No Junior in New York caps off disappointing season

So it's Champions Week in the Big Apple.

It's time to rain down more confetti on the head of Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, who became the first driver (and only second ever) in 30 years to win three consecutive championships in 2008. It's maximum exposure time for other drivers and their sponsors as well.

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But something will be missing in New York this week -- or at least during this Friday night's gala wrap-up festivities in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

The most popular driver in NASCAR will be sitting this one out. Again.

When the top drivers of the 2008 season are introduced one-by-one to come up on stage and be recognized Friday, Dale Earnhardt Jr. will not be among them for the third time in four years. Since the Chase format was introduced in 2004, he has made the main stage at the end of a season only twice -- placing fifth in points in '04 and again in 2006.

This year was supposed to be different, and it certainly started out that way.

Starting anew

Ditching the supposed wicked stepmother, Teresa Earnhardt, and the company she was busy running into the ground that was founded by his late and legendary father, Earnhardt Jr. was starting anew in a No. 88 Chevrolet fielded by the most successful owner currently operating in the business, Rick Hendrick.

Former champion Darrell Waltrip predicted Junior would win the season-opening Daytona 500 and "at least" six races during the 2008 season. When Earnhardt opened up Speedweeks in Daytona by winning both the Bud Shootout and his 150-mile qualifying race for the 500, Waltrip was looking like a genius.

So was Hendrick. You got the feeling early on that if Mr. H would have been pressed hard to predict a champion from his crop of drivers at Hendrick Motorsports, he would have at the very least hemmed and hawed a good bit before picking Jimmie over Junior.

Earnhardt seemed that hot, that focused.

When he finished in the top 10 in five of the first six races, including second at Las Vegas, third in Atlanta, fifth at Bristol and sixth at Martinsville in consecutive weeks, the Juniorella story still seemed plausible. He hadn't won in nearly two years, but who cared? Surely that was only a matter of time, and then he would go on to contend for the title.