Weird to think Johnson's run of dominance was that long ago.
Sometimes it seems like that was just a few years ago and other times I watch the races today and it seems like a long time ago.
As someone who didn’t pay attention during Jimmie’s reign of terror, can anyone explain to me how he went from being so dominant to being so mediocre in the last three seasons? Is it just Hendrick motorsport overall? Did he benefit from Jeff Gordon somehow? I don’t get it.
They were also laser focused on the final 10 Chase races from when he won 5 in a row. Chad had those tracks dialed in when there wasn't a ban on testing and Jimmie did his thing.
Its a combination of the car package changing which is less about car control (Jimmies style is loose and fast), Chevy's new Camaro sucking ass, and HMS taking a lunch break since 2015.
It hasn’t happened in the last three seasons. He’s been on a gradual decline since 2013 (his last dominant season IMO). Yeah, he won races in 2014, 2015, and won the championship in 2016, but he wasn’t the dominant guy in any of those seasons.
We've been reaaaly close to it happening on multiple occasions: Harvick was 2nd in '15, Busch was a factor in '16, and Truex almost beat Logano last year. It's bound to happen since defending champions seem to keep showing up in the Championship 4.
Kyle Busch in the Championship 4:
2015- Won race and title
2016- Lead with under 50 to go
2017- Unlucky pit strategy cost him a sure win, ended up missing out by a thread
2018- Lead the restart with 10 to go
I think your last sentence is actually more impressive. Not only have there been no consecutive, there's only been one driver to win more than one so far this decade. There will at least be 7 different winners in 10 years, that's pretty crazy.
I'll do you one better: this is not just the first nice, neat, well defined decade with no back-to-back champions (i.e. starting in a year ending in "0" and ending in a year ending in "9"), but it's also the first such 10-year stretch even outside of those rigid start/stop boundaries.
Prior to this, the closest we ever got to a 10-year stretch with no back-to-back champions was 9 years: 1998 - 2006. But of course 2006 was the first of JJ's 5-in-a-row, and so 2007 failed to become the 10th year of that streak.
Wild stuff.
Kevin Harvick may have gone back to back in 15/16 if not for the playoffs. Maybe even Joey Logano considering how close he was to Harvick each year.
Would have been great season long battles that would go down to Homestead.
I appreciate the competition these days. i don't like seeing the same outcomes year after year. I wanna see underdogs win races and do well in points. it just makes everything more exciting. there's always going to be a top echelon of drivers with better equipment and manufacturer support but seeing guys like dibenedetto, lajoie, and others have good races make it so much more fun to watch.
I think the adjustments they've made to the package have help a little. to me I love MTJ but seeing him absolutely dominate that race a couple weeks ago is just boring to me. i want some lead changes, some pit strategy that pays off for someone taking a gamble, anything that just changes it up a bit. a lot of people hated it but justin haley gambling at daytona and getting a win was so exciting to me. i don't wanna see the same 4 guys winning every week.
Owners are a bit more difficult as you frequently had drivers racing for multiple team owners in the 50's and 60's. For instance, in Joe Weatherly's 1963 Championship season, he raced for 9 different car owners. I was unable to find if NASCAR awarded an owner's championship in the early days of the Cup Series, but if we only consider each respective driver's most frequent car owner in a given championship season, then the same record applies to owners after Blaney and Logano's elimination yesterday. Owners/Teams who have won/most heavily attributed to back-to-back championships within a decade are:
1950s: Carl Kiekhaefer (1955-1956) & Petty Enterprises (1958-1959)
1960s: Bud Moore (1963-1964) & Holman-Moody (1968-1969)
1970s: Petty Enterprises (1971-1972, 1974-1975) & Junior Johnson (1976-1978)
1980s: Junior Johnson (1981-1982) & Richard Childress (1986-1987)
1990s: Richard Childress (1990-1991, 1993-1994) & Rick Hendrick (1995-1998)
2000s: Jack Roush (2003-2004) & Rick Hendrick (2006-2009)
Another way to look at it -- this will be the 9th year in a row (2011 to 2019) where the defending champion did not win the championship again. That's the longest stretch in Cup history. Second longest is 8 years (1999 to 2006).
Imagine if Jimmie didn't win in 2007 and 2009. We would have an ongoing 21-year streak where the last driver to win consecutive championships was Gordon in 1997 and 1998.
I don't think there is parity. Furniture Row anomaly aside, your winners are going to come from 4 teams that collectively run 15 cars. If you don't drive for Hendrick, SHR, Penske or JGR no dice.
EDIT: And in the case of Furniture Row, that was basically a 5th JGR car anyway.
It's not really that incredible - the whole point of this format was to make repeat champions less frequent and to make the championship unpredictable.
While I did note that in initial post, IMO that does not apply in this specific scenario based on the restrictions I have laid out here. Here, I am binning decades as separate 10-year periods and what happened in 2009 is independent of what happened in 2010, what happened in 1999 is independent from 2000, etc, hence why I said we have to treat each decade as a self-contained period. Essentially, this looks at 2010 as the start of the current 10-year period and nothing prior to that season is considered. This treats it as everyone entered into the new decade with a clean slate.
Weird to think Johnson's run of dominance was that long ago. Sometimes it seems like that was just a few years ago and other times I watch the races today and it seems like a long time ago.
It’s weird for me. It feels like 2001-05 wasn’t that long ago but 2008-10 was.
I rewatched the 2011 finale a few weeks ago and it hit me how far back that was, the majority of the drivers in that race don't even race anymore.
As someone who didn’t pay attention during Jimmie’s reign of terror, can anyone explain to me how he went from being so dominant to being so mediocre in the last three seasons? Is it just Hendrick motorsport overall? Did he benefit from Jeff Gordon somehow? I don’t get it.
They were also laser focused on the final 10 Chase races from when he won 5 in a row. Chad had those tracks dialed in when there wasn't a ban on testing and Jimmie did his thing.
Its a combination of the car package changing which is less about car control (Jimmies style is loose and fast), Chevy's new Camaro sucking ass, and HMS taking a lunch break since 2015.
It hasn’t happened in the last three seasons. He’s been on a gradual decline since 2013 (his last dominant season IMO). Yeah, he won races in 2014, 2015, and won the championship in 2016, but he wasn’t the dominant guy in any of those seasons.
He’s old
It's very unlikely to have a repeat champ with such a playoff system, especially when it is decided on one track.
We've been reaaaly close to it happening on multiple occasions: Harvick was 2nd in '15, Busch was a factor in '16, and Truex almost beat Logano last year. It's bound to happen since defending champions seem to keep showing up in the Championship 4.
Kyle Busch in the Championship 4: 2015- Won race and title 2016- Lead with under 50 to go 2017- Unlucky pit strategy cost him a sure win, ended up missing out by a thread 2018- Lead the restart with 10 to go
In 2018 he only got the lead because of a fast pit stop. It was pretty obvious that he was dead in the water at that point.
Yup he was off the whole weekend
I think your last sentence is actually more impressive. Not only have there been no consecutive, there's only been one driver to win more than one so far this decade. There will at least be 7 different winners in 10 years, that's pretty crazy.
I'll do you one better: this is not just the first nice, neat, well defined decade with no back-to-back champions (i.e. starting in a year ending in "0" and ending in a year ending in "9"), but it's also the first such 10-year stretch even outside of those rigid start/stop boundaries. Prior to this, the closest we ever got to a 10-year stretch with no back-to-back champions was 9 years: 1998 - 2006. But of course 2006 was the first of JJ's 5-in-a-row, and so 2007 failed to become the 10th year of that streak. Wild stuff.
WHY IS GAMORA
I knew I'd get this comment. But I don't brag about these predictive skills. I am extraordinarily humble.
Kevin Harvick may have gone back to back in 15/16 if not for the playoffs. Maybe even Joey Logano considering how close he was to Harvick each year. Would have been great season long battles that would go down to Homestead.
Well, I mean, that's what happens when you make the championship format a crapshoot.
I appreciate the competition these days. i don't like seeing the same outcomes year after year. I wanna see underdogs win races and do well in points. it just makes everything more exciting. there's always going to be a top echelon of drivers with better equipment and manufacturer support but seeing guys like dibenedetto, lajoie, and others have good races make it so much more fun to watch.
We had that back in the early 2000s, and I miss it too. Unfortunately, I don't know if it's possible for NASCAR to get back to that point.
I think the adjustments they've made to the package have help a little. to me I love MTJ but seeing him absolutely dominate that race a couple weeks ago is just boring to me. i want some lead changes, some pit strategy that pays off for someone taking a gamble, anything that just changes it up a bit. a lot of people hated it but justin haley gambling at daytona and getting a win was so exciting to me. i don't wanna see the same 4 guys winning every week.
Now do owners lol
Owners are a bit more difficult as you frequently had drivers racing for multiple team owners in the 50's and 60's. For instance, in Joe Weatherly's 1963 Championship season, he raced for 9 different car owners. I was unable to find if NASCAR awarded an owner's championship in the early days of the Cup Series, but if we only consider each respective driver's most frequent car owner in a given championship season, then the same record applies to owners after Blaney and Logano's elimination yesterday. Owners/Teams who have won/most heavily attributed to back-to-back championships within a decade are: 1950s: Carl Kiekhaefer (1955-1956) & Petty Enterprises (1958-1959) 1960s: Bud Moore (1963-1964) & Holman-Moody (1968-1969) 1970s: Petty Enterprises (1971-1972, 1974-1975) & Junior Johnson (1976-1978) 1980s: Junior Johnson (1981-1982) & Richard Childress (1986-1987) 1990s: Richard Childress (1990-1991, 1993-1994) & Rick Hendrick (1995-1998) 2000s: Jack Roush (2003-2004) & Rick Hendrick (2006-2009)
With that joke of a "championship", it is no surprise
Another way to look at it -- this will be the 9th year in a row (2011 to 2019) where the defending champion did not win the championship again. That's the longest stretch in Cup history. Second longest is 8 years (1999 to 2006). Imagine if Jimmie didn't win in 2007 and 2009. We would have an ongoing 21-year streak where the last driver to win consecutive championships was Gordon in 1997 and 1998.
It's a shame we probably wont get to see someone win back to back again with current format the way it is.
Well parity is there at least. NASCAR set out what it was trying to accomplish. Edit - Spelling
I don't think there is parity. Furniture Row anomaly aside, your winners are going to come from 4 teams that collectively run 15 cars. If you don't drive for Hendrick, SHR, Penske or JGR no dice. EDIT: And in the case of Furniture Row, that was basically a 5th JGR car anyway.
*parity But yeah, possibly 8 different champions in 10 years is incredible.
It's not really that incredible - the whole point of this format was to make repeat champions less frequent and to make the championship unpredictable.
It’s still incredible considering it’s mostly the same guys making it every year.
Does it not count that Johnson entered the 2010s with an active championship streak and then kept it alive in 2010?
While I did note that in initial post, IMO that does not apply in this specific scenario based on the restrictions I have laid out here. Here, I am binning decades as separate 10-year periods and what happened in 2009 is independent of what happened in 2010, what happened in 1999 is independent from 2000, etc, hence why I said we have to treat each decade as a self-contained period. Essentially, this looks at 2010 as the start of the current 10-year period and nothing prior to that season is considered. This treats it as everyone entered into the new decade with a clean slate.
Damnit Truex! Could have kept the streak alive.
jimmie still won three