The Professor
By the Honorable W. Francis Newcomb II
Stock Car City Professor at Large

2008 Sprint Cup Predictions
Monday, February 4, 2008

Good morning everyone! Please put those iPhones away, class is back in session. I will now divine the results of the Sprint Cup season without the use of a crystal ball, tea leaves or the aid of the contents within the hermetically-sealed mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnall's porch. Pay attention and please remember that this is supposed to be fun.

Just to refresh those minds who don’t remember last year’s predictions, the professor accurately chose nine of the twelve drivers that qualified for the chase. He told us of Jimmie Johnson’s repeat as champion nine months ahead of the feat. One reader replied that the professor was “crazy” to think that four drivers would earn their first victories in 2007. Actually, five drivers did win their first Nextel Cup races in 2007 and three of those were of the four that the professor predicted.

Last year I used an ordinary deck of playing cards. This year I have enlisted the help of some folks who told me they used to work at NASA. That’s right, rocket scientists. They might not really know anything about auto racing. However, I feel these predictions are bound to be considerably more accurate than the average weather forecast.

Once again, let’s look at the teams.

Hendrick Motorsports – These guys are still kings of the hill. They aren’t going anywhere but forward. The addition of NASCAR’s most popular driver to this powerhouse has already strengthened this team to the nth degree. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is not a gamble; he’s one of Sprint Cup’s best drivers. His addition did mean that they had to send a driver who is ten years Junior’s junior, with a boatload of talent, down the road to JGR. Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon will continue to be this team’s top performers. Casey Mears got to victory lane, as promised last year. Mears and Little E are both bound to have improved results over last season. All four Hendrick drivers make the chase.

Roush Fenway Racing – Matt Kenseth has been Mr. Consistency for this organization and will once again make the chase. Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle, Jamie McMurray and David Ragan will perform well and there will be flashes of brilliance. However, I believe that all of the Ford teams will suffer as a result of another issue that will be discussed later. Kenseth will be the sole representative of the Ford camp in the chase.

Joe Gibbs Racing – This company will become a real super-team this season. The switch to Toyota, landing the M&M/Mars sponsorship and the addition of Kyle Busch will make this “the” team to beat in 2009. JGR may experience a few growing pains along the way. However, Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch will be the strongest triad in the series. All three JGR drivers will make the chase.

Richard Childress Racing – Clint Bowyer took his first Cup checker at NHIS last season. He, Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton will all be strong in 2007. However, the way it looks to me, despite RCR’s best efforts, Boyer will be the only RCR driver to make the chase.

Dale Earnhardt Incorporated – Last year, at this point, there were more questions in this camp than answers. The legacy has left the building. The building isn’t even the building anymore. DEI acquired Ginn Racing and that benefited the #15 team tremendously. Bono Manion and Martin Truex will put their best effort forth and make the chase. Regan Smith, Mark Martin, Aric Almirola and Paul Menard make up the balance of the effort. The latter will struggle to remain in the top thirty-five in points.

Gillett Evernham Motorsports – The partnership that Ray Evernham arranged with George Gillett last season has freed the team’s founder to get back to the basics of team building. GEM has reaped a financial windfall from the partnership through new sponsorship, not the least of which is the Clydesdale drawn draft carriage. Kasey Kahne will improve, Elliott Sadler will maintain and Patrick Carpentier will struggle to get into the top-35. No GEM chasers in 2008.

Red Bull Racing – Let’s see, Toro Rosso returns with Brian Vickers and A.J. Allmendinger again. All of the Toyota teams will benefit from a year of experience. Both drivers have been impressive in testing. I doubt either driver will break the top-20 in points but I do believe they will both finish in the top-35 at the end of this season. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Vickers in Victory Lane.

Penske Racing – Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman are two drivers with decidedly different backgrounds and personalities. This “Odd Couple” worked together incredibly well last season and will both make the 2008 chase. It looks like Roger Penske finally has his NASCAR operation functioning at near the efficiency of his legendary CART teams of year’s gone by. Sam Hornish will struggle through his rookie year but will improve by leaps and bounds in the fall. Look for Busch to rip to the Pole in three of the first five races.

Michael Waltrip Racing – This is, once again, the “Wild Card” Toyota team. Dale Jarrett will get to start the first five races by virtue of the Past Champion’s Provisional, as long as Kurt Busch had no problems. David Reutimann will take over the reigns of the #44 from Jarrett after the first five races. Young phenom Michael McDowell takes over for David in the #00 at that point as well. Michael Waltrip will battle into the top-35 in points. Reutimann will get MWR their first Cup win this season. No chasers, two top-35 teams and decidedly more confident outlook in 2009.

Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates – This team has shown slow but steady improvement for the past two seasons. Expect the same this year. Juan Pablo Montoya and Reed Sorenson will show improvement but fail to make the chase. Dario Franchitti makes it through the year with flashy highlights and wins the Rookie-of-the-Year.

Bill Davis Racing – Dave Blaney will show dramatic improvement as long as the #22 team doesn’t experience the nightmare they faced early in 2007. Jacques Villeneuve will struggle to gain top-35 status. Blaney breaks through to win two races in 2008 but no chase.

Haas CNC Racing – Johnny Sauter and Jeff Green are out, Scott Riggs and Jeremy Mayfield are in. This team seems to change more often than the number on the sign at the golden arches. Team owner Gene Haas is serving two years in prison for tax fraud. Both drivers will find it difficult to remain in the top-35. One won’t make it.

Robby Gordon Motorsports – The Paris to Dakar Rally debacle has put RGM through quite a bit of turmoil. It has been rumored that between three and five million dollars in sponsorship was tied up in this effort. Organizers of this event are attempting to run in on a different continent. Robby Gordon and his team did an amazing job of battling into the top-35 in 2006 and improved performance in 2007. Late-breaking news of alliance with Gillett-Evernham increases professor’s opinion of Gordon’s prospects.

Wood Brothers Racing – This team battled and despite putting a past champion in its seat to make it back into the top-35 last season, they failed. Bill Elliott will return on a limited schedule to try to return this team of historic glory to at least respectability. Jon Wood and Marcos Ambrose, the Aussie sensation, will split the remainder of the duties in the #21. Ambrose may be in a second Wood Brothers car #47 in a few races. Ambrose could surprise many on the road courses.

Petty Enterprises – The team has moved from Level Cross to Mooresville. Bobby Labonte has given the King’s ride a shot in the arm for the past two seasons. Kyle Petty spent some time in the TNT/NBC booth last year. These two teams are at a crossroads this season. Keeping both teams in the top-35 may be a challenge. Chad McCumbee is a developmental driver who may drive Kyle’s #45 in selected races for PE.

Yates Racing – Ricky Rudd retired after last season. He is replaced by former CTS champion, Travis Kvapil. The #88 is gone and the #28 is back. David Gilliland will return to drive the #38. Brown was gone last year, the chocolate and the team founder left over the winter. Doug Yates will have a battle on his hands just to try to keep his team funded and competitive. This may adversely affect every Ford team. If Doug has to tend to team business, that will keep him away from developing that legendary Yates horsepower of the Roush-Yates package that the entire Ford contingent uses. I thought that RYR would be the comeback story of 2007. Yates Racing could contribute to Edsel Ford, II’s nightmare of 2008.

Hall of Fame Racing – Tony Raines did a good job keeping this team in the top-35 last season. HoF, a team with strong ties to JGR, switches to Toyota in 2008. J.J. Yeley will up the performance level here but don’t expect miracles.

Furniture Row Racing – Joe Nemechek landed here after his gallant success at Ginn Racing where he successfully battled into the top-35 last season before the wheels fell off Bobby Ginn’s bandwagon. Joe has the talent and desire to make it happen again. However, this team’s home base is over fifteen hundred miles away from Race City USA. It would be an accomplishment of monumental proportions for Nemechek to pull off this same feat with this team. Kenny Wallace, who was terminated by team owner Joe Garone last season, may run a second car for Furniture Row in a few selected events.

BAM Racing – Once again, I have nothing but respect for Beth Ann Morgenthau. Respect won’t put the #49 into the top-35 in owner points. Details about this team’s future are sketchy at best. Perhaps Ken Schrader or John Andretti will be behind the wheel according to Jayski.

Over the course of the 2007 racing season we saw McGlynn Racing disappear. CJM decided to go ARCA racing. Front Row Motorsport’s three car numbers dwindled to one or maybe two. Bob Jenkins of FRM plans to make an attempt at the Daytona 500 with Eric McClure.

Speaking of McClure, Morgan-McClure Motorsports, a team that has been an icon on the NASCAR scene for many years, appears to have been lost. Ginn Racing, which showed great promise at the beginning of last season, got swallowed. Of the fifty-one teams that appeared to be Nextel Cup full-timers in 2007, forty-six remain at the start of the 2008 Sprint Cup campaign.

Despite the best intentions of NASCAR’s top-35 rule, this number of full-time teams will continue to dwindle this season as adequate sponsorship becomes more difficult to attain in an economy that appears to be in a downward spiral. If two or three more of the smaller teams drop out, could field fillers be too far down the road? Should that happen, I look for part-time teams like James Finch’s #09 with driver Sterling Marlin and Boris Said’s #60 to try to step to the plate.

Here are the professor’s top-20 predictions;

My top twenty after twenty-six races are; Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch, Casey Mears, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart, Clint Bowyer, Martin Truex, Jr., Ryan Newman, Matt Kenseth, Kasey Kahne, Kevin Harvick, Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards, Jeff Burton, Juan Pablo Montoya, Dave Blaney, and Brian Vickers in that order. The top-twelve will not line up that way for the chase as the drivers will be seeded by their victories. The drivers in bold type on that list make the Chase for the Championship.

My predictions for the final standings of the top-twenty at the end of thirty-six races are as follows; Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Kurt Busch, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart, Martin Truex, Jr., Ryan Newman, Matt Kenseth, Clint Bowyer, Casey Mears, Kevin Harvick, Kasey Kahne, Carl Edwards, Jeff Burton, Juan Pablo Montoya, Dave Blaney, Greg Biffle and Reed Sorenson in that order. Once again, the Chase competitors are in bold.

To sum up, first time winners will include, Dave Blaney, David Reutimann and Reed Sorenson. Dario Franchitti will win the Rookie-of-the-Year Award. Jimmie Johnson wins his third straight Cup. Chevrolet wins the manufacturers title followed by Toyota who will win it in ’09.

The challenge, should anyone out there be so bold, is to submit a full-field prediction for the final results of the forty-six teams that intend on competing for the entire 2008 season. First prize is an autographed picture and a 2009 Sprint Cup Series schedule. Second prize is two Sprint Cup Series schedules.

Those who submit entries by February 5th at noon will receive the professor’s full-field predictions by email before the end of that day. The professor will be at New Smyrna Speedway for Speedweeks. Those who submit predictions after February 5th but before time trials begin for the Daytona 500 will get that run-down once the professor returns to campus on or about February 18th.

Email entries to W. Francis Newcomb II by 1pm, Sunday, February 10th. One entry permitted per valid email address. Offer is void where prohibited. Prize picture, schedules and their format are at the discretion of the Professor. Get in the game and let’s have some fun! If anyone has any wild predictions, the Professor might be able to convince a Staff Writer to include them in a future article.

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