Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

A season of change awaits NASCAR fans in 2008

The 2008 NASCAR season, which got underway this week with the first of two three-day test sessions at Daytona International Speedway, will have no shortage of fascinating storylines.

When the green flag drops on the season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 17, the Sprint Cup Series will be racing the “Car of Tomorrow” every week, the sport’s biggest star will be driving for the sport’s most dominant team and one of the series‘ top teams is switching to a manufacture that could barely get out of its own way last season. Heck, even the series itself has undergone a name change for the second time since the end of the 2003 season.

Here are the top stories that will define the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season:

1. Car of Tomorrow -- The newest version of the NASCAR stock car, complete with adjustable front air dam splitters and rear wings, produced mixed results in the 16 races in which it was used last season. Designed to be safer for the drivers and more cost effective for the teams, the jury still is out on whether the new cars will improve racing at the intermediate tracks -- those between a mile and two in length. The COT did not race on any intermediate tracks last season.

2. Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- NASCAR’s undisputed Most Popular Driver dropped a bombshell last year when he announced he was leaving the team his father founded and stepmother runs -- Dale Earnhardt Inc. -- for greener pastures. He landed at Hendrick Motorsports, which won 18 of 36 points races last season, and his legion of fans will be expecting nothing less than a run at his first championship this season.

3. Joe Gibbs Racing -- Toyota is pinning its hopes on JGR and its stable of top-flight drivers to bring the foreign manufacture what it lacked in its debut season in 2007: Competitiveness. Can the veteran Tony Stewart and talented youngsters Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch deliver Toyota its first Sprint Cup Series victory in 2008?

4. Kyle Busch -- One of the most talented young drivers in the Sprint Cup garage, Busch became a free agent last year when team owner Rick Hendrick decided to replace him with Earnhardt Jr. Can Busch, a Las Vegas native who has four victories and 51 top-10 finishes in 114 career starts, remain a championship contender now that he is switching to a Toyota team?

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