s that. Congratulations to all our winners, even those who didn’t want a Loopie. Seven years are now in the books. Three more, and the Loopies will be eligible for induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Happy Holidays everyone!

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Posted on by Holly Cain

Smith carries championship expectations into 2014

Regan Smith couldn’t have looked more surprised when he was announced the winner of the 2013 Most Popular Driver Award in the NASCAR Nationwide Series.

An hour later, having had a little time to reflect, Smith told reporters the honor was both humbling and a bit empowering.

"They told a bunch of us that we were in the top five but I didn’t anticipate we’d actually be the one that got it," Smith said backstage at the year-end awards banquet in Miami Beach, Fla., with a nod to his team owner and perennial NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Most Popular Driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.

"Obviously a big thank you to all the Regan Smith fans and Junior Nation fans out there. I think the power of Junior Nation has spoken again and I’m very appreciative of that.

"It’s a good nation," he said smiling. "And I think the Regan Smith fan base has grown because of Junior Nation so that’s good. And whatever the future holds, whether it’s here for 10 years or somewhere else, certainly hope I can keep all those fans with me."

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

SEASON IN REVIEW

While it’s no secret the former Sprint Cup Series driver — and 2011 Darlington winner — would one day like to return to the Cup Series, he is spending his time in the JR Motorsports No. 7 Chevrolet reminding people why he is not only a popular driver, but a successful one that deserves that shot at Cup again one day.

First, he has some Nationwide business to attend to, however.

Although he finished third in the final Nationwide Series standings, the hefty 72-point deficit to champion Austin Dillon is misleading of Smith’s season. He led the points standings for 10 consecutive weeks on the heels of a victory at Talladega Superspeedway in the spring, a stretch that was bolstered by another win at Michigan in the summer.

In fact, Smith was the only full-time Nationwide Series driver with multiple wins in 2013 and one of only three Nationwide Series regulars to reach Victory Lane at all.

He led eventual championship runner-up Sam Hornish Jr. by 58 points at one point during that 10-race stretch, which included eight top-10 finishes.

Smith’s confidence also received a big boost with a pair of early top-10 finishes in the Sprint Cup Series driving James Finch’s No. 51 Chevy — highlighted by a seventh-place finish in the Daytona 500 followed later by a sixth-place effort at Talladega the day after he won the Nationwide race there.

For 16 weeks during the middle of the season, Smith was ranked first or second in points. But, then things got away from him and the team.

A 32nd-place finish at Road America followed by a 30th-place showing at Kentucky late in the summer left Smith vulnerable in the standings. He closed out the year with three top-10s in the final eight races capped by a frustrating 29th-place finish at the Homestead-Miami Speedway season finale.

"I think we learned a lot through the middle part of the season. It was tough for us to give up that big points lead as quick as we did," Smith said analyzing the situation. "We didn’t anticipate that happening and I’d say it caught us off-guard.

"I don’t want to say we got desperate but we started doing things a little differently than we had done to get the lead, from a standpoint of our mentality and how we thought about things. I was probably more guilty of that as a driver than anybody. In my years of racing I hadn’t been in a situation in quite some time to be racing for points like that and have a shot at a championship. There were some things I forgot as far as how a championship played out. Unfortunately, no matter how many times somebody tells you this is how it’s going to be, you still have to experience it.

"And that middle part of the season is when a lot of that happened and then again later in the year, we started getting even more desperate when we were 20 points out, and 20 points became 30 points and 30 became 40 and it just kept growing because of small little errors or small mental mistakes. There’s areas we can do better and we will."

Smith said the whole experience gives him confidence for the 2014 Nationwide championship run, even if he is his own harshest critic. He realizes that he is in prime position driving for a team like JR Motorsports, which has title-worthy resources and standards.

And considering the top two championship contenders, Dillon and Hornish, won’t return in 2014, the high expectations land squarely on Smith’s shoulders — something he’s keenly aware of.

"Our goal is to get the championship and we didn’t get it," Smith said, offering a candid assessment. "We did a lot of things that we got an A and A-plus at but overall grade when you look at the end of the year — I’m very much a goal-oriented person, our goal was the championship and we didn’t reach that.

"Was the year a total failure? Absolutely not. We had the wins, had a lot of great runs and learned a lot, but ultimately we didn’t reach the goal we were striving for and that’s going to be the goal again next year."

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Posted on by

Not finishing No. 1 did not diminish these drivers’ track records

The past few weeks have been all about champions, crowning a new one and celebrating current and former ones, all of them remembered in banners fluttering from the ceiling of a banquet hall. The apex of any sport is a championship, and to claim the title in the Sprint Cup Series is to earn the highest reward there is in NASCAR.

But championships alone do not necessarily equal greatness, as the ranks of those enshrined in and nominated for the NASCAR Hall of Fame will surely attest. In the sport’s earlier days, there were drivers who never won a season-long title because such a thing didn’t mean nearly as much in an era where the series competed 50 times per year, and some chased only the big events. In more recent times, there have been plenty of great drivers who never won a championship because of circumstances, or misfortunate, or because they had the bad timing of going up against the likes of Dale Earnhardt or Jimmie Johnson at their peak.

So yes, a title alone cannot be the sole barometer of greatness. The lack of one certainly didn’t hurt Junior Johnson or Fireball Roberts from getting into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. So as Jimmie Johnson’s 2013 celebration ends and everyone turns their eyes toward another title run to come in 2014, here are the top 10 drivers without a championship at NASCAR’s highest level.

10. Geoffrey Bodine

The oldest of the racing Bodine brothers from Chemung, N.Y., Geoffrey was a star in the modified ranks — he won 55 races in one season alone, 1978 — long before he moved south and began his career in NASCAR’s major league. Although many remember Bodine for the fiery Camping World Truck Series crash he survived in 2000, his record on the race track stands on its own. It was Bodine who delivered the first race victory to Rick Hendrick, then owner of a fledgling outfit called All-Star Racing, in 1984 at Martinsville. All told Bodine won 18 times, including the 1986 Daytona 500, and was among the best of his era on road courses. He never won the title — the closest he came was third in 1990, well back of Earnhardt — but he won just about everything else.

9. Tim Richmond

The 1986 season was when Tim Richmond emerged as the NASCAR superstar everyone knew he had the potential to be. A rambunctious playboy with a lion’s mane of hair and an attitude to match, the former open-wheel star won seven times in 1986 and finished third in final points behind Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip. It was only the beginning, everyone surmised. But the following season, Richmond missed the Daytona 500 with what reporters were told was double pneumonia. He came back, won twice more, and was out again. When he died in 1989 at age 34, the rumor of AIDS was confirmed by his death certificate. On the track, his career had been short but spectacular, netting 13 wins in just 185 races. Who knows what he might have accomplished had he lived longer, given that the illness took hold just as he neared the top.

8. Denny Hamlin

If a few things break a little bit differently, Denny Hamlin could very well have a pair of championship rings by now. If his fuel strategy doesn’t backfire in the penultimate race of the 2010 season at Phoenix, if his car’s master switch doesn’t go on the fritz in the fourth-to-last event of the 2012 campaign at Martinsville — well, who knows. If he doesn’t break a bone in his back in a crash early this past season, maybe he contends then, too. Regardless, time and time again Hamlin has shown all the signs of being a champion waiting to happen — except that it hasn’t happened yet, despite 23 race wins and three finishes inside the top five in final points to date. The good news is, his back seems to be responding to treatment, and the 33-year-old would appear to have plenty of time left ahead of him.

7. Fred Lorenzen

There’s a reason they called him Fast Freddy. Fred Lorenzen was first a star on the short tracks in and around his native Chicago — including Soldier Field, which was an auto racing venue long before it was home of the Bears — and then a success at NASCAR’s national level in Holman-Moody equipment that helped deliver all 26 of his career victories, the 1965 Daytona 500 among them. But like many top drivers of his day, Lorenzen didn’t compete in the full NASCAR season, chasing big-money events and other races along the way. His best career points finish was third in 1963, when he competed in just 29 of 55 events. But he won six of those, and notched 21 top-fives, and still finished well ahead of fourth-place Ned Jarrett, who made 24 more starts. Had Lorenzen raced a little more that season, he may have a NASCAR championship to his name.

6. Ricky Rudd

The Ironman is best known for his record for consecutive starts, which still stands at 788. But he was also a fierce competitor who won 23 times, and notched at least one victory a year for 16 consecutive seasons. Although Rudd enjoyed stints with car owners Richard Childress, Bud Moore and Rick Hendrick, he had an independent streak, and for six years carried the dual titles of driver and owner. But it was at the same time big-money sponsors and multi-car teams were becoming the standard, making it tougher for driver/owners to compete. Although Rudd continued to contend for race wins, those later years with his own team saw him take a tumble in the points. He rebounded with Robert Yates and enjoyed two of his best seasons, but his best shot at a title had been 1991, when he finished second in points behind Earnhardt.

5. Kyle Busch

Kyle Busch is on the short list of drivers with the most natural talent in NASCAR, and he shows it almost every race weekend in his ability to flat-out dominate events. Contending for championships, though, is another matter altogether. It’s somewhat shocking to realize that for all his ability, this past season’s fourth-place finish was Rowdy’s best ever at the premier level. More times than not, he’s suffered early failures or accidents in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and wound up back in the pack — which was certainly the case in 2008, his best season, when he won eight times but opened the playoff with three straight weeks of mechanical issues. Then there’s the matter of Busch not having won a Chase race since 2005, when he wasn’t even in the playoff. But he’s only 28 and clearly one of the best in the business, so you’re inclined to think the breakthrough will come with time.

4. Davey Allison

The son of a NASCAR champion, Davey Allison seemed unquestionably destined for greatness. He was just 32 years old when he notched his 19th career victory, in the spring of 1993 at Richmond. He had narrowly missed out on a title the previous season, finishing third behind Bill Elliott and champion Alan Kulwicki in the closest race ever to that point. But Allison’s greatness was never to be fully realized — on July 13, 1993, he crashed a helicopter he had bought just three weeks earlier, trying to land in the Talladega infield to see the son of driver Neil Bonnett test a car. Accounts from the time say the helicopter was a foot from landing when it shot up into the air and turned over, landing on the pilot’s side. Allison died of a head injury in a Birmingham hospital. To this day, people still mourn not just the loss of a father, son, and husband, but also the promise of a career that was only beginning to blossom when it was tragically cut short.

3. Fireball Roberts

One of the biggest stars of early NASCAR, Glenn "Fireball" Roberts was an ace on the sport’s biggest tracks. He won seven times at Daytona, the cornerstone of a career that produced 33 victories overall. But like many of his era, Roberts didn’t pursue a points championship, instead picking off the races that paid the most. His best overall finish was second in 1950, a short 19-race campaign that marked the second season of NASCAR’s premier division. But the schedule ballooned after that, and Roberts never finished higher than fifth. He was a star nonetheless, not to mention the sport’s biggest career money winner, until he was involved in a fiery crash in 1964 at Charlotte. Burned over 75 percent of his body, Roberts seemed to make early progress before succumbing to pneumonia and blood poisoning. He death at 35 prompted a series of safety changes that transformed the sport.

2. Mark Martin

Blessed with a mixture of longevity and talent, Mark Martin used a physical fitness regime to remain competitive at NASCAR’s highest level well into his 50s. Particularly during his heyday driving for Jack Roush, the man was a force behind the wheel, a major player for wins and championships in an era where the competition at the top was steep. He won 40 races but never a title, enduring five runner-up finishes. The most painful of those was likely 1990, when Martin was penalized 46 points by NASCAR for an illegal carburetor space at Richmond, and lost the championship to Earnhardt by 26 points. Martin had mellowed by 2009, when he won five times and finished an unlikely second to Jimmie Johnson, and later added valuable leadership to Michael Waltrip Racing. When he stepped out of the car after this past season’s finale, it was likely for the last time.

1. Junior Johnson

Goodness, did Junior Johnson do it all. The man has been a moonshiner, a winning driver, a crew chief, an engine builder, a jack man, a maker of excellent pork products, a championship car owner, and now a NASCAR Hall of Famer. But the one thing the "Last American Hero" never did was win a title as a driver at the sport’s top level, even though he claimed 50 races over a 14-year career that ended in 1966. Once again, it was a matter of choosing limited races over a full season. In 1965, for instance, he won 13 times — as many as that season’s champion, Ned Jarrett — but because he started just 36 out of 55 races, he finished 12th in final points. In fact, when it comes to best overall finish, Johnson was never better than sixth.

Of course, none of that dilutes the Junior Johnson legacy. He started as a master of short tracks, then became a master of super speedways, and in between mastered just about everything else. He won the Daytona 500 in 1960, won 132 races and six titles — three each with Cale Yarborough and Waltrip — as an owner, and was part of the Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 2010. Yes, for someone who never won a championship as a driver, ol’ Junior didn’t do too badly after all.

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Posted on by NASCAR Official Release

A minimum of 10 $2,500 scholarships will be awarded to Volusia County students

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – In advance of the Taste of the 24 presented by Halifax Health scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 25, 2014, The NASCAR Foundation is proud to announce the launch of a new scholarship program benefitting Volusia County (Fla.) high school seniors who plan to enroll fulltime in a two- or four-year college, university or vocational-technical school in Florida during the 2014-2015 academic school year.

Beginning Friday, Dec. 20 students can access application materials at www.NASCAR.com/Foundation. Only the first 200 submissions will be accepted, and they must be postmarked no later than Feb. 20, 2014. Scholarship recipients will be selected based on factors including academic record, demonstrated leadership and participation in school and community activities, honors and awards, work experience and financial need. The NASCAR Foundation will announce a minimum of 10 winners, who will each receive a one-time $2,500 scholarship, in May 2014.

This all-new scholarship program is driven by The NASCAR Foundation’s commitment to serving communities in which children live, learn and play. Through its fundraising efforts and events like Taste of the 24, The NASCAR Foundation has contributed more than $17 million in charitable support to initiatives that further this mission.

Held during the 52nd running of the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Taste of the 24 presented by Halifax Health will raise funds for this scholarship program, thus ensuring all proceeds benefit the Volusia County community.

This year’s event will feature 23 of Central Florida’s finest restaurants showcasing their best menu items. Restaurants include Amber’s Jewel Catering; Backyard Boys Bar-B-Que; Bahama Breeze; Blue Grotto; Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.; Café Heavenly; Chart House; Cornerstone Café; Daytona Taproom; Dimitri’s Bar Deck & Grill; Heavenly Cheesecakes & Chocolates, Inc.; Hidden Treasure Rum Bar & Grille; Joe’s Crab Shack; Lost Lagoon Wings & Grill; Mai Tai Bar; Malcolm’s at LPGA; Outriggers Tiki Bar and Grille; Panheads Pizzeria; Sinatra’s L’Aldila Ristoranté; Sloppy Joe’s Daytona Beach; SoNapa Grille; Stonewood Grill & Tavern; and Sweet Marlays’ Coffee.

Offering Central Florida residents and racing fans a unique dining experience in the corporate suites high atop the backstretch grandstands, attendees will enjoy a variety of menu items along with music and views of non-stop racing.

All-inclusive admission to the Taste of the 24 includes one weekend pass to the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Sprint FANZONE access, Budweiser Party Porch access, free premier parking and a chance to win a Rolex watch. Event tickets are limited and are $95 for adults and $24 for children 12 and younger and can be purchased at www.NASCAR.com/Foundation.

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Posted on by Holly Cain

Strong Chase showing reignites desire for championship No. 5

RELATED: 2013 recaps for every Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup driver

This is the eighth in a series of 2013 Sprint Cup Series driver recaps that will be featured on NASCAR.com

One of the 2013 highlights for Jeff Gordon was getting a chance this summer to spend time and make a web feature series with Academy Award-winning director Ron Howard. At the time, Gordon joked about whether his own season story would have a Hollywood ending.

Boy did it. And it was award worthy, too.

After being added by NASCAR Chairman & CEO Brian France to the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoff field as an unprecedented 13th driver following the controversial season finale at Richmond, Gordon and his No. 24 team seized the opportunity the four-time champ insists was legitimately due to them.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

SEASON IN REVIEW

"We may have been a late addition but I knew in my heart we belonged in the Chase and we proved that week after week," Gordon said, accepting his sixth-place trophy during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Awards banquet.

Not only was Gordon’s sixth-place finish in the championship standings his best since 2009 (third place), it marked the second straight year he won both a Coors Light Pole (Charlotte) and a race (Martinsville) during the high-stakes 10-race Chase.

After Gordon’s emotional and impressive eighth career victory at Martinsville in October, he was ranked as high as third in the standings. But a flat tire on his Chevrolet only 73 laps into the Texas race the next week led to a frustrating 38th-place showing that virtually ended his title hopes.

"The Chase was actually the best part of our season," Gordon said. "It wasn’t easy and the competition was tough, but we had great cars, qualified better and did all the things I think we needed to be doing earlier in the season.

"We like running good in the Chase, and that’s cool, but we need to be solid earlier."

That Gordon was able to make a run for the Chase at all says a lot about the perseverance of his team considering the many early trials and tribulations it had to overcome.

After earning the outside pole position for the season-opening Daytona 500, Gordon led 31 laps but managed only a 20th-place finish in NASCAR’s Super Bowl. It marked the fourth consecutive year he finished 20th or worse, but more significantly to him, it set a tone of playing catch-up.

He posted only three top-15s in the first seven races, and three DNFs in a seven-race swing in the summer put the team further in the hole. On the year, Gordon’s five DNFs tied Ryan Newman as most among Chase contenders — and is more than any other drivers among the top 20.

"We ask ourselves every year … even if you are the champion, you ask — How do you improve for next year?" Gordon said. "I feel like for us we just didn’t get a good start to the season. We started behind at Daytona and were playing catch-up the whole time.

"For us, it’s about getting into a rhythm a little earlier and maintaining improvement for the whole season. We have to focus on being in the championship earlier instead of going to Richmond and stressing out just trying to get in."

In the end, Gordon says he enters 2014 more optimistic and encouraged. He added win number 88 to his career total — a mark bettered only by Hall of Famers Richard Petty (200 wins) and David Pearson (105 wins).

As he proudly watched his Hendrick Motorsports teammate and friend Jimmie Johnson accept his sixth championship trophy in the last eight years, Gordon said he left the awards ceremony more determined than ever.

Far from being ready to retire, the 42-year-old Gordon knows only that there are races to win and championships to decide.

"It’s bittersweet because you’re proud to be a part of Hendrick Motorsports and Rick (Hendrick) is more than just a boss and friend to me," Gordon said. "And Jimmie, I’ve known for so long and love seeing him have success.

"But at the same time we want to win. When you’re not at the head table, it’s highly motivating. You see the accolades, you see the awards, you want to be experiencing that."

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Posted on by Nascar

New addition had first NASCAR experience at Richmond, became hooked

Madison Martin, a 23-year-old from Cumberland, Md., is the newest addition to the Miss Sprint Cup lineup.

Martin will join Kim Coon and Brooke Werner as representatives for Sprint, entitlement sponsor of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, for the 2014 season.

"The biggest part is bringing NASCAR to the fans," Martin said of her new job. "Giving them that cool, personal experience that I had at my first race. If I can make somebody’s day by talking to them … about the sport I love, that’s an amazing opportunity.

"Meeting with fans, with drivers, doing stories, it all just pairs together a lot of the things that I love and enjoy doing."

From left to right, the Miss Sprint Cup lineup includes Kim Coon, Madison Martin and Brooke Werner.

Martin, a graduate of Frostburg State University where she majored in Mass Communications, previously worked for WSOC-TV in Charlotte. She also served as an intern for Fox News Channel and was a student reporter at Richmond International Raceway.

"My mom took me to my first race (at Richmond) and I got pulled up on the Miss Sprint Cup stage by Monica (former Miss Sprint Cup Monica Palumbo Hancock)," Martin said. "That was actually my introduction into Miss Sprint Cup and my introduction into NASCAR. And I ended up becoming a huge fan after that experience."

Expect to see Martin in demand when there’s a charity golf tournament tied into the Cup schedule — she was captain of her high school golf team and was ranked as one of the nation’s top 100 female golfers.

"I started golfing when I was 13 and kind of became obsessed with it," she said. "I got super into it and worked really hard. I was captain of the boys’ team — we didn’t have a girls’ team — but I ended up being the No. 1 player, going to state and going to a national tournament. It was just an amazing experience."

More than just a presence in Victory Lane, the role of Miss Sprint Cup involves plenty of travel (Coon logged nearly 45,000 miles in 2013, Werner nearly 36,000), and long hours at the track as well as off site. In addition to Victory Lane duties, the representatives spend hours at The Sprint Unlimited Experience meeting with fans, hosting driver appearances and taking part in various fan-related events. They also can be found in the garage throughout the weekend, interacting with fans and officials and generating content for social media.

"There’s so much that’s good about the job," said Werner, who joined the team in 2013. "Meeting race fans every weekend … fans that come back race after race that kind of become like your family. There are fans you’ll see in Sonoma and then you’ll see them in New Hampshire. The fans are definitely the best part.

"Sprint gives us opportunities to do so many awesome things. We had a chance to tour the Walter Reed Memorial Hospital. … You see these warriors who have put so much on the line for us just kind of light up by seeing their favorite driver walk in the room. And we got to be there to see all of that, so that was really special."

Coon said she knew NASCAR fans were passionate, but working as a Miss Sprint Cup has given her a much better understanding of their support.

"You have fans that come to 20 races a year; you have fans from all over the world — Australia, Japan, Germany," she said. "And you have fans that have saved up and maybe this is their one vacation for the next few years.

"I’m very blessed. It’s not very glamorous — there are glamorous parts but it’s a lot of hard work and a lot of responsibility. It takes a lot of dedication."

Martin, who will join Coon and Werner at Daytona in February as the Sprint Unlimited non-points race kicks off the 2014 season, said she’s had initial discussions about what to expect in the coming year.

She knows the "shuffle" — how best to make sure she’s seen behind the driver in the Victory Lane shot — and she’s been warned about the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing team, who Werner said "likes to douse you in Gatorade and make you all rainbow colored."

"But not really anything scary," Martin said, laughing. "I think it’s an honor to have this job and it really is a dream job. We’re on the road a lot … you have to be thankful for that. Not everybody gets to have that experience.

Madison Martin previously was a student reporter for Richmond International Raceway, where her love of NASCAR developed.

MORE:

READ: Dillon to drive
‘3’ in Sprint Cup

READ: No argument from
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WATCH: Top three
moments for the ‘3’

READ: Earnhardt not the
only legend to drive ‘3’
Posted on by

Richmond scandal mars an otherwise solid season for 34-year-old

This is the seventh in a series of 2013 Sprint Cup Series driver recaps that will be featured on NASCAR.com

Six days. That’s all it took for Clint Bowyer‘s 2013 season to go from promising to infamous, and literally spin out of control.

On one Sunday night at Atlanta, there was Bowyer poised to take the lead in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings from Jimmie Johnson, until the engine in his No. 15 car let go. And on the following Saturday night at Richmond, there was Bowyer deluged in controversy after a suspicious spin of his vehicle helped ignite one of the largest controversies in recent NASCAR history.

In the end, it was the latter that was remembered more than the former. Bowyer spent the final weeks of the 2013 season keeping a low profile for his role in a race manipulation scandal that led NASCAR to levy against Michael Waltrip Racing perhaps its most severe fine, one which had the effect of knocking Bowyer’s now former MWR teammate Martin Truex Jr. out of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, and later led the sponsor of the team’s No. 56 car to pull out.

Bowyer wasn’t alone — MWR driver Brian Vickers and his spotter Ty Norris were also sanctioned by NASCAR for a suspicious late pit stop that also played a role in the drama. But in terms of the public outcry, the usually amicable and gregarious Bowyer bore the brunt of it, forcing one of the sport’s most colorful characters to withdraw into a metaphorical shell until the worst of the storm passed.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

SEASON IN REVIEW

"Anytime you have anything bad happen, I don’t care (what), if your name is tied to anything bad, you’re bummed out. Everybody who knows me knows that I love this sport, knows that I appreciate not only the sport, but everybody in it. I enjoy going to the race track, I enjoy believe it or not, talking to (the media). I don’t know why in the hell that is. But I do. I have fun with all aspect of this sport," Bowyer said.

"I enjoy driver intros, that’s our chance to kind of bag on each other a little bit and have some fun and then go out and try to kick each others’ teeth in. But nonetheless, I enjoy this sport. I knew the magnitude of that situation, and respected my part in it, and you’ve got to pay your dues when you have something like that happen. It doesn’t matter what it is. If you’re tied to anything negative for yourself, your race team, or your sport, you’ve got to respect that situation and give it some time."

While the scandal continues to have long-lasting impacts — MWR had to contract to a two-car operation after sponsor NAPA pulled out — Bowyer can at least occasionally joke about it now, as he did in his Champion’s Week speech in Las Vegas. His year was OK, he said, "until it took a spin for the worse. And let me tell you, it was really bad."

And it certainly eclipsed what the No. 15 team did on the track. Although Bowyer went winless this past season for the first time since 2009, he tied a career-high with 10 top-five finishes, and was consistent enough to linger second or third in the standings for 13 straight weeks. He was at his best on the eve of the Chase, and was in position to assume the lead when Johnson was involved in an accident at Atlanta.

It would have been short-lived — the points were reset for the Chase the following week — but Bowyer was disappointed nonetheless after his engine failed, denying him the chance to seize the top spot. Even so, it’s events like that surge into Richmond that he holds on to, even when everyone else is focusing on what came after.

"Looking back, it’s easy to look at one particular thing in a season. But for me, the season’s long, man," he said. "We did a good job of managing the year, managing points and where we needed to be as far as that aspect goes. It’s so important to hit that Chase at full stride, and unfortunately we didn’t do that this year. But nonetheless, I still feel like I’m with a crew chief and with an organization and a manufacturer that’s going to get that done."

Although Bowyer finished fifth at Homestead to claim seventh in the final point standings, the Chase for the No. 15 team was an almost impossible situation given the maelstrom surrounding them. Now the focus turns to next season, and toward that end it will be a different MWR team that rolls into Speedweeks — one without NAPA or Truex, and Jeff Burton in a third car used primarily for research and development. The scandal may have defined his 2013 season, but Bowyer doesn’t believe it will hamper his efforts to contend in 2014.

"I don’t, because we didn’t have to pull back on the tools it takes to build fast race cars — the engineering and simulation and all the things we all know are the keys to success," he said. "We didn’t lose those assets. We lost a lot of assets, there’s no question. … but I guess when it comes down to speed and being able to contend for wins and hopefully still contend for a championship, I still feel like we have those assets intact."

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