Chase Master

When the 2009 season started, Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus were still having a tough time trying to get a grip on the handling of their Chevy Impala. With the new Cup car being introduced for the whole season, they were still discovering what others had already found out during testing in the winter at the intermediate tracks.

However, when crunch-time came, No.48 was right there. Looking back, it seemed like during the regular season they were just gearing up for the Chase. While Kyle Busch was doing most of the winning, Johnson was still setting it all up, hitting top form in the 26th week of his racing calendar - just in time to defend his crown and match Cale Yarborough's feat of three consecutive titles 30 years later.

In the short history of the Chase, Johnson has won three out of five. There have been slight revisions to the playoff, but the essence of it remains the same. Bunching up the top contenders for the final ten-week showdown, where basically a new championship starts for them. Johnson has clearly mastered the format, although that's not to say that he wouldn't win under the old points system as well.

The Californian and his crew chief have been in the spotlight ever since they became major contenders in the Sprint Cup series, but behind them there's a group of top people who have also been instrumental in their success. Max Papis, who has been testing for Hendrick Motorsports for the past couple of seasons, reckons that in the No.48 team, there are at least ten engineers who could well be the best crew chief in the Cup paddock.

Knaus leads that team of people and deserves a lot of credit for what they have achieved. More often than not, he has provided Johnson with a winning car. He seldom got the setup or strategy wrong and even under the extreme conditions at Indy, he helped Johnson get the most out of the tyre debacle to score a second Brickyard win.

Also to his credit, this year Knaus went through the whole season clean, without any kind of penalty or suspension after being in the eye of the storm a couple of times in his two previous championship campaigns.

Chad Knaus and Jimmie Johnson © LAT

However, this is not to take anything away from the man behind the wheel. At 33, and despite his massive success, Johnson is still underrated by many. He is far less popular than Dale Earnhardt Jr and not as spectacular as Kyle Busch or Carl Edwards, but he gets the job done and keeps adding to the numbers.

Johnson led nearly 19 per cent of the laps completed this year, which was more than his two main rivals. He was up front in 29 of the 36 races, which means he won close to 200 points on bonuses for either leading a lap, or leading the most laps at those events. Not last year and not in 2006 did he achieve such impressive figures, even if he didn't win as many races this time. This season he was just as fast, or even faster, and certainly smarter.

A mounting challenge

If there had been no playoff this year, Jimmie Johnson would have not become a three-time Sprint Cup champion. Instead, Carl Edwards would have beaten him to the title by a mere 16 points - proving that the Roush Fenway racer was slightly more consistent as well as winning more than the Californian.

His one big mistake in the Chase came at Talladega where he ignited a wreck by ill-judging a bump-drafting manoeuvre with teammate Greg Biffle. Besides that, he can point the finger at the ignition system on his car, which suddenly turned the lights off on his championship hopes at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Edwards had made a reputation as the king of concrete tracks, but this season he excelled at most mile-and-a-halves, taking six of his season-high nine victories at those venues, which are perhaps the most demanding from a technical and driving standpoint.

His natural talent, coupled with his supreme fitness, allowed him to jump into any car and be instantly fast. He can jump out of them in a unique style too, something fans are now becoming used to. Besides his nine wins in the Sprint Cup, he won seven races in the Nationwide Series and came close to successfully defending his title there.

The Columbia-native has to be the man Johnson is now looking at as his most feared rival. After watching him try the impossible with a videogame-like overtaking manoeuvre on the last lap that didn't work at Kansas, Johnson knows Edwards will do anything to win a race - he hates finishing second and he won't accept defeat again in 2009.

From hero to zero

It's hard to believe that Kyle Busch won 21 races in NASCAR's top-three national series and didn't win any championships this year. Eight of those victories came in the Sprint Cup, all of them before the playoff started.

Kyle Busch (Joe Gibbs Toyota) leads the field at Watkins Glen to another win © LAT

Come New Hampshire it was hard to bet against him winning the title, but it broke down to pieces due to mechanical issues in the first three races of the Chase. Having led the standings for 21 weeks, he was basically out of the championship fight in a matter of 14 days after that. Unfortunately for him, that's how the playoff format works.

However, the 23-year-old can still look back on a great year by anyone's standards. After being left as the odd man out at Hendrick Motorsports last year, he proved his worth at Joe Gibbs Racing, where he found a new home.

He made the most of the powerful Toyotas early on, giving the Japanese manufacturer their maiden Cup win at Atlanta. The numbers at season's end also showed he finished ahead of Dale Earnhardt Jr in the standings.

All his near misses from the past turned into silverware this time and just the Sprint Cup trophy eluded him. For that you can't blame him, even if his form during the Chase was not on a par with that of the regular season. He led 1633 laps in the first 26 races, and only 40 during the playoff.

Those numbers not only show how demoralised he and his team became at the start of the Chase, but also how Joe Gibbs Racing as a whole did not perform at Hendrick and Roush level. The team's three drivers ended up among the last five in the playoff standings and Tony Stewart's controversial win at Talladega was the only victory for them in the final ten races.

'Rowdy' Busch was in nobody's A-list for 2008, but he will certainly be a top bet next season.

Troubled transition

While Juan Pablo Montoya enjoyed a transition to NASCAR that was rated by pundits as being a successful one in 2007, this year's rookie class - made mostly out of former open-wheel racers - found out that not everyone can make the switch work, or at least not as fast as Montoya did, even if the Colombian had his fair share of struggles last year.

By the time of the Daytona 500, one big name was already out of the field and without a ride for the second race of the season. Jacques Villeneuve made a return at Montreal for the Nationwide Series event, where he was fast until he wrecked in the pouring rain that made history for NASCAR. He insists that his future is in the Sprint Cup, but despite his new management's best efforts, it's still not happening for him.

Indycar drivers Dario Franchitti (Ganassi Dodge) and Sam Hornish (Penske Dodge)racing at Bristol © LAT

Dario Franchitti was out of a drive midway through the year after Ganassi ran out of sponsorship money for his car. Results weren't there to show either and his team's slump in form coupled with the Scot's ankle injury, but when he failed to qualify at Sears Point it became clear that things were not working out as expected.

Then it was Patrick Carpentier who didn't have the best of break ups with his team after his crew chief blamed him for not qualifying at Talladega - a track where drivers simply go flat out and turn the wheel the least they can to keep speed as high as possible. It was a sad end for him, despite some promise, but the results just didn't come.

Oddly, his seat was later taken by another former open-wheeler, second-year driver AJ Allmendinger. The Californian made a good impression in his five races for Gillett Evernham at the end of the season, and they may well earn him a stay in the Cup.

Allmendinger's replacement at Red Bull, former Toro Rosso racer Scott Speed, is probably the best prepared of all drivers trying to make the switch, but he too found that the Sprint Cup is one big step above the Trucks or ARCA series where he won this year. In the season finale at Homestead, he delivered a good showing by finishing 16th after starting from the front row. He should get better in 2009.

Finally, there's three-time IRL IndyCar champion Sam Hornish. His speed on the ovals in open-wheel racing has not transpired in stock cars and rumours about a possible return to IndyCar were out loud in the garage. For now, he looks to stay on with Penske in the Cup, but he will have to qualify on speed for the season opener at Daytona.

Regan Smith beat all these big names and nearly won at Talladega, but sadly that has done little to secure his future in the series, as he is currently out of a ride for 2009.

As for Montoya, his second season in NASCAR was bellow par, but he finished the year with some glimpses of true progress. The partnership between Ganassi and DEI should make him a legitimate contender for a Chase seeding next season if the merger between the two organisations goes through without any major stumbles.

Tough times, tough business

Regan Smith (DEI Chevrolet) and Juan Pablo Montoya (Ganassi Dodge) © LAT

NASCAR has not been immune to the financial crisis in the United States and since the season ended there have been massive layoffs at several teams, even those at the sharp end of the grid.

The Ganassi-DEI merger is one example of how tough it is for teams to stay afloat when sponsors are hard to get. There may be other connotations besides the financial ones to the deal, but both squads had lost sponsors and were forced to reduce the size of their operations.

So if that's how two midfield teams get punched, it's really tough times for those small one-car teams that race for a living every weekend. Teams like Bill Davis Racing and others are facing an uphill struggle to even make it to the track for every event in 2009, but inevitably those who don't perform will always have it harder.

NASCAR's decision to ban testing must be applauded, for it sheds off a few million dollars from the budgets next year. With 36 races, the initial plan to have up to 26 days of testing per organisation was far too much for those who stay on the road all-season long. They all will enjoy - drivers included - some more quality time back home.

However, those teams hoping to catch up with the big boys will suffer the implications of no testing. The pecking order may hardly change and those who figured out the new Cup car this year will enjoy the benefits of that in 2009 as well. Those who didn't will most certainly continue to struggle.