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To quote the great Yogi Berra, “It’s Deja Vu all over again!”

NASCAR put out a news release on Monday pointing out that “Andy Lally, unless something unforeseen occurs, will be the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Sunoco Rookie of the Year.”

This is, unfortunately, becoming a familiar story.

Prior to the 2010 season there was talk that there wouldn’t be a class. Then Kevin Conway showed up with sponsor money. That money bought him a partial season with Front Row Motorsports – until his sponsor quit paying Front Row – and then a few races with Robby Gordon – until his sponsor quit paying Gordon.

I think Conway was the only one truly thrilled with winning an award for which he was the only competitor.

This season started with similar talk about no class. Then Brian Keselowski threw his hat in. He ran at Daytona, and has attempted five other races, but funding has kept the team from doing much of anything. Eventually it was Andy Lally who took over the #71 at TRG and has all but walked away with it.

And yet again we find ourselves with just one true competitor for the Rookie of the Year award.

Now don’t get me wrong, Andy Lally is an accomplished racecar driver and someone who has had respectable forays into NASCAR. And TRG, though underfunded, is not a bad organization.

This situation though speaks to a larger issue for NASCAR. Sponsorship dollars are hard to find, and teams are less willing or able to take risks on younger drivers. Hence a lack of ROY competitors.

Obviously the time will come when teams will have no choice but to start developing talent or risk running out of it – I think we’re getting to that point. We have some great young drivers in the pipeline and we’ll have some good ROY classes in the seasons to come, but is it time NASCAR looks at other ways to honor rookies? Or just gets rid of the award? There is no longer a sponsor. And when you just have one person competing for an award, what’s the point?

I understand the award is meant to reward the best rookie driver of that season and when there is only one, they are technically the best rookie driver and the rightful winner of the award. But does that mean it should be kept around? I’m just not sure.

What I do know is that when we have seasons like we’ve had this year and last, the ROY begins to lose some of its significance and that’s unfortunate.

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Yikes.

Do you want to know what happens when you don’t have any young drivers being developed? You end up with two straight Cup Series Rookie of the Year classes made up of start-and-park drivers and rolling chicanes.

Fox Sports’ Lee Spencer (and others) reported Thursday Roush and Wood Brothers driver Trevor Bayne won’t be eligible to compete for ROY honors this season despite a planned 17 race schedule because he isn’t running for the Cup Series championship. That means we currently have one driver competing for a now unsponsored Rookie of the Year award: Brian Keselowski.

Keselowski’s recent history has been marked by regular start-and-park runs. Out of 30 attempted races last season, Keselowski only finished nine (he failed to qualify for four).

This award is supposed to honor and celebrate the best and the brightest of the future. Past ROY winners include Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty, David Pearson and Jeff Gordon. Now obviously there have been some guys who haven’t panned out, but it’s been a very long time since we’ve a seen such weak classes.

Now I write this not to bash Keselowski. I think given some decent equipment he could actually run OK – note several top-20 runs over the last couple of seasons in really sub-par equipment – but he’s very likely to win the ROY award this year after running what I assume will be a pretty full start-and-park schedule. This of course isn’t his fault. This situation though is a little ridiculous and speaks to some serious issues we have right now.

Hopefully with the move to limit Cup driver involvement in lower series (and an improving economy) we’ll see younger drivers once again having opportunities to advance through the sport. Expect to see a competitive young field with the likes of Trevor Bayne and Justin Allgaier this season. Maybe we’ll see them, and some of their up-and-coming peers competing for the Cup ROY award in the not too distant future.

In the meantime though, NASCAR needs to come up with some alternative for awarding this, or not award it at all. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather see no one in the record books than someone not deserving of the award win it.

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Kevin Conway doesn’t have a ride. And his season up to this point has been… well not good. Despite the less than impressive stats and a now unclear future, Conway will very likely go into the NASCAR record books as the best rookie of 2010 – the Raybestos Rookie of the Year. Unfortunately, the winner by default.

Conway started 2010 driving the #37 for Front Row Motorsports – his home until last week. His competition through the first 10 races of this season for the ROY was Terry Cook. Cook qualified for just three of ten races he attempted in a very underfunded Whitney Motorsports ride before he and the team parted ways.

That left just Conway, the only full-time competitor, competing for ROY honors this season. For his part, Conway has said he is excited about winning his race of one.

For me, all of a sudden my hard work created some opportunities and now to find myself in the middle of the Rookie of the Year championship in the Sprint Cup Series is beyond comprehension in many ways

Nevermind it was clever maneuvering of points, and start-and-parks that kept Conway going for as long as he did. Through 21 races he had an average start of 40th, and average finish of 31.6 – he finished on the lead lap in just three of those races at Daytona, Watkins Glen and Sonoma.

For all intents and purposes though Conway is the best rookie of this season. Though I don’t know if I’d be too stoked about winning a competition where I was the only competitor, I guess it’s something.

Going back to late last season the talk was how there might not even be a rookie class in the Cup Series. While that didn’t occur, we did end up with the weakest class since perhaps 1958 (I say that only because the winner, Shorty Rollins, was the lone competitor).

Now thanks to a bad economy, an increasing lack of sponsor interest in funding development drivers and plethora of other reasons, we now find ourselves in the same situation we were in last year – the prospect of a season without a ROY participant in the Cup Series.

While it really isn’t that big of a deal, it’s kind of sad to not see a competition for an award whose winners include the sport’s greatest drivers. The award deserves better than this. The sport deserves better than this. But it is what it is.

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