November 18, 2007
By Kim Roberson

Kim Roberson

Today marks the end of an era in NASCAR. Not just one era….many. It is almost like coming to the end of a summer away at camp…..or graduating high school. All the familiar faces that have surrounded you are going to change. The comfort you have felt in your little place in the world is going away.

The first and most obvious is the end of the season. 2007 is over. Where has the time gone? It seems like we just got under way in Daytona.

Now, the checkers will fly in just a few hours, and we will say hello to this year’s champion and goodbye to the season that has been filled so many highs and lows. Toyota can rip the rookie stripe off…and begin looking towards its second year in Cup racing with a laundry list of lessons learned and changes to be made. Juan Pablo Montoya has made the migration from open wheel to stock car racing with nary a hiccup, and he made his mark by winning not just once, but once each in Cup and Busch. His success has opened the door to more “immigrants” to our sport, including Dario Franchitti and Jacques Villeneuve.

It is also farewell to the car we will race today. The Ford 400 marks the last run for the “twisted sister” car. Fans are crying over her demise, saying the replacement can’t possibly live up to the bar that has been set by this off-kilter, crooked looking yet aerodynamically magnificent mechanical beast. Teams are crying harder…not so much because the car is going away, but because years of notes are going away with her. The notes for the car of today just don’t work as well with the car of tomorrow. All the college-trained engineers need to get out their books and create new notes for this new box with a wing on the back. Will the racing in the new car ever be the same as it is in the car that will make it’s last run today? Only the future will tell.

Unless Dale Earnhardt Junior, Brian Vickers, Ricky Rudd or Kyle Petty can win today, we will also say goodbye to a record that has stood since the first year NASCAR took to the track: every Cup victory will have been won by someone born outside of the Tar Heel state. As a matter of fact, so far only three drivers born east of the Mississippi have won a race all year: Denny Hamlin, Jeff Burton…both from Virginia, and Martin Truex, Jr, from New Jersey. 12 wins have gone to California, nine to Indiana, five to Missouri, three to Nevada, and one each to Washington, Wisconsin and Columbia.

On my flight to Florida, I was sitting next to a man who had little to no know knowledge of NASCAR. When he asked why the plane was so full (not an empty seat to be found), I commented that it was race weekend. He said “NASCAR?” and I said yes. “Isn’t that the sport that started with guys running moonshine from the hills in the south?” I looked at him and said “It might have begun that way, but it is far from a southern sport any more.” Indeed, NASCAR is not only national…it is international.

Yesterday marked the end of a 26 year tradition. The Busch Series is no more. With the drop of the checkered flag yesterday, Carl Edwards hoisted the 26th and final Busch Series championship trophy. Now, it is officially the Nationwide Series. What are they going to use in Victory Lane from now on? Doesn’t it seem somewhat counter-productive to spray an alcoholic beverage while also promoting auto insurance? Will it be strictly soda and water, with the occasional sports drink thrown in for good measure? We’ll find out in a couple of months I suppose.

Today also marks the end of the NEXTEL Cup Series. And we were just getting used to saying “NEXTEL” instead of “Winston”. Now, just four years after it began, the NEXETL Cup Series goes away. Beginning tomorrow, it will be the “Sprint” Cup Series.

It is the end of an era at Dale Earnhardt Incorporated, as the teams’ namesake makes his last start in the car he began his Cup career in. His 291st start will be his last with the Budweiser 8 team. While the parting might not be pretty, it is sure to be bittersweet. Junior has tried so very hard to get this team a win this year, and it appears, unless his luck changes today, he will have his first winless season since he started running full-time in NASCAR. Next season, Junior makes a new start in the 88 car, which is currently the 5 car, which is being vacated by Kyle Busch.

Kyle has grown up in NASCAR with Hendrick Motorsports. The “Shrub”, who began racing for HMS while he was still a teenager, won his last Busch race with the team last weekend. He is hoping to repeat that with a win today to cap off his four year relationship with Rick Hendrick, a relationship that had the 22-year old finish second in his first full season in the Busch Series, and back-to-back top ten finishes in the Cup Series for the last two years. Kyle moves over to Joe Gibbs Racing next year.

Gibbs is also reaching the finale of a long relationship today. Since Coach Gibbs ventured into NASCAR 16 years ago, his teams have always driven General Motors products, racing Pontiac’s and Chevrolet’s. Today, the Gibbs teams climb into Chevy’s one last time before packing them in mothballs. Beginning tomorrow, the team switches over to Toyota, a move that not only excited Toyota Racing Development, but the current Toyota teams, who hope to work with the Championship-caliber staff of JGR to get their second season with TRD off to a much better start than this one was.

Finally, the last end comes for Ricky Rudd. The driver known as the “Rooster” will climb into a race car one last time this afternoon, making his 906th career start. Rudd, whose first race was the 1975 Carolina 500, was voted the 1977 Rookie of the Year, and is the 1992 IROC Champion. He leaves a career that has seen 23 wins, and 788 consecutive starts. When asked how he wanted to be remembered by the NASCAR fans and his fellow drivers, Rudd stated “I just want everyone to remember me as someone who gave 120 percent every day in a race car. Looking back, I know that I shied away from the limelight of the media a lot. I did that in order to make sure that I had a good balance of my work and personal lives. I found that balance was very important to me and I think that is one of the main reasons I was able to enjoy over 30 years in the sport. I’m just a guy who loves this sport. I came into NASCAR because I loved racing and I wanted to try and succeed in it. I gave it everything that I had, and hopefully everyone will remember that about me.”

As we close the 2007 chapter of the NASCAR season, we say farewell NEXTEL, farewell Busch beer; farewell twisted sister car and farewell North Carolina winning streak. Most importantly, farewell Ricky Rudd, and thank you so very much for the memories than included taped-open eyes and nearly 30 years of never missing a day of work.

Congratulations to Ron Hornaday Jr., Carl Edwards, and the Cup champion-presumptive Jimmie Johnson. You are the 2007 Champions, and shall be known as “Champion” for the rest of your lives.

As we begin the shortest off-season in all of professional sport, just remember: we are a mere 91 days from the drop of the flag at Daytona. Before you know it, a new season will begin, and we’ll be focusing on firsts, and not lasts, all over again.

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.

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