Sporting News Nextel Cup Awards
As they do every year, the Sporting News recently unveiled their list of the annual Sporting News NASCAR Awards. The award recipients are as follows:
Driver of the Year: Jimmie Johnson – this comes as no surprise as the 48 team absolutely dominated the second half of the Chase for the Nextel Cup en route to winning their second championship in a row. His 10 victories and 20 top five’s were undoubtedly the class of the NASCAR field this year.
Owner of the Year: Rick Hendrick – Believe it or not, this is probably even less of a shock than the “Driver of the Year”. Between Johnson, Gordon, Kyle Busch, and Mears, the Hendrick organization won an astounding 18 of the 36 Cup races this year. On top of that, three of the four drivers finished in the top 5 in points, while Mears finished a respectable 15th. Perhaps even more astonishing is the fact that with four drivers over 36 races, Hendrick cars finished in the Top 10 fifty-eight percent of the time!
Crew Chief of the Year: Pat Tryson – Pat took over as the Crew Chief for Kurt Busch at Infineon – the 16th race of the season. At that point, Busch was a miserable 16th in points with only 3 top ten’s to his credit. With 21 races remaining, Tryson took the helm and racked up 11 more top ten’s for Busch, including a win at Pocono to finish 7th in points.
Rookie of the Year: Juan Pablo Montoya – The Colombian native’s first full season in Cup racing produced only 3 top five’s and 6 top ten’s, but he did pick up his first victory at Infineon and finished 20th in points. He edged out David Ragan for the honors.
Dale Earnhardt Tough Driver Award: Dale Earnhardt Jr. – They’re crediting this award to the fact that “no driver dealt with as much adversity … as Junior”. With all of the hoopla surrounding whether he’d leave DEI or not, then him joining Hendrick, then Mountain Dew Amp sponsoring him rather than Budweiser, the whole car number deal, oh and the six engine failures that prevented him from making the Chase field … yeah, I’d agree.
ESPN Classic will air the official awards ceremony live from New York this Friday evening at 9 pm, et. It will be re-aired at midnight on ESPN2. Celebrity comedian/actor David Spade will be the featured performer for the event, and Grammy-winning recording artist Kelly Clarkson will perform as well.
Related Stories
POSTED IN: NASCAR
1 opinion for Sporting News Nextel Cup Awards
Leo
Nov 29, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Jimmy should deep throat that trophy after Gordan has sat on it!
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: