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First off - congratulations to Johnny Benson for winning the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship last night. I feel like I need to put that in here so I don't sounds like a whining Ron Hornaday-fan, which I might, but I'm not. I just really don't like the fact that, well, let me just repost what I wrote two months ago...
But really - what is the reason why Ron Hornaday is not the points leader today? I think you can point to our nation's economy. Yes, I'm being totally serious.
In what is surely a situation affected by economics (and a Gateway-Loudon-Las Vegas in three weeks schedule that likely doesn't help) only 31 trucks were in Las Vegas Saturday - the smallest turnout for a Truck Series race since 2001 at Nashville. When Johnny Benson cut down a tire and hit the wall, he was the fifth truck to retire, leaving him in 27th place.
Now, because of the way NASCAR's points-system works, Benson was awarded 87 points (including five bonus points for leading a lap). HOWEVER, if a full 36 truck-field had turned out for the race, and Benson had been the fifth truck out - he would have been 32nd - receiving 15 LESS points than for 27th. He would actually be 14 points BEHIND Hornaday if not for the short field Saturday.
When you give points to everybody, regardless of the minimum performance, you create a situation where the differences in the worst performances - things dictated often by what drivers can't control like a bad tire or a blown engine or someone else's crash - are as important as the differences in the best ones. That's how dumb luck can be the difference - TOO big of a difference - in a championship.
It is also worth pointing out that not only did Hornaday have more wins that Benson, he actually beat Benson on the track, head-to-head, 13 times out of 25. They also had the same number of top-fives and top-tens, so essentially their seven NOT top-ten finishes were the championship-deciders. Whatever the case, Benson won the championship by seven points. It will be interesting to see where he ends up next year.
Strangely, since Ron Hornaday won the extremely prestigious JJD version of the Truck Series championship, that makes SIX years in a row that my champion has been different from NASCAR's.
2008 - Ron Hornaday (NASCAR - Johnny Benson)
2007 - Mike Skinner (NASCAR - Ron Hornaday)
2006 - Johnny Benson (NASCAR - Todd Bodine)
2005 - Todd Bodine (NASCAR - Ted Musgrave)
2004 - Ted Musgrave (NASCAR - Bobby Hamilton Sr.)
2003 - Brendan Gaughan (NASCAR - Travis Kvapil)
2002 - Mike Bliss
2001 - Jack Sprague
2000 - Greg Biffle
1999 - Jack Sprague
1998 - Ron Hornaday
1997 - Jack Sprague
1996 - Mike Skinner (NASCAR - Ron Hornaday)
1995 - Mike Skinner
Congratulations also to Todd Bodine for winning the Ford 200. The win gives Bodine 15 Truck Series wins in his career, and with his 15 Busch/NWS wins he is only the second driver to get to 15 wins in both series. (Greg Biffle has 18 Busch/NWS wins and 16 Truck Series wins.) He is also the 34th driver ever to get to 30 TOTAL wins, but only the third to do so without a Cup victory. (After Ron Hornaday's 43 wins and Jack Ingram's 31 wins.)
Here are the final 2008 drivers standings, including every driver who scored a point.
CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES
Rank Points
1 Ron Hornaday 290
2 Johnny Benson 274
3 Todd Bodine 240
4 Kyle Busch 226
5 Erik Darnell 174
6 Matt Crafton 153
7 Mike Skinner 138
8 Rick Crawford 121
9 Dennis Setzer 103
10 Jack Sprague 101
11 Scott Speed 81
12 David Starr 80
13 Terry Cook 70
14 Chad McCumbee 69
Colin Braun 69
16 Travis Kvapil 57
17 Brian Scott 52
18 Brendan Gaughan 47
19 T.J. Bell 40
20 Kevin Harvick 36
21 Donny Lia 35
22 Ted Musgrave 31
23 Michael Annett 27
24 Landon Cassill 26
25 Stacy Compton 23
26 Ryan Newman 21
27 Shelby Howard 20
28 Denny Hamlin 15
29 John Andretti 14
30 Bobby East 12
Ken Schrader 12
32 Mike Wallace 10
33 Justin Marks 9
34 Jon Wood 8
Brad Keselowski 8
36 Marc Mitchell 6
Jeff Green 6
38 Shane Sieg 4
Sean Murphy 4
Phillip McGilton 4
David Stremme 4
Sam Hornish Jr. 4
43 Jason White 3
Timothy Peters 3
45 Andy Lally 2
46 Chad Chaffin 1
Ryan Lawler 1
Mario Gosselin 1
Jack Smith 1
Mike Bliss 1
Jimmie Johnson 1
This is also the first year that I have tracked the manufacturer's standings. NASCAR gives points based on the order of the makes - so in last night's race Chevrolet came in "second", even though their first truck finished THIRD behind two Toyotas. That doesn't make a whole lt of sense to me, so I scored them based on where the highest-finishing truck was. (So last night Toyota got first-place with the pole and the most laps led, Chevrolet got third while leading a lap, Dodge fifth, and Ford sixth.)
Toyota 488
Chevrolet 433
Ford 287
Dodge 124
No big surprise there - Toyota won 13 races to Chevrolet's ten, with more poles (11 vs. 6) and more most-laps-led bonuses (13 vs. 9).
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