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Virginia native Denny Hamlin accomplished a dream this year by winning a Cup race in his home state, the Goody's Cool Orange 500 at Martinsville this Spring. It proved the lone highlight to what ultimately was a disappointing season.

Driver Review : Denny Hamlin

Danny Peters · Tuesday December 2, 2008

2008 Ride: No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
2008 Primary Sponsor: FedEx
2008 Owner: Joe Gibbs
2008 Crew Chief: Mike Ford

Stats: 36 Races, 1 Win, 12 Top 5s, 18 Top 10s, 1 Pole, 8th in points.

Best Finish: Win – Goody’s Cool Orange 500, Martinsville (Spring).

High Point: A “hometown” win at Martinsville — where Denny spent some formative years racing late models — was probably the high point, but the runner-up would probably be the momentum he carried into the Chase after three consecutive third place finishes. Man, how quickly that “mo” disappeared when the playoffs began for real…

Read more Driver Review : Denny Hamlin ...

Driver Review : Jeff Gordon

Kurt Smith · Tuesday December 2, 2008

2008 Ride: No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
2008 Primary Sponsors: DuPont, Nicorette
2008 Owner: Rick Hendrick
2008 Crew Chief: Steve Letarte

Stats: 36 Races, 0 Wins, 13 Top 5s, 19 Top 10s, 4 Poles, 7th in points.

High Point: It would be difficult to find a high point in the first winless season since 1993 for the four time champ; but if you had to pick, it would probably be a second place finish at Texas Motor Speedway. One of two tracks on the Cup circuit where Gordon has never visited Victory Lane, he pulled off a strong performance on fuel mileage after a dismal showing in the April race there. Combine that with other strong runs towards the end of the season, when — after all the dust had cleared — the No. 24 team had climbed to seventh in the standings. That’s hardly an awful season by anyone’s standards, and only slightly under par for a team that is a threat to win it all every year.

Read more Driver Review : Jeff Gordon ...

Driver Review : Kyle Busch

Kurt Smith · Monday December 1, 2008

2008 Ride: No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
2008 Sponsor: M&M’s / Interstate Batteries
2008 Owner: J.D. Gibbs
2008 Crew Chief: Steve Addington

Stats: 36 Races, 8 Wins, 17 Top 5s, 21 Top 10s, 7 Poles, 10th in points.

High Point: Kyle’s bow after taking an unbelievable win at Darlington Raceway. Kyle hit the wall so many times during that event that the car afterward looked more as though it had been hit with an IED than as if it had just won a race. There were also many other high points in what looked like a fantastic season before the Chase started: wins at Talladega, Atlanta, Dover, Daytona, Sonoma, Chicago and Watkins Glen seemed to foretell a dominant season ahead for the No. 18.

Read more Driver Review : Kyle Busch ...

Driver Review : Tony Stewart

Danny Peters · Monday December 1, 2008

2008 Ride: No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
2008 Primary Sponsor: Home Depot
2008 Owner: Joe Gibbs
2008 Crew Chief: Greg Zipadelli
Stats: 36 races, 1 Win, 10 Top 5s, 16 Top 10s, 0 Poles, 9th in points.

Best Finish: 1st — Amp Energy 500 at Talladega (October).

High Point: Again, probably the win. 2008 was not Tony’s greatest year in NASCAR, and even his most biased fan would admit that. Of course, even the win came with its share of controversy, as Regan Smith crossed the finish line first but was penalized for dipping below the yellow line to make the pass.

Off track, the news about his impending foray into the ranks of ownership was unquestionably the high point – albeit bittersweet with leaving such a great team behind.

Read more Driver Review : Tony Stewart ...

Thank You Frontstretch Fans!

Thomas Bowles · Thursday November 27, 2008

Dear Frontstretch readers,

After nine months and over 40 weeks of racing in NASCAR’s top three series, the season has come to a close once again. It’s been a tough year for the sport, with sagging attendance, sponsorship, and TV Ratings causing us all to question the series’ future direction at some point. But while the fans may not be hitting the race track or turning on the television to watch the main event, even the most jaded of fans has proven more than ever that you’re still interested in the various happenings surrounding this sport.

Why in the world would I say that? Because our site has hit record growth this year in the face of all this negative news.

Read more Thank You Frontstretch Fans! ...

Matt McLaughlin Mouths Off: Testing 1,2,3

Matt McLaughlin · Monday November 24, 2008

My, how times have changed. Earlier this year, NASCAR seemed poised to propose allowing teams almost unlimited testing dates for next season. Then, the economy hit the skids, and a week and a half ago a new policy was announced instead that will ban all Cup teams from testing at all — at least, on tracks that hold NASCAR-sanctioned races. Effective January 1st, 2009, the really stunning part of this announcement was that the traditional preseason tests in preparation for the Daytona 500 are also included on the list. It wasn’t that many years ago that NASCAR was trying to market those weeks as a “Must See” fan event, with driver meet and greets intended to eliminate the T. Wayne Roberts charity event at Charlotte where fans lined up to get a look at the new season’s cars in their race livery and gather a few autographs.

As one of NASCAR’s harshest critics (or at least one of its harshest critics in the media), I have to give credit where credit is due.

Read more Matt McLaughlin Mouths Off: Testing 1,2,3 ...

2008 Sprint Cup Rookie Report Cards: Economic Woes and Poor Performances Leave Their Mark

Tony Lumbis · Monday November 24, 2008

Looking back on the 2008 season, many fans will notice a lot of similarities between this year and 2007. The most obvious comparison, for example, involves the complete dominance by three-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson during both Chases. But the 2007 season also saw the emergence of a new trend in NASCAR, involving the transition of open wheel stars joining the stock car scene. After a successful freshman campaign by Juan Pablo Montoya which included a win at Infineon, that trend set the tone for the freshman class of 2008, as four out of the six Rookie of the Year candidates were open wheel converts.

Just nine months later, there is a very real difference for those open wheelers that debuted in ’08 as compared to ’07 — just one of them appears ready to survive for a second season. What went wrong, and could their mistakes have been corrected? It’s now time for Professor Lumbis to grade their performance throughout the season, and take a look at the other new faces that emerged onto the scene and what the future may hold for them.

Read more 2008 Sprint Cup Rookie Report Cards: Economic Woes and Poor Performances Leave Their Mark ...

The Keith Plan for the Nationwide Series: An Overview

Bryan Davis Keith · Monday November 24, 2008

Another season of Nationwide Series racing has officially come and gone. And with it, another Cup regular has stolen a minor league championship. The 2008 NASCAR Nationwide Series campaign was more of the same, with Cup star Clint Bowyer swooping in to claim the title — the third straight driver to do so while running both of NASCAR’s top two divisions full-time. Week in and week out, Cup regulars dominated the Top 10 on Saturdays before they strapped into the driver’s seat the following day.

That’s not to say that Nationwide Series regulars and development drivers didn’t have some things to cheer about in 2008.

Read more The Keith Plan for the Nationwide Series: An Overview ...