Category: Featured Stories

Everyone changes. People grow up. Some become more mature. The highs and lows strike and test the true character of individuals.

Nothing can ever stay the same, that’s just how life is.

[media-credit name=”Simon Scoggins” align=”alignleft” width=”300″][/media-credit]For 39-year-old Jeff Gordon he knows change all too well. Gordon has gone through quite a few changes in his career as one of the sports most successful drivers. Like going from the kid champion of NASCAR to raising his kids in NASCAR.

Days when Gordon walked into the garage carrying a briefcase, containing a Nintendo GameBoy, a cell phone, a racing magazine and a jar of peanuts, seem long ago.

There was also that thing sitting above his upper lip. The mustache.

A puny mustache, a reminder Gordon was just a kid trying to make it in a grown mans garage. Except, through the late 90s it became Gordon’s garage as he rose to multimillionaire and multi-time champion. Of course, Gordon had the trophy girl permanently on his arm and in the pictures.

But the picture wasn’t perfect. Gordon wasn’t a driver others could hang out with; Brooke to effect stole him from the NASCAR world. He came to the track, did his job, and left. For Hendrick Motorsports it worked out well, he went to the top of the sport and dominated, but for friends they saw less and less of the champion.

Change.

Never going out as much, spending much of his time in his motorhome. Afraid to speak his mind, even get a haircut and constantly working to make Brooke happy. The couple even moved away from the NASCAR capital by going to Florida. And Gordon stopped using his stepfather, John Bickford, as his business manager.

The once thought of fairy tale marriage ended in 2002 and by the following year he met a woman that would help him change again. This time the change came in the best possible way.

No more distance between him and fellow competitors or strained family matters. Today’s Gordon is all about family.

It’s about three people actually: Ingrid, Ella Sofia and Leo Benjamin.

The fierceness which won him four championships and 82 races will never die, when the driver of the No. 24 Drive to End Hunger/DuPont Chevrolet is on the racetrack he won’t shy away from moving you out of his way.

Finding comfortness in his own skin has Gordon no longer afraid to stand up and address an issue he feels important.

When the checkered flag falls however, he wants to get home as quickly as possible. Ella is waiting, ready to run into Papa’s arms. Life and time are much more valuable.

“Especially when you start having a family, I think it really kicks in because you look at how valuable your time is and how important it is to spend time with your family,” Gordon said at the conclusion of the 2010 season.

“You can go out there and work, work, work, and work to try to capitalize on the opportunities while they’re here, but there becomes a point where peace of mind and relaxing and enjoying your time becomes important,” he continued.

“I think when you’re young like most of us, we feel like, lets take advantage of it. As you get a little bit older, you start thinking about which ones are important and just being a little bit more efficient with your time and enjoy your time to yourself or with your family more.”

Racing gets Gordon excited. The blood flows or boils and brings out a different side in the four-time champion. It just can’t make him light up like he does when talking about his children.

In a sport where motivation isn’t hard to come by, Gordon’s children have become his biggest motivators. You won’t find him hungrier for wins than right now, not even when he was trying to win all those titles and races.

Championships have become an afterthought in a way. Have no fear, he wants another one, but getting back to the winners circle is more important for more than just the sake of winning: he wants his family to go there with him.

Ella hasn’t been to victory lane since she was four months old at Talladega in 2007. Neither she nor wife Ingrid was with Gordon when he won Texas in 2009, his last win to date.

After Ella was born Gordon’s change was evident; it just became more prominent when Leo was born this year. Holding his children on pit road or smiling for the camera as they sit in his car. Joking about changing diapers and racing for different children-related causes is the life Gordon now lives.

Happiness. True happiness. For the first time in life he has everything he’s ever wanted and you won’t find him smiling, laughing or having more fun than what these last two years have produced.

Ever think you’d see Gordon driving a racecar designed by his daughter? Or that it would come at the same track where Gordon had made his debut 18 years ago. The Atlanta Motor Speedway will forever have a place in Gordon family history.

When Kyle Busch drove a pink car at Richmond a week after Gordon’s “Papa’s Car,” Gordon poked at Busch asking, “my three-year-old designed mine, what’s you’re excuse?”

Ever think he’d appeared on an episode of Sesame Street? This is a new, changed Gordon. It’s hard to believe sometimes. But a constant change of good doesn’t hurt anyone.

Looking in the rearview mirror no longer applies to blocking Dale Earnhardt. It entails seeing his children’s faces as he plays driver of another kind. “We’re a foursome now,” Gordon said of his family.

The other family, Gordon fans who have come to intimately know him since the start of his career, have had to adapt to change of their own.

The fourth championship in 2001 wasn’t supposed to be the last. Back then, easy to say since it’s coming upon 10 years, it looked as though Gordon was going to keep going and going.

The fans were going to, all the way to the souvenir haulers as everything involved with Gordon went up. But once Jimmie Johnson entered the picture in 2002 things changed again, for Gordon and NASCAR.

Perhaps those hit the hardest with Johnson’s dominance are Gordon fans. After winning title No. 5 Johnson said he didn’t think about overtaking his friend, foe and boss in championships.

Gordon fans are well aware of the numbers and most aren’t happy with them.

There are those who feel Gordon had had to sacrifice himself for the now five-time champion. Their driver was to be the one compared and challenging the marks of The King and The Intimidator. They’re all on the backburner now, not seriously contending for a championship since 2007.

Besides championships, they’ve had to adapt to Gordon not winning races near as frequently. Or what they hope doesn’t become a recurring theme in revolving doors or crew chiefs: Evernham, Loomis, Letarte, and now Gustafson.

What Gordon fan thought they would ever have to ask themselves when the day would come that Gordon went back to the top?

The paint schemes have changed too. It might sound minor, but they too heard all about the rainbow jokes hurled their driver’s way. Rainbow to flames to a complete different sponsor.

And they’ve seen their driver go from soft spoken and polished like a Ken doll, to pushing and shoving – see Matt Kenseth (both Bristol and Chicago and Jeff Burton – and bluntly saying on TV “I’m pissed right now.”

Gordon though doesn’t believe anything on the track has changed, saying, “Well the one thing that I want everybody to understand is that I have not changed. I’ve not done anything different today than I did 10 or 15 years ago. I race people they way they race me and when somebody pushes and shoves, I’m going to push and shove back.”

Gordon may not feel it, but everything has changed and continues to. Life moves on with some left trying to keep up. Things change in NASCAR as well. Nothing ever stays the same.

Drivers though, aren’t thought of as ones to go through such dramatic changes. Even when change does arrive it doesn’t always stick.

Yet, here’s Jeff Gordon who has gone through every change life can throw a guys way.

And he’s not done yet; the next change has already comes as Gordon leaves the only shop he’s ever known and gets a fresh start with a new team and equipment.

So, it’s that time of the year again. The time for rewinding the 2010 racing season and taking a second look at all of the fun, and in some cases exasperation, we had during the previous year. Recapping the entire season’s highlights is a daunting enough challenge. I soon discovered that the task of picking just one story was almost impossible.

[media-credit name=”CIA Stock Photo” align=”alignleft” width=”300″][/media-credit]Let’s face it, NASCAR racing fans were treated to a very exciting 2010 season. There is a huge list that would easily qualify for favorite story of the year. Some of them include:

Jimmie Johnson’s historic fifth consecutive championship.

January’s announcement from NASCAR that said “have at it boys.”

The aftermath of that announcement which gave us “Bad” Brad versus “Cousin” Carl.

The boxing match between Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton although I still say I’ve seen better fights between girls in cocktail lounges.

There is of course Kyle Busch versus just about anyone you want to name. From threatening to kill his team mate, at the All Star Race in Charlotte, to his one finger salute at a NASCAR official, at the Texas Motor Speedway, NASCAR’s rowdy one was frequently the source of Monday morning water cooler conversations.

Again, the list of potential favorites is lengthy. But it was the source of inspiration that led me to choosing just one favorite story that completely surprised me. During a recent trip to a Walmart store, to do some Christmas shopping, I happen to notice a young lady wearing a T-shirt that read “I WEAR THE FIRE SUIT IN THIS FAMILY.”

It was, of course, the creation of DeLana Harvick the wife of Sprint Cup driver Kevin Harvick as well as the co owner of Kevin Harvick Inc which fields racing teams in NASCAR’s Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series. Seeing that shirt was a reminder of how much I admired the story behind it’s initial creation and marketing.

The details behind this special T-shirt dates back to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race held at the Pocono Raceway this past June. In the final moments of this race there was contact between the cars being driven by Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano The Logano Toyota went into a long slide and a top five finish turned into 13th. Harvick kept his Chevrolet under control and finished fourth.

After the race a remarkably calm Harvick said “he just races without giving people and respect and not much room. So, we just wound up getting together. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the way it goes.”

Needless to say Logano had an entirely different point of view. The angry young driver parked his car alongside of Harvick’s on pit road. At the encouragement of his father, Tom Logano, he attempted to lunge towards his adversary but that effort was blocked by a member of Harvick’s pit crew.

During the course of a live television interview, Logano said “I don’t know what his problem is with me but it’s probably not his fault. His wife wears the fire suit in the family and tells him what to do. It’s probably not his fault.”

Like many of you I was watching the broadcast and my immediate reaction to Logano’s comments was “that’s low and extremely out of line.” It’s understandable that Logano was upset but you keep the focal point of anger at the individual who caused it. To lash out at another driver’s wife, who had nothing to do with the situation, is highly inappropriate.

Logano had to endure both criticism and teasing in the aftermath of his remark. That included a rather humorous “Twitter” message from Kevin Harvick who wrote “after his TV comment I don’t know if he wants to fight me or DeLana. My money’s on her.”

Regarding any possible response to Logano’s comment, DeLana Harvick certainly had options. There were plenty of media members at Pocono that day with television cameras, radio microphones and tape recorders. Everyone of them would have loved to record her thoughts on the matter.

But DeLana Harvick had a much different approach and it turned out to be a move steeped in brilliance. She contacted a T-Shirt manufacturer and commissioned the creation of the now famous “I wear the fire suit in this family” logo. The shirts were sold, through the Kevin Harvick Inc website, at $15 with proceeds benefiting the programs supported by the then recently established Kevin Harvick Foundation. The response from female NASCAR fans was immediate. The initial run of the T-shirts, reported to be in the hundreds, were sold out within a period of 48 hours.

Like many modern day NASCAR personalities, the Harvicks wanted to share the blessings from their racing endeavors by championing worthy social causes. That was the catalyst behind the creation of the Kevin Harvick Foundation which they launched earlier this year. The foundation’s creed states: “dedicated to the support of programs that positively enrich the lives of children throughout the U.S.”

A prime example of their work was presented last October. Visiting his native Bakesfield-California, Kevin Harvick set up a full academic scholarship fund to benefit one student-athlete at Cal State Bakersfield College for the next 12 years.

Yet another example occurred on the evening of December 16th when the Harvicks, along with a local radio station, presented the Christmas For Kids Concert at a Winston Salem-North Carolina night club. The evening featured country music star Sara Evans along with singer Bridgette Tatum and NASCAR personality Kyle Petty. The special evening was a charity toy drive benefiting area foster children in conjunction with the Foster Friends of North Carolina.

For more information regarding the youth orientated activities of the foundation, including how to purchase the fire suit T-shirt, dial up their official website at www.kevinharvickfoundation.org. I think you’ll be as impressed as I was.

Finally a tip of the racing hat to that Walmart shopper for reminding me how much I loved this story and why it’s my favorite for the 2010 season.

The new pavement at Daytona was completed earlier than expected and NASCAR and Daytona International President Joie Chitwood III wasted no time in checking out the success of the project. Chitwood said, ” We spared no expense in the repaving project. When you think about the elements you need to put on a race for your fans, and the teams, asphalt is definitely high on the list.  For us we think it’s important that our fans know the asphalt we put down is going to provide a great racing surface.”  

[media-credit name=”Motorsports Images and Archives” align=”alignleft” width=”300″][/media-credit]Lane Construction, which repaved other ISC race tracks including Talladega Superspeedway, Homestead-Miami Speedway, Richmond International Raceway and Darlington Raceway, used an estimated 50,000 tons of  specially formulated asphalt to repave more than 1.4 million square feet of Daytona International Speedway.

It’s dark black color against the stark white walls in this weeks Goodyear tire test seemed to increase the excitement of fans and drivers a like. The first car to test the new pavement was fan favorite, Dale Earnhardt Jr. He was followed into the frey shortly by 17 other drivers. All of the drivers gave the new surface a thumbs up. Kurt Busch, driver of the number 12, Shell Pennzoil Dodge for Penske Racing commented that the surface was impressive and gave the track a new attitude. “It’s an impressive surface. There’s been a lot of hard work done. Everybody should be proud of what they’ve accomplished to resurface it, give it a new look. It’s just a new attitude. This is what 2011 will bring to start off our Sprint Cup season. Big, exciting time.” Jeff Burton added, “Daytona is still Daytona. they didn’t change the character of the track. It’s a smoother surface with more grip but it’s still Daytona.”

All drivers agreed that the new surface would have the cars running in tighter packs throughout the course of the race. “The Shootout is going to be crazy. It’s going to be nuts. It’s going to be wide open every lap, every time. When you decide to go, what hole you decide to go into. Yeah, I’m not going to say you’ll have more wrecks because you never know, but the possibility to have more big wrecks is certainly looming.” All drivers agreed that the chances for the “Big One” were increased by the new surface and it’s packing of cars in draft lines. Former Champion Bobby Labonte, said, “The spotters are going to be even more important with the new surface.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr, stated there was no fall off within the fuel run which would keep cars running in tight packs. Burton took it further saying there will be almost no way to lose the draft unless you have something happen in the pits or that causes you to have lift completely out of the gas.

Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s Vice President of Competition was asked about the need to change the restrictor plate for the Daytona 500. He stated that at this time he didn’t see a need but there were a lot of considerations that would have to be taken in to account. He stated the top speed that they had seen so far during the test was 197 mph. He didn’t attribute that to any one team. If there were a need he stated he would only anticipate the change being small and in the range of 1/64th of an inch. The teams tested with the same plate that was used in Talladega.

Mark Martin was very impressed with the new tires that were used for the test. The tire Goodyear head of competition, Greg Stucker, said was the left side tire from Talladega and the right side tire was a hybrid mix of a compound used for intermediate tracks combined with the Talladega compound. Martin, stated he never thought that he would see the day that one set of tires could be used for 500 miles but this tire was close. But  Strucker said that,” I think there’s a little bit of over exaggeration. That was early on. Once people get dialed in, they’re going to start stressing tires a little bit more. ”

Pemberton, stated that not all the teams were using the new E15 fuel engines but some were. ” Being that it’s 2010 still, we weren’t officially starting that fuel till 2011. So it was an option. Some teams had last year’s engines that they didn’t want to make sure to take them apart, do any up-fit for them in case they needed to for the new E15. Other teams have taken this opportunity to bring their latest and greatest and get some miles on it and see how it looks when they get it home and take it apart.”

The E15 fueling system, according to Jeff Burton is slower than the normal high test system. The reason for that is that the alcohol fuel burns cooler and thus slower. Although the engine produces more horsepower with the E15 because of higher compression ratings, it is harder on the internal engine parts. This should not according to Engine builders at Childress Earnhardt Racing Engines pose an issue with the engines in terms of longevity during races.

What’s wrong with NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series? Some would say nothing. In fact, like the country we live in, many are willing to leave things as they are with no changes. Others, and I believe it’s the majority from what I have witnessed, think there should be changes. It’s a split decision between those who want to go back to the past and others who want to make changes for the future.

[media-credit name=”CIA Stock Photo” align=”alignleft” width=”300″][/media-credit]That’s where I come in. I think NASCAR’s top series can be fixed with a little common sense. For those who think that things are all perfect, might I remind you that attendance at the races has tumbled and television viewership keeps declining. If nothing is wrong, the sport will become the equivalent of Roller Derby in a few years.

Here are my humble suggestions:

1. Quit concentrating on the Chase Championship. We’re stuck with the Chase. The powers that be and many fans love it because it creates a playoff like baseball, football, and basketball. Funny that these stick and ball sports can relate to a series where winning the race used to be the ultimate. So we start counting points from Daytona to Richmond and the winner is an afterthought.

2. Do away with the Lucky Dog and the Wave-Around. I understand the logic in this. Racing back to the line to gain a lap was a dangerous situation in many cases, and having cars at the front of the field that are nearly a lap down is confusing, but it’s part of the tradition of the sport. It’s the same for racing to gain a lap. A great injustice has been done in going away from those traditions in the name of making things more exciting. Going back to the stick and ball sports, have the fathers of those sports gone away from the fundamentals to make things more exciting? No.

3. Change the All-Star race. Once upon a time, the race once known as …well many names was for those who won a race in the prior season. When multi-car teams became the rule, there weren’t enough winners to make out a field, I imagine, so they went to making the field larger by adding all kinds of rules so that more cars could compete. Then they added a “wild card,” just like the MLB and NFL to make more things interesting. The result has been a ho-hum event that just adds an extra weekend to Charlotte Motor Speedway. One year, Michael Waltrip won. He hadn’t won a race. How can a non-all –star participant win an all-star race? You tell me. The Bud Shootout at Daytona used to be the Busch Clash, made up of poll winners of the previous season. Someone figured out that there had to be more cars, so all kinds of rules had to be made up to make the field better. Change that, too. Let’s go back to the purity that made the sport special.

4. If we have to have a Chase, let’s forget about giving bonus points for wins because the usual suspects always get an advantage in this situation. It was a noble idea to reward drivers and teams for wins, but a system that allows a driver to jump several places for the final ten races based on wins, in a system based on consistency points is flawed. Of course, the crux of this opinion is my disdain for the Chase or playoff system. Change the points system to reflect winning as important is one thing, but manufacture an advantage within a consistency-based system is simply wrong.

5. Wake up and smell the coffee. The economy has been blamed for the attendance problems at tracks the last two years, but does that explain the drop in television viewership? No. And yet we get the same song and dance about the economy. It has a lot more to do with the genetic Car of Tomorrow and other issues mentioned here than the economy. Yes, the economy has had a part in the sport’s decline, but some of the things I’ve mentioned play a bigger part.

NASCAR rolled along with a good formula. Fans came, attended races, watched in record numbers on television for nearly 30 years. All of a sudden, someone somewhere decided that things needed to change. A car was designed for safety, mainly because of the death of Dale Earnhardt (which was Nobile and needed), and a championship system was based on a champion that only won one race during a season (Matt Kenseth). It was kind of a knee jerk reaction. Though the decline of the sport cannot be blamed on a couple of events, it all started there. As the solutions have been early and often, none of them have worked. So what do we do? I’ve laid out a plan that might or might not work. I don’t think it’s perfect, but it is an attempt to really address the problems, something I do not feel the sanctioning body has done, only trying to tweak a system that is not working, or least not bringing more fans to the sport. Discuss. And whatever happens, for the good of all, I hope someone figures out what should be done to stop the decline.

 As of today, eliminations in the Chase and more bonuses for wins are not the answer. Holding on to flawed plans with tweaks is a recipe for more failures.

Over the past few days we learned of two drivers and one team owner who received awards they absolutely deserved. Then there was the matter of another driver who spent much of this month dealing with legal and business issues he absolutely does not deserve. With those thoughts in mind, let’s begin this week with:

[media-credit name=”FMCM” align=”alignleft” width=”300″][/media-credit]HOORAH to our reigning, and five time, NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson who continues to collect post season accolades. A special panel of North American broadcasters and journalists recently voted Johnson as the 2010 Driver of the Year. The panel was assembled, via a tele conference, by the Driver of the Year Foundation, located in Sarasota-Florida, led by foundation President Barry Schmoyer who noted that the foundation has been bestowing this prestigious award for 44 years now making it the longest running driver’s award of its kind.

Johnson received ten votes from the 18 member panel which led to him winning the award for the fourth time in his career. The only driver to ever win this title four times is Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports team mate: four time Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon.

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HOORAH to Tony Stewart for recently being named as the National Motorsports Press Association’s Home Depot Humanitarian of the Year. In additional to presenting Stewart with the beautiful custom crystal trophy, Home Depot will also be making a $100,000 contribution to the Tony Stewart Foundation. For several years now Stewart’s foundation has championed the cause of providing care for critically ill children as well as assisting in the needs of injured drivers. The foundation has also helped other organizations in their efforts to protect various animal species.

Stewart deserves a second HOORAH for recently donating the use of his personal ranch for both children and wildlife preservation. The Hidden Hollow Ranch, a 414 acre spread owned by Stewart located in his native Indiana, will now be made available to the Catch A Dream Foundation, an organization that arranges for the joy of hunting and fishing experiences for children with life threatening illnesses. Stewart’s ranch will also become a living laboratory and will be used by wildlife biologists from Mississippi State University who will study habitat and over population as well as other deer related issues.

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HOORAH to team owner Chip Ganassi who was recently named as the winner of the Chris Economaki Champion of Champions Award. This prestigious award is presented annually by “The National Speed Sport News” which was founded by publisher Economaki. This is the first time, in the eight year history of the award, that a non driver was given this honor. During the course of the 2010 racing season, a Ganassi team won NASCAR’s Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400. Ganassi drivers also won the 2010 Indianapolis 500 and the IZOD Indy Racing League champion as well as the championship for the Grand American Rolex Series.

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WAZZUP with NASCAR driver/team owner Robby Gordon and the legal issues he’s had to deal with over the past two weeks? According to reports from “TMZ Dot Com,” a Los Angeles based entertainment news agency, Gordon recently discovered that he was getting the shaft from Extenze, the well known male enhancement program, and the dispute has now necessitated a lawsuit that was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court back on December 3d.

Following a major dispute last summer, Sprint Cup driver Kevin Conway, and his sponsor biotab nutraceuticals who manufactures Extenze, was released by Front Row Motorsports following a monetary dispute that now is the subject of an entirely different lawsuit. On August 31st came an announcement that said Conway and Extenze were moving to Robby Gordon Motorsports. At the time Conway was hoping sew up the Series’ Rookie of the Year title which he eventually won. Conway began the new arrangement by taking over Gordon’s familiar #7 Toyota while Gordon drove the #07 team car.

However, by mid October, Conway was within 25 points of falling outside of NASCAR’s top 35 in owner’s points meaning he would not be guaranteed a start in future races. It was decided to switch rides so the more experienced Gordon could elevate the #7 team’s status in the owner rankings. Gordon later said that this move was cleared with Extenze. The plan worked very well. Gordon managed to place the #7 team 32nd in the final owner’s standings which means the team is guaranteed a start in the first five events of the 2011 season. That includes the ultra prestigious, and extremely lucrative, Daytona 500 in February.

Despite all of this Extenze reportedly refused to pay the sponsorship money owed to Gordon and cited a breach of contract because of the driver switch. The December 3d litigation, filed by Gordon is asking for the sum of $690,000 owed to him.

But the administration problems for Robby Gordon Motorsports didn’t end with Extenze. In late October Gordon announced the creation of Speed Energy Drink in hopes that it will generate enough retail sales to fully support his motorsports operation. But approximately a week later Gordon received a cease and desist letter from Specialized Bycycle Components who complained that Gordon’s company logo, an elongated letter “S”, was too similar to their copyrighted logo.

On November 19th came word that a U.S. District Court Judge, in Santa Ana-California, issued an injunction against Gordon that said he could not use the current “S” logo on his cans of energy drink. This was a huge blow for Gordon in light of the fact that the company had already mass produced approximately 2.4 million cans of Speed Energy Drink. With the bicycle company threatening litigation, the two companies went into mediation where Gordon agreed to make an alteration to his company logo to eliminate any similarities.

Last Monday Gordon issued a statement that said a compromise has now been reached with Specialized Bycycle Components. Newly packaged cans of Speed Energy Drink will be available for purchase on line sometime between December 18th through the 20th with shipping available for the holidays. He also estimated that the cans with the new logo will be available in retail stores by early January 2011. You can track the progress of the energy drink, with its newly designed logo, via Gordon’s fan site: www.planetrobby.com.

Bear in mind all of this has been going on in the midst of the busy process of preparing for the upcoming 2011 racing season. Here’s hoping Robby Gordon has a merry Christmas. He certainly did not deserve the nonsense he’s endured during the first half of December.

It would seem obvious any driver in NASCAR’s highly competitive top-tier series who could storm the season with eight wins, would clinch the series title.

Denny Hamlin thought his first championship was within his grasp and he was ready to write his speech for the awards banquet, accept the ring and seven million dollar plus check along with the clout that goes with the title.

[media-credit name=”Barry Albert” align=”alignright” width=”300″][/media-credit]At the final race in Homestead in 2009, Hamlin made a promise to secure the championship in the next year or two.  Going into the 2010 season he looked to be the favorite to unseat Jimmie Johnson as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion.

In January, prior to Speedweeks in Daytona, Hamlin tore his anterior cruciate ligament while playing basketball.  He hoped to postpone surgery until the end of the year, but announced March 27^th that he would have surgery after the March 29^th race at Martinsville which he won handily.

Three weeks after surgery, Hamlin won the Texas race which was his second win in three races.  It appeared a magic chip had been implanted during his knee surgery, as his winning ways continued.

Hamlin’s cup of confidence was spilling over.  His statement of, “All we do is win,” seemed to hold a bit of truth despite the runs where he faltered.

Hamlin’s crew chief, Mike Ford, attempted to play mind games with Jimmie Johnson and his crew chief, Chad Knaus, by bragging that the No. 11 team was better than the No. 48 team.  The Joe Gibbs Racing team felt so sure this was the year they would capture the series title.

Hamlin and Ford hit a pothole on their way down confidence road, when gas mileage caused the Fed Ex driver to have a bad day at Phoenix, the next to the last race.

After the race, the driver of the No. 11 said, “For me I guess I have to leave Phoenix in Phoenix.  That’s the thing is you can’t let–I couldn’t control it.  I did everything I was supposed to do today.  Things didn’t work out for me.”

As all the teams prepared for the final race at Homestead, the two other contenders for the title besides Hamlin, Kevin Harvick and Jimmie Johnson tried to break his confidence with comments intended to rattle him.

Hamlin led four-time champion, Jimmie Johnson, by eight points as they headed to Homestead.  He blew off the pressure of winning and claimed he was used to it and even thrived on it.  Hamlin had battled his way up through lower series and fought to become established as a relevant driver in NASCAR.

It appeared Hamlin might be in trouble when he qualified 37^th for that all important final race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.  Coming through the field should have been a problem, but Hamlin remained confident.  He had done it before.

The Ford 400 at Homestead didn’t play out as Hamlin planned.  Carl Edwards won the race, Jimmie Johnson won his fifth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup championship and Hamlin finished 14^th, leaving him second in the point standings.

For Hamlin finishing second was worse than finishing fifth.  It was a tough blow to him with his confidence bashed, he had to wing his way to Las Vegas and watch Jimmie Johnson’s ongoing celebratory festivities which included that ring and seven million dollar plus check.

Champions Week would be an agonizing series of reminders of “what ifs.”  Hamlin said, “Just every award (Johnson) accepts, you think, I should have been in that position.”

Even Rick Hendrick saw his pain and tried to comfort Hamlin by saying, “ You will win your share, so you shouldn’t be beating yourself up so bad.”

Hendrick added, “ We’re proud of you, you did a heck of a job.  It’s a shame anybody had to lose.”

Hamlin realizes that he has areas that need improvement with qualifying being one of them.  He handled the pressure factor, but fumbled on pit road and with green flag stops.

The fact he lost to Johnson, who many consider a NASCAR great, is slightly comforting to Hamlin, but it doesn’t really lessen the pain of losing that title.

Mark Martin thought they had the momentum to possibly nail a championship in 2010, after finishing second to Johnson in 2009 when he captured his fourth consecutive title.  As the 2010 season played out, he found his Hendrick Motorsports team just could not get up to speed.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. used the “lack of confidence” theory this year to justify his continuing less than stellar performance.

It has happened with other drivers who come off a season with a potential chance at the championship only to flounder the following year.  Whether or not Hamlin can find his way past his confidence breaking loss is a question that will linger until the upcoming NASCAR Sprint Cup season unfolds.

Hamlin intended to return to his home base in North Carolina after Champions Week and meet with Mike Ford to begin regrouping for 2011.

For the sake of Hamlin, we can hope the contagion of crisis with confidence does not spread from the newly reorganized No. 88 team at Hendrick Motorsports to Hamlin’s No. 11 Fed Ex team at Joe Gibbs Racing.

Mark Martin planned a winning season in 2010, just as Hamlin plans his 2011 comeback to a championship.  Competition will be tough once again and we shall see if Hamlin and his team handle the haunting “what ifs” and miscues that may not be as easily forgotten as Hamlin thinks.