Among one of the many storylines steamrolled by Jimmie Johnson en route to the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup championship was the Rookie of the Year contest. Then again, maybe the ROY award wasn’t that big of a story thanks to its eventual winner - Joey 
Logano.
Logano - the 2009 Raybestos Rookie of the Year – made a shambles of the competition this year as he was the top finishing freshman 26 times in 36 Sprint Cup events this year. The final numbers will show that Logano beat Scott Speed by a 270-237 margin to grab the title.
Logano’s solid inaugural NASCAR Sprint Cup campaign took a little while to get going thanks in part to NASCAR’s testing policy that banned the now 19-year-old from getting track time at a facility prior to an event. That translated into a dead-last finish in the season-opening Daytona 500 and just one top-10 finish (ninth at Bristol) in the first 10 events of the year for Logano.
Logano got used to the bigger, heavier Cup cars and the competition during the middle portion of the 2009 season and the results showed it as he grabbed top-10 finishes at Darlington and Charlotte in May before heading back to his New England roots where he stunned the competition winning at New Hampshire. The victory came in just Logano’s 20th career Cup start.
Over the final half of the season, Logano’s finishing average was 18th – and that included a 42nd at Dover when he survived a wild wreck/endo not of his own making. In all, Logano was on the lead lap at the checkered flag in 13 of the final 18 Cup races this season.
As good as Logano was on the Cup side, his 2009 Nationwide results were even more impressive. Wheeling the hottest iron in the garage area, Logano and Kyle Busch destroyed the competition in the Nationwide division with their Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotoas. In just 22 races this season, Logano notched four Nationwide poles and five 
wins. His finishing average in those 22 events – 7.6. For the most part, Logano was the only driver who could compete with Busch, his nine wins and 25 top-5 finishes in 35 races set Nationwide division marks of excellence that will stand for a long time.
When Logano’s name hit the newspapers several years ago after Mark Martin stated Logano would be the man to take his place when he retired, the expectations for the young driver have always been over the top. Logano exceeded those expectations this year and while he never replaced Martin (no one has to date and no one likely ever will), Logano made good on Martin’s prophecy that he would one day be a star in the Cup Series ranks.
Like Richard Petty, Donnie Allison, Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Jeff Gordon Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch – all NASCAR ROY winners before him – Joey Logano appears destined for stock car racing stardom of epic proportions. That’s especially true given Logano is in the right situation and great equipment at JGR. Remember, he's only 19. Get used to seeing him in a lot of NASCAR Victory Lane celebrations over the next couple of decades or so.
TV Viewing Woes
NASCAR weathered a tough year economically with super season of action, a historic championship winning performance by Johnson, and Martin’s feel good championship effort. Despite all that, the television numbers for NASCAR’s top division continued to shrink with ABC averaging a 3.5 rating for its coverage of the Chase. That’s down from a 3.8 for both 2007 and 2008.
While we don’t profess to know why the TV numbers continue to shrink, we do have a suggestion to make the telecasts better and maybe, more compelling to watch.
Give the fans the whole race. Adopt the ‘Side-by-Side’ coverage ABC/ESPN uses in Indy car race telecasts allowing viewers the opportunity to watch the race next to a commercial during a break.
NASCAR races aren’t boring or too long for television. Television needs to find a better way of presenting a NASCAR package that has no time outs or breaks. Just as it wouldn’t break away from an NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA or NHL game while the action was in full swing, television shouldn’t do it during a NASCAR race either.
The television numbers for NASCAR will get better when the networks finally come around to the decision that this is 2009, not 1969 anymore. The days of race fans being happy with seeing segments of a race on ABC’s Wide World of Sports are long over and still telecasting them that way – in segments between commercial breaks – isn’t viable anymore either.
