For those of you who follow us on Twitter, you know every Monday we do a ‘best and worst’ of the weekend tweet. With the 2009 season now in the bag, we thought it might be fun to bring it over to the blog and ask you to do your best and worst of the 2009 season.
2009 certainly wasn’t short of any interesting, and compelling story lines. Toward the end of 2008 and through the entire 2009 season the economy was on everyone’s mind. The troubled state of GM and Chrysler forced the manufacturers to make cuts in their NASCAR spending; several sponsors announced their intention to leave the sport; and perhaps most noticeably the stands at many tracks were far from capacity.
Despite the bad economy, 2009 saw the start-up of several teams. After being laid-off by Bill Davis Racing in the off season, Tommy Baldwin started his own team. Jeremy Mayfield, who had been out of a full time ride since 2005 also started a team. TRG Motorsports also began running a car full-time in the Cup Series.
From Carl Long to Jeremy Mayfield, NASCAR also had its fair share of controversy in 2009. Long was suspended and fined following the All-Star race after an inspection of his expired engine revealed it was too large. Jeremy Mayfield was indefinitely suspended May 9 after NASCAR said he failed a drug test. Mayfield contends the failed test was caused by a combination of Adderall and Claritin D. He sued NASCAR.
It wasn’t all bad though. Juan Pablo Montoya had a breakthrough season scoring seven top-fives, 18 top-10s, two poles and his first Chase berth. After running two part-time seasons in 2007 and 2008 Mark Martin joined Hendrick Motorsports full time and came back with a vengeance this season, winning five races and finishing second in the points.
We even had some promising prospects show what they were made of. In just his second full season, David Reutimann won his first race and came just short of making the chase. Marcos Ambrose also started to show his potential in just his first full time season. He scored four top-fives and seven top-tens finishing 18th in the points. No doubt they’ll both be teams to watch in 2010.
We also had a slew of first time winners with David Reutimann, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski all taking the checkered flag.
And how about Hendrick Motorsports? They had thirteen wins on the season and Jimmie Johnson did the unheard of, winning his fourth straight championship after seven wins, 16 top-fives, 24 top-tens and four poles. As a team they went 1-2-3 in the standings, the first time that has happened.
So now it’s your turn. What was your best and worst of 2009? Please remember to keep it clean (I know where you’re going to go with this) and treat others the way you want to be treated (if I see anything over the line it will be deleted).
