The 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup Preview

Jimmie Johnson is seeking to become only the second driver in the history of the NASCAR Sprint Cup series to claim three consecutive titles. Last year Jeff Gordon was his main opponent, but in 2008 he also has Dale Earnhardt Jr and the Toyotas to worry about.

Can Johnson three-peat?

Looking at how Johnson kicked off his 2008 campaign, it's hard to bet against him putting on a strong challenge to defend his crown and match what Cale Yarborough achieved between 1976 and 1978. A third championship in a row is very possible.

The Californian returned after weeks of being out of the car to set the pace on the first official test session of the year in January at Daytona.

He then gave the crucial push to his new Hendrick team-mate Dale Earnhardt Jr to help him win the Bud Shootout, driving his back-up car that he had not used in practice, and followed that with pole position for the Daytona 500 a few hours later.

In between that, he ran strongly in the treacherous conditions of the Rolex 24 hours of Daytona last month, in a car different to what he is used to driving and without putting a wheel off during his stints in the seat.

Dale Earnhardt Jr (Hendrick Chevrolet) leads the Budweiser Shootout © LAT

Johnson is unquestionably the man of the moment in NASCAR. The 32-year-old from El Cajon, California, has raised the bar for his opponents, as Jeff Gordon can testify - Gordon ran one of his best seasons ever, statistically speaking, but still had to accept being defeated by a driver who had the same equipment.

It has been a while since Johnson was last seen struggling for speed on the track. His crew chief seems to have the new Cup car sorted out, although they had a tough test at California Speedway recently, where they had trouble finding grip on the front end.

At such high-speed tracks, they will probably face a challenge to get the car right. But looking at their record and the strength of the whole Hendrick group, it is likely that it won't take them long to figure it all out.

Earnhardt Jr's big chance

If expectations were high for Dale Earnhardt Jr before his No. 88 car turned a wheel out of the garage in Daytona a few weeks ago, they're peaking now after he won on his first-ever race as a Hendrick driver, taking a dominant victory in the Bud Shootout.

Last year Earnhardt could pretty much decide where he wanted to race in 2008 after putting a full-stop on his time as a DEI driver. He chose Rick Hendrick's team because he wanted to win races and contend for the championship. He wants to become the next NASCAR Sprint Cup champion.

But while Earnhardt teamed up with the best organisation in Cup right now, he also put himself under the microscope, because he will have the same equipment that has taken Gordon and Johnson to multiple championships. Now it's all about his talent, handling the pressure and making his deal work.

Right now the chemistry between Earnhardt, Johnson, Gordon and Mears seems to be working very well inside Hendrick. But as Ron Dennis can tell from his experience heading McLaren, it's not always easy to control so many big stars competing under the same roof, all with high ambitions and targeting the same final goal.

Rick Hendrick has proven to be a master at handling these kinds of situations up until now, albeit in an environment that is admittedly less pressurised than Formula One. The fairytale for the top team owner in NASCAR started last weekend at Daytona, but everyone will watch with interest how the pressure mounts inside his full house over the coming 37 weekends of racing.

Kyle Busch (Joe Gibbs Toyota) testing at Daytona © LAT

The Toyota threat

The talking point of preseason testing was the speed of the Toyota Camrys, and more specifically, the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas. They were fast off the truck at Daytona, Las Vegas and again at California.

As much as Hendrick Motorsports might be seen as the leading Chevrolet squad, or Roush Fenway as the leading Ford group, JGR has taken on the challenge of becoming the leading Toyota team, hoping to put the Japanese manufacturer in the history books of NASCAR.

Last weekend at Daytona Tony Stewart drove his Camry to second place in the Bud Shootout, confirming the preseason promise. Further to that, Michael Waltrip put his Toyota on the front row for the coming Daytona 500, and another two Camrys were among the top five qualifiers.

However, JGR is the only championship-calibre operation fielding Toyotas this year. They have a two-time champion in Tony Stewart, and proven race-winners and massively talented racers in Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch. Now they've shown they have very fast cars, too.

Toyota will win their first Cup race this season, but for JGR the goal goes beyond that. They have perfectly timed the switch from Chevrolet in a year where the full implementation of the new Cup car, formerly the Car of Tomorrow, has made the transition to Toyota a lot smoother.

JGR team owner Joe Gibbs has recently left his role as head of the Washington Redskins in the NFL, and now he has the time to focus all his experience as a coach to work on his players, line them up in the right strategy and try to score the ultimate touchdown, the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Teams such as Roush-Fenway are not to be overlooked, but the signs of the growing threat from Toyota in only their second year in Cup are too obvious to be ignored.

Will the rookies match Montoya?

While Juan Pablo Montoya will be hoping to build on his rookie success from last season, trying to become a more consistent top-runner week in and week out in Cup, those following in his footsteps coming from the open-wheel scene face a tall order in trying to match what the Colombian did in his first year.

Dario Franchitti is set to follow the same path of his former Champ Car rival, and the relationship between the two is currently a very amicable one. They both speak the same language in terms of transferring their open-wheel experience into a new environment, even if Montoya is far from being a seasoned stock car driver. That can only help Franchitti.

Jacques Villeneuve © LAT

Sam Hornish Jr has surprisingly struggled in his transition to NASCAR, despite being one of the best open-wheel racers on ovals. He slowly continues to improve, and he enjoys the benefit of having two very experienced team-mates in Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman from whom he can learn.

Like Franchitti, Hornish will enjoy the benefit of having a place on the grid guaranteed for the first five races of the season, something that should ease their way into the top-35 in the owner standings to prolong that advantage into the rest of the season.

Meanwhile, Patrick Carpentier and Jacques Villeneuve face the tough task of having to qualify on time for the first five races of the year, and probably even more.

In Carpentier's case, his ride is funded and he drives for a team that has had the resources to have him testing for most of the off-season. He also has experienced team-mates, and has already showed some flashes of speed in his short spell in stock cars. But Villeneuve does not have it as easy.

The former Formula One world champion has had a tough time on his racing return to America - which is by no means certain yet. There has even been talk about Villeneuve returning to Le Mans in June, because he still needs to find enough sponsorship dollars to complete the budget for the Cup season.

The battle between the rookies will be as interesting as the championship itself, but whatever the former open-wheel stars achieve in their debut year will be compared against what Montoya did last year. That bar has been probably set higher than most people think.