As we head into the final race weekend of 2009, NASCAR’s worst nightmare is on them as two of the three national division titles have virtually been decided and the final one is a virtual lock. There is no drama, real of fabricated, for Ford Championship weekend at the Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Think about it, the Trucks series title has already be won by Ron Hornaday, Kyle Busch merely needs to take the green flag Saturday to wrap up the Nationwide Series title, and Jimmie Johnson has to finish 25th or better to win his fourth consecutive Sprint Cup title.
In all reality this is a weekend filled with history, and yet it feels like a giant let down. We will see Kyle win his first major NASCAR title; we probably will see Johnson win his fourth consecutive title a feat that has never been accomplished in this sport.
Johnson feat is somewhat diminished since we have seen a team, in fact his team (Hendrick Motor Sports) win four straight Cup series titles. For those of us who remember Gordon missed his third straight cup title in 1996 by just 37 points, since he won the 1995 title and went on to win the 1997 and 1998 title, really he came just 37 points short of the feat Johnson is set to accomplish this Sunday.
Now many are unhappy with Johnson and all of his recent success, and many more would say that he and his team are cheating. They say hat there is no way to legitimately explain away the fact that Johnson and his #48 team are clearly so much better than the rest of the field.
Personally, I think their anger is misplaced.
I think we should be angry at the other 42 Sprint Cup teams who have failed to raise their game to math that of the #48 car, we should be mad at the 42 other Nationwide teams who have failed to raise their game to compete with Kyle and his Joe Gibbs racing team, and we should be angry at the 34 other truck teams who cannot run with Ron Hornaday and his KHI #33 team.
However, none of that changes the fact that the three races at Homestead are void of any championship drama. A few years ago NASCAR implemented the Chase for the Cup series to insure this didn’t happen and so far have failed to do so for the other national series. One thing they cannot get around the #48 team’s mastery of this version of Sprint Cup racing.
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