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NASCAR season; half over, half gone?
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Drivers and teams always want to run well, but it seems like the second half of the season is the best time for the performance to pick up. Then again, drivers and teams work and yearn for consistency and that is welcome any time of any season.
Hoping for a good start or a strong finish may be less important than wishing for steady results. Hard work always brings about the best outcome, but in the racing world hard work alone is not enough. All teams work hard, but every team can’t win every week.
Tony Stewart is known as late season performer.
“We're going to all of them anyway,” Stewart said. It doesn't change that fact. Historically, we've always been better the last half of the season; and the second, third and last third of the season in particular. This is the best start we've ever had to a season in the Cup Series. I don't know what's different about it. I don't know what's changed.”
Jimmie Johnson and team have battled through the season finale to lose and win championships.
“The last three years the second half of the season has been really good.” Johnson said. “There is so much pressure and stress on your shoulders through a championship battle that it’s tough to really say that you enjoy it but when it’s over and you have finished well or won the championship its great then but the years that I haven’t won are the years where I would say the first half was more fun and less stress.”
Ryan Newman’s steady personality and calculating mind mold his comments
“I enjoy every race the same amount and look forward to each one the same way,” Newman said. “There’s no preference whatsoever to the first half or second half. I’d say that if you have a good first half you can potentially enjoy the second or expect to enjoy the second half a little bit more. That doesn’t mean you’re going to, just because you go back to the same tracks twice.”
Newman’s boss Stewart agrees, but looks forward to taking good results all the way to the end.
I'm happy with the performance up to this point and we just hope that what we've done up to this point, we can have that last ten-week stretch and have a shot at winning the championship."
The NASCAR season is half over with the Coke 400 Daytona race and with another half (18 races) facing the teams taking a good start into the second half is better than taking a bad start into the second half.
Tampa residents are fortunate to have three Florida races in every NASCAR season, the beginning, the middle at Daytona Beach and the finale at Homestead – Miami Speedway.
So if the drivers and teams can’t count on results in the first half helping them with the second half, Tampa fans can be there when the first lap begins and there too when the sum of the best laps in a season add up to a championship.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at Daytona Coke Zero 400 winner: Tony Stewart
NASCAR Nationwide Series at Daytona Subway Jalapeno 250 winner: Clint Bowyer
Photo credit: Dwight Drum @ Racetake.com
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