Catching A Wave
If you were to have your choice of rides for 2004 but had to base your decision on only the last couple of races of 2003 which team would you pick? Kasey Kahne gets the smoking-hot Evernham Motorsports #9 seat that Bill Elliott retired from. The #9 team ended last season as the best team in NASCAR with a win and a near-win to end the season.
Kahne also ended 2003 on a high note closing out the season with a win in Homestead. The driver clearly has talent. He's got the legendary Ray Evernham in his corner and the world's hottest team behind him. Clearly Kasey Kahne is in the right place at the right time to make a splash in NEXTEL Cup racing.
Running Away With The Crown
The last few years have featured some great rookie points battles. Dale Earnhardt Jr and Matt Kenseth as well as Greg Biffle and Jamie McMurray left the Raybestos Rookie Of The Year battle in doubt until late in the season. This year should be much less interesting.
Take the current Busch series champion and put him a Hendrick car? That's going to spell trouble for the other five rookie competitors. Brian Vickers is a very talented driver who is coming into an established team with a strong support structure in place to help him along.
Yes, this was the worst of the Hendrick teams in 2003, but being the worst Hendrick team still meant a win for unseated Joe Nemechek. While the #25 has struggled over the last few years compared to the others in the same stable the 2004 edition retains Peter Sospenzo as crew chief while new sponsor GMAC comes along with Vickers from the Busch series.
Vickers himself is no slouch. He finished out 2003 with three wins and twenty-one top ten finishes in the ultra-competitive Busch series. He also survived one of the best points battles in the history of NASCAR to win the 2003 Busch series title. Clearly he knows something about getting the job done under pressure. That's a skill that will come in handy as he goes under the media microscope in 2004.
The Round Up
The worst of the rookie bunch this year are far better than the worst from previous seasons, and any of the bottom five could potentially shuffle positions. Kasey Kahne has the most potential to make me wrong and pull off the mild upset but I'm pretty confident in saying:
The 2004 Raybestos Rookie Of The Year winner is Brian Vickers.
