In The Rear View: 2008 Nationwide Series Top Performances

• Comments [0]
•  Print This Post
• Email This Post To A Friend

Kyle Ocker, FanZone Sports

The 2008 Nationwide Series season came to an end with Clint Bowyer capturing his first NASCAR Driver Championship.  The driver from a small-town called Emporia, Kansas, he won by 21 points over fellow mid westerner Carl Edwards. As I did with the Truck Series on Tuesday, and will doing with the Sprint Cup Series Saturday morning, I will breakdown the 5 biggest races and moments of the 2008 season.

1. NAPA Auto Parts 200 presented by Dodge at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve: In the first race that NASCAR has run entirely under the rain, Ron Fellows drove on for a win after a costly mistake on pit road late in the race plagued Marcos Ambrose again, after he led a race-high 27 laps.  The race was eventually shortned because of rain, but it will be remembered as the first race rain in the rain, under green flag conditions on rain tires.

2.  Hefty OdorBlock 200 at Phoenix International Raceway: A remarkable effort by Bowyer’s crew to get him from a 24th place finish to a fourth place finish in this race may have been a very important step to Bowyer’s championship this season.  Bowyer’s 207-points lead had shrunk to 91 after just six races, and after Bowyer fell out of this race, Edwards drove to victory in what he thought would be a big points day.  However, with Bowyer finishing in fourth place, Bowyer was able to keep a large enough points lead to capture his first NASCAR driver’s championship at Homestead the next weekend.

3.  Federated Auto Parts 300 presented by Dollar General at Nashville Superspeedway: Brad Keselowski captured his first win at this race, after the final restart, Keselowski drove by Bowyer, Kyle Busch, and David Reutimann to capture the coveted guitar trophy at Nashville.

4.  CARQUEST Auto Parts 300 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway: This race was won by Busch, but that may not be the reason this race is remembered.  Late in the race, Denny Hamlin and Keselowski where involved in an on-track altercation, which caused Hamlin to retaliate under caution, nearly taking off Keselowksi’s front bumper.  However, Dale Earnhardt Jr., who owns Keselowski’s Chevrolet, was right behind the both of them, and the most popular driver in NASCAR decided to give Hamlin a “love-tap,” just to express his thoughts about the altercation.

5.  Food City 250 at Bristol Motor Speedway:  A rare late-race miscue by Bowyer led Keselowski to his second career win. Keselowski started 37th and doggedly fought his way through the field – which included 11 double-duty drivers – and finally caught Bowyer, who led a race-high 121 laps. On Lap 227 with Keselowski charging, Bowyer inexplicably slipped off Turn 2. Keselowski pounced and held on to win the drag race with Bowyer to the checkered flag.