November 10, 2010

NASCAR Sprint Cup - 2010 Season Review before the last two races

By Stephen Lars

The 2010/11 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has been an exciting championship. The fight for the championship has pushed each of the drivers into their limit, providing some of the finest racing in the motorsports world. Each team has made a huge effort to keep its cars at its prime.

Since the beginning of the season, the fight for the championship has been very tight. Jimmie Johnson, the Sprint’s Cup defending champion, has had to fight hard to remain atop of the drivers' standings.

So far we there have been 34 races this season. Johnson has won seven of these races. The four-time-champion suffered a setback during the first race. After starting in third place, his car suffered a failure that left him out of the race with 23 laps to go. Jamie McMurray was the winner on that occasion.

Hamlin is the new championship leader with 6325 points. It closely follows Johnson to 6295 units, but there are still two more races to go.

During the next two races Johnson made a perfect runs and climbed to the top of the podium in both events. Two races later he won in Bristol. At that time, Johnson was third in the standings with 760 points, while the leader was Kevin Harvick (774).

From the sixth round on comes out the name of Denny Hamlin and his intense pursuit to displace Johnson from the top of the standings. Hamlin began to win events and was evidently Johnson’s fiercest competitor.

Hamlin slowly but surely became a threat to the defending champion. From the sixth to the fifteenth race, Hamlin was able to win on 5 occasions. Johnson responded with two consecutive wins. Halfway through the season, Johnson was still second (2384 pts.), while Hamlin managed to climb positions and was, at that point, fourth (2304 pts.)

These two racers went under the radar for the following eight races. His best marks were a second place in Michigan for Hamlin (race 23) and a third to Johnson in Atlanta (race 25).

Hamlin was the winner of the twenty-sixth race. He scored 5060 points and Harvick moved to third place in the drivers' standings. Johnson went to second ten units behind the new leader.

On Sept. 26 at Dover, Johnson gets in his seventh win of the season. With that victory he was able to move the first place in the overall standings, Hamlin, on the other hand, ended in ninth place.

Johnson did not win the next three races, but secured a second and two third places. Hamlin could not advance beyond the eighth spot in those three races.

In Martinsville, Hamlin was again the fastest driver. The win was still not enough to catch Johnson, who leads the standings by 36 points. For the thirty-fourth race, again Hamlin returns to victory lane in Texas and is able to snatch the first place away from Johnson, who after a complicated race finished ninth.

Hamlin is the new championship leader with 6325 points. It closely follows Johnson to 6295 units, but there are still two more races to go. The closeness between these two drivers makes it difficult to determine whom the next champion.

About the Author
Stephen Lars has been a prominent writer on daily NASCAR races; sports news and the sportsbook industry for many exceptional sport web sites. You may reprint this article in its full content, please note no modifications to it are accepted.