Tony Stewart is the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion! Stewart claimed the third title of his Hall of Fame career and added his name to a list of incredible drivers with three or more championships. Stewart became the first owner/driver to win the Sprint Cup Championship since 1992. Stewart is also the first champion without the last name of Johnson to win a championship since 2005.
Everybody knew that the final race at Homestead-Miami was going to be a battle between Stewart and Edwards, but it was one of the most incredible races I’ve ever seen.
Edwards started from the pole and led just about the first 100 laps of the 267 lap race. In the mean time, Stewart fought his way from the back of the pack twice. The first time was for a mistake on pit road and the second time was because his crew had to repair his front grille. Eventually Stewart was right up in the front with Edwards and both fought desperately to lead more laps than each other. On restarts the two would go three-wide to pass slower cars and race back up to the lead. The two stuck to each other like glue. Whenever Stewart gained a position on Edwards, in less than a lap Edwards would be right back behind Stewart, or vice versa.
With about 30 laps left, Stewart was in first and Edwards was in second. At this point, whoever won the race would win the Championship. For 30 continuous laps, two of the best drivers in the world pushed the limits of their cars, themselves, and their opponent. With 5 laps to go, Stewart was still and first and Edwards trailed him by only one second. 3 to go and the distance remained the same. You could start to feel that Edwards had nothing left for Stewart. Stewart got the white flag and never let up. He came off of Turn 4 to the checkered flag and only when he crossed the finish line then did know he that the Championship was his.
Stewart celebrated like a true champion, and Edwards acted like a champion too. Both drivers are class-acts and deserve the success they had this season. Congrats to Tony Stewart, the #14 Office Depot team, and Stewart/Haas Racing!
Tony Stewart winning the Championship was just one of the many headlines the Sprint Cup season had. Here are some of those other stories that made 2011 great. Brad Keselowski, David Ragan, Paul Menard, Marcos Ambrose, Trevor Bayne, and Regan Smith all won the first races of their Sprint Cup careers. Jeff Gordon won twice during the season and moved himself up to third on the all-time win list. Kasey Kahne broke his win drought and won a race for the soon-to-be-extinct Red Bull Race Team. Jimmie Johnson’s five-year Championship streak ended. Kyle Busch was punished by NASCAR and his sponsors for his on-track antics.
My favorite stories from the 2011 season are Trevor Bayne winning the Daytona 500, Regan Smith winning the Southern 500, and Johnson’s streak ending.
The first race of the season is also NASCAR’s most prestigious, the Daytona 500. This is a race that every driver dreams of winning. Nobody EVER dreamed that 19-year old Trevor Bayne, in his first Sprint Cup start of his career, would join the ranks of Daytona 500 winner. The race was full of wrecks that took out the best competition, but Bayne survived and crossed the line in first place. Bayne, a kid from Tennessee who loves God and always has a smile on his face, went from a no-name to household name in less than 24 hours. The week following Daytona, Bayne made appearances on “SportsCenter”, “David Letterman”, “Good Morning America”, and more.
Less than three months later, another feel good story was made. Regan Smith is 28 years old and winner of the 2008 Sprint Cup Rookie of the Year. Last season he began driving the #78 car for Furniture Row Racing based out of Colorado, the only race team in NASCAR not headquartered in North Carolina. Smith put himself and his company on the map when he one of NASCAR’s most prestigious and oldest races, the Southern 500 at Darlington Speedway. Darlington was NASCAR’s original superspeedway and one of the most challenging tracks on the schedule. Who would have thought a guy with less two and a half years experience and an upstart, one-car team could win there? Well that’s just what Smith did. On the final restart, Smith held off Carl Edwards for two laps and won the race.
Johnson fell out of contention for the Championship about four races ago but it still doesn’t seem right that he is not the champion. Johnson had two wins and about a dozen Top 5 finishes, but was not able to finish in the Top 5 consistently once the Chase started. Johnson finished the season 6th in points, his lowest finish since his rookie year in 2001. In each of the past ten seasons he has finished 6th or higher in the points standings. That may be more impressive than five straight championships.
Along with those great stories, there were also a lot of great races. My favorite race was the Fall Atlanta race. This was a race that was run on the Tuesday after Labor Day because rain had postponed it from being run Sunday. The race was won by Jeff Gordon, which was his 85th of his career. How he did it was way more impressive though. Gordon had to hold off a hard-charging Jimmie Johnson for the last 20 laps. The guys were driving on worn tires and you could see their cars sliding up the track coming out of every turn searching for grip. A couple of times Johnson was able to pull alongside Gordon but he never had the speed to get all the way past him.
This race reminded me a lot of the Gordon-Earnhardt “rivalry” in the late 90’s. Back then it was Earnhardt giving the torch to Gordon, now it’s Gordon handing the torch off to his teammate Jimmie Johnson. Earnhardt and Gordon would rough it up sometimes, but the two had a mutual respect and understanding for their opponent. The same can be said for Gordon and Johnson.
What was your favorite moment of the past year? What was your favorite race? Let me know in the comments section.
I will have another article posted that details some of those moves that have been done and some that are expected to be made in the off-season before Daytona in February.
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