Answers to these key questions will help define the 2008 Sprint Cup season

Last year was arguably the most news-filled year in NASCAR history, and many of the biggest headlines, such as Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s move to Hendrick Motorsports, focused on issues that happened away from the track.

This year, the focus is likely to return to on-track issues. NASCAR’s new car (formerly known as the car of tomorrow) will be closely watched, along with Earnhardt Jr.’s performance. The garage will keep an eye on how Joe Gibbs Racing handles its switch to Toyota, and fans will wonder if anyone can stop Hendrick’s Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson from again dominating the Chase.

With those among the hottest topics heading into the new year, here are 10 questions – and some possible answers – on the issues expected to dominate headlines in 2008.

How Will COT Perform?

This is the million-dollar (or billion-dollar, considering NASCAR’s web of sponsorships and TV money) question. Will the new car, which will be used in all races this year, produce better racing?

It has yet to be raced on 1.5- and 2-mile tracks, so the early races at California and Las Vegas will be closely watched to see how the car handles and whether drivers can pass and race side by side.

How the new car performs, how teams adjust to it and which teams it favors will be one of the biggest stories of the season. With NASCAR’s TV ratings declining, uneventful races could continue to hurt the sport’s popularity. On the other hand, closer competition and more exciting races could spark a turnaround, putting fans in the grandstands and keeping them glued to their TV screens.

Of all the changes in NASCAR, the new car – and its impact on competition – is probably the most crucial. Will it be boom, bust, or somewhere in between?

How Will Earnhardt Jr. Fare?

Some people seem to have forgotten 2004. Does anyone remember? That year, Earnhardt Jr. won six races – one more than Gordon (who would have won that season’s title under the old point system) and three more than 2004 Cup champion Kurt Busch. Earnhardt Jr. was second in wins, top-fives, money won and average finish.

Since then, however, he hasn’t done much, with two Cup wins in his last 108 starts. But there’s every reason to believe that the sport’s most popular driver can at least return to his ’04 form – if not better – with his switch to Hendrick Motorsports, which won 18 of 36 Cup races last year and has won the last two Cup championships.  

With Hendrick’s new No. 88 Chevrolet, Earnhardt Jr. will be expected to not only win but make the Chase and contend for the championship, which would be a boon to both his career and the sport. Anything less will be considered a disappointment and will no doubt prompt many questions about Earnhardt Jr.’s driving ability.

Earnhardt Jr. relishes the pressure and the opportunity and is eager to prove to both himself and fans that he’s one of the top drivers in the sport.

Can he do it?

Can Toyota Win With Gibbs?

Joe Gibbs Racing’s three drivers – Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch – each made the Chase last year. Hamlin and Busch were in the Chase the year before that, and Stewart is a two-time Cup champion.

Clearly, driving talent isn’t an issue at Gibbs. But the racing community is curious to see how JGR’s switch from Chevrolet to Toyota will affect the organization’s performance.

Toyota certainly didn’t look very good in its first season, going winless and enjoying just two top-five finishes. It struggled with Michael Waltrip Racing, Red Bull Racing and Bill Davis Racing. Only Dave Blaney’s BDR team finished in the top 35 in owner points, the cutoff for a guaranteed starting spot in the season’s first five races. Simply making races became an accomplishment and will be the focus for most of those teams again this year.

Can JGR take Toyota to victory lane?

JGR has already shown it is capable of building fast versions of NASCAR’s new common-template car. Stewart and Hamlin combined for top-five finishes in more than one-third of the new-car races last year and had top-10s in two-thirds of them.

So the drivers are good and the cars are good. Will the engines be competitive?

There’s reason to think so. JGR head engine builder Mark Cronquist has had an offseason to make sure he can get the cars up to speed, and that should be good enough to give Toyota its first Cup wins and get multiple drivers into the Chase.

Toyota officials have also been pleased with the results of dyno testing that showed their engines are as good as any in the garage.
   
Can Anyone Stop Hendrick?

At this point, it seems as if any team that can knock off the Hendrick Motorsports dynasty would be welcomed with a ticker-tape parade. Non-Hendrick fans are tired of seeing Gordon and Johnson act like the New England Patriots, and Hendrick’s addition of Earnhardt Jr. only strengthens the notion that the team is nearly unbeatable.

But the rest of the garage is gunning for Hendrick.

“Those guys are so good. They’ve always been good, really,” says Roush Fenway Racing driver Matt Kenseth. “You just have to figure out how to do things better than they do it.  You’ve got to try to make your cars better.  You’ve got to try to call races better. You’ve got to work on the whole thing, from driving the car to setting it up to pitting it, to everything. We’ve just got to try to dot all your I’s and cross all your t’s and do everything the best you can to beat those guys.” 

Who are the most likely candidates to topple Hendrick this year?

Start with Roush, led by Kenseth and Carl Edwards, with the possibility of a resurgence by Greg Biffle. Roush Fenway had seven victories last year, second to Hendrick’s 18.

Joe Gibbs Racing could either be boom or bust with Toyota, but with its trio of talented drivers, it could be the top Hendrick foe if everything comes together with its new manufacturer.

Then there’s Richard Childress Racing, which ended 2007 with much work to be done in order to reach the upper echelon. Still, it put all three drivers – Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton and Clint Bowyer – in the Chase last year, which means RCR could be a threat if it has improved during the offseason.

Penske Racing could also pose a challenge if Kurt Busch can continue the resurgence he began in 2007 and teammate Ryan Newman can follow suit. Gillett Evernham Motorsports, meanwhile, is counting on a major comeback by Kasey Kahne.

But if none of those teams step up, get ready to see victory-lane celebrations that will look a lot like 2007, when Hendrick drivers won half the races.

Will Open-Wheelers Thrive?

There has never been a rookie class like this. Not in NASCAR, not in any form of racing, maybe not even in the history of professional sports.

Think about it – what other rookie class has ever boasted the credentials to match this year’s Cup freshmen? Dario Franchitti won both the Indianapolis 500 and the IndyCar Series title last year. Jacques Villeneuve is a former Formula One world champion and CART champion who has also won the Indy 500. And Sam Hornish Jr. has won the Indy 500 to go along with three IndyCar championships.

Then there’s Patrick Carpentier, the popular French-Canadian driver who has an extensive open-wheel background. DEI’s Regan Smith is the only rookie driver that traveled the more traditional stock-car route.

Juan Pablo Montoya proved that it’s possible to make the transition from open-wheel racing to stock cars when he won a Cup race and finished 20th in points as a rookie last year.

Who is most likely to match his success?

While Hornish struggled to qualify for races last season, he will drive for Penske Racing, which should give him quality equipment.

Franchitti drove in four Busch Series races last fall but has yet to make his Cup debut for Chip Ganassi Racing. Being able to lean on Montoya for advice should help his learning curve.

Villeneuve is one of the most talented drivers in the world as evidenced by his F1 title. But whether he can be competitive with Bill Davis Racing, Toyota and little stock-car experience remains to be seen.

Carpentier’s engaging personality should endear him to fans, but his fortunes will depend largely on whether Gillett Evernham improves its performance.

Can NASCAR Win Back Fans?

NASCAR Chairman Brian France said at Homestead in November that the sanctioning body was looking into how it could address the prospect of keeping its longtime fans. Some traditional fans say they are fed up with some of the sport’s recent changes, such as the Chase, the top-35 rule, later start times and the car of tomorrow.

It’s likely fans will have to learn to live with some of those issues, since the Chase and the COT are among the changes here to stay. But NASCAR has indicated it will try to address some fan concerns in an attempt to stop its sliding TV ratings, some of which have dropped approximately 20 percent in the last two seasons.

Officials have yet to announce any specific plans, but the TV ratings and declining attendance at some tracks have certainly captured their attention. France emphasized in November that NASCAR intends to work harder to retain its die-hard fans.

“We do want to work harder in the future with the fan base that likes NASCAR most, our die-hard fans, to make sure we are not missing anything,” he said. “There is always the possibility that you may not be focused on your core fans enough, and we are going to make sure in the future that that isn’t the case.”

Will Kahne, Evernham Rebound?

Kahne’s stunning downturn last year was perhaps the biggest shock of 2007, outside of Earnhardt Jr.’s departure from DEI and maybe that bizarre picture of NASCAR President Mike Helton posing with Paris Hilton.

Kahne went from six wins in 2006 to none in ’07, from 12 top-five finishes to one and from making the Chase in 2007 to way, way out of it.

What the heck happened? Gillett Evernham officials never found an answer, and Kahne’s second-place finish at Bristol in August was the organization’s only top-five of the year.

Kahne’s struggles likely had more to do with his car and team than the driver. Dodge teams scored just three wins with the Charger and Avenger, and GEM never seemed to get a handle on either car.

But as disappointing as last year was, the pressure to turn those fortunes around will be immense this season. Budweiser has come on board to sponsor Kahne, investing a gigantic sum of money in the driver who will replace Earnhardt Jr. in the beer brand’s famous red colors. Surely, another winless season and a 19th-place finish in points would be unacceptable for such a high-profile sponsor.

Whether Kahne can rebound will depend on the improvement of Ray Evernham’s revamped organization. After selling a majority of the team to businessman George Gillett last season, both the new ownership and sponsors will be expecting a turnaround.
 
Can DEI Find Success?

In the previous three seasons, cars fielded by DEI have combined to make 278 starts and have visited victory lane only three times. That’s one win per year for an organization that as recently as 2004 had a serious championship contender in Earnhardt Jr.

Four years later, Earnhardt Jr. is gone, and DEI is faced with the challenge of rebuilding.

Martin Truex Jr., who won his first Cup race and made the Chase last year, is the team’s best hope. The duo of Mark Martin and Aric Almirola will split DEI’s No. 8 car under crew chief Tony Gibson, while rookie Regan Smith is slated to drive the No. 01, for which the organization has not yet announced a sponsor. Paul Menard and the No. 15 have yet to prove they can be competitive.

The organization continued to go through upheaval in the offseason as some crew members from the former Ginn Racing team, which DEI purchased last year, left to pursue other opportunities. Former crew chief Ryan Pemberton left because of what he described as philosophical differences – yet Martin described Pemberton as perhaps the smartest crew chief he’s ever worked with.

On the other hand, many believe executives Max Siegel and John Story are making the right moves and have the team on the upswing.

Tony Stewart once said that without Earnhardt Jr., DEI would be a museum. Now that Earnhardt Jr. is gone, DEI will be watched to see how it fares without the sport’s biggest star.

Are Changes On The Way?

NASCAR has made some big changes to its rules and race procedures in recent years, creating and then tweaking its championship format and implementing such features as the green-white-checkered rule, freezing the field under caution and the free pass.

But few rules have created as much controversy as the top-35 rule, which determines which teams race and which ones go home each week. It could also be the next procedure to be overhauled.

The top-35 rule has created two groups of Cup teams – the haves and the have-nots. A guaranteed starting spot in races means everything, and the teams without that privilege come under immense pressure and stress just to stay afloat. Sponsorships, and thus the prospect of continued employment, are often on the line for those who fall out of the top 35 in owner points.

Of the 11 full-time teams that finished the season outside of the top-35 last year, nine will have a different driver or crew chief this season.

Currently, teams outside the top 35 qualify using the same procedures as everyone else. But NASCAR could change the rules to group those cars together, thus reducing the advantage a team might have by qualifying later in a session, when the tracks are often cooler.

With so much pressure and controversy surrounding the system, more tweaks to the top-35 rule could be coming.
       
What Is Nationwide Series' Fate?

It’s yet to be seen how the series formerly known as the Busch Series may change in the future – the arrival of a NASCAR-designed car and possible alterations to the point system are still a year away – but the first year of the Nationwide Series might look a whole lot like the last year of the Busch Series.

The series seems destined to be dominated by Cup drivers once again, though this year the points race should be closer than in the last two seasons.

Last year, Carl Edwards won by 618 points. In 2006, Kevin Harvick set a record with an 824-point victory margin.

But this year, Edwards and series runnerup David Reutimann will be joined by Clint Bowyer and David Ragan as Cup regulars running full-time Nationwide schedules. That might tighten the standings and allow for a more competitive championship battle.

But how long Cup drivers will be allowed to dominate the series remains to be seen. NASCAR is seriously considering prohibiting Cup drivers from competing for the championship, which could dramatically change the series.

Now that Nationwide has signed on as series sponsor, both NASCAR and its new sponsor will work on figuring out the identity of the series and what it will look like in years ahead.

• Mentioned Drivers:
• Aric Almirola