April 19th, 2011 
Journo Coming off of a season that saw a pot hole mar the opening race and then rain and other issues combine to make for a less than stellar start, 2011 has been nothing short of a breath of fresh air in the Cup Series. And consider this, with Jimmie Johnson’s come from behind win Sunday in Talladega this season has produced seven different winners in eight different races – not a bad start to the season.
Add to that solid start four different championship points leaders and six different lead changes and you’ve got a season that hasn’t really had a stand out driver or team through the first portion.
Our current top-ten in points have had some good stats to back them up – all have at least four top-tens, and with the exception of Kurt Busch, all have at least two top-fives. Half of them have wins. All – with the exception of Kurt Busch – hold the distinction though of having at least one finish of 24th or worse. Some have finishes a lot worse.
The only guy to score repeat wins? Well so far, Kevin Harvick has a DNF at Daytona and two sub-17th place finishes on top of that. His season has so far been a bit of a roller coaster.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the only drivers to have any measure of consistency are the top-three. Carl Edwards is averaging a finish of 8.2 (with blemishes at Phoenix and Martinsville); Jimmie Johnson is averaging a finish of 8.9 with one bad run at Daytona; and Dale Earnhardt Jr., though he is winless, is channeling that classic Steve Letarte consistency, averaging a 10th place finish with just one DNF (a 24th place finish) at Daytona.
Even with the brighter spots in the top-ten, the points are still close enough for drivers to have big swings in and out. Both Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth jumped five spots (in opposite directions) this past weekend.
The fact is, and I think this speaks to the level of competition we have right now in the sport, there just isn’t a dominate team. Going into race nine, it gets harder to turn seven out of eight into eight out of nine, but with the way this season has gone, anything could happen.
So what do you think? Has anybody stood out to you? Who’s most likely to make an early run?
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im still pissed about the yellow line violation
let it go, there was NO violation. Notice that NONE of the drivers said anything, only the fans seem to be making it an issue when its not. Kevin Harvick even tweeted that Jimmie won it fair. And that’s saying alot coming from Kevin, who isn’t afraid to say what he thinks.
Hard to believe we’re this deep in the season and no one has stepped up to really put his stamp on things. Harvick has certainly had the chance to with two wins but the DNF and other bad finishes hurt. And where is Denny Hamlin? Will the Hendrick guys step up in a big way? What about Stewart and Newman? Still lots of questions to be answered and a lot of good racing to watch to get those answers.
The media thinks its Kyle Busch. I’m good with that.
I am no Junior fanboy, but I do like how that team is able to move toward the front on a fairly consistent basis this year. Teams that can do this have to be taken seriously.
Not his biggest fan but like I said right here before Daytona, Carl Edwards has the goods to break up the 6-peat.
I don’t think it has anything to do with the level of competition stepping up. It seems more like Nascar manipulated the points system to make it seem so. I have said it before, and I am saying it again, Nascar needs to ask themselves WWDD? What would Dale do? BEFORE making these stupid decisions that have killed the sport I loved.