We're getting within sight of the end of the season, and so it's time to begin our look back. In a feature shamelessly ripped from Puck Daddy's Death Watch and Big League Stew's Walk Toward The Light, we'll be counting down each and every car that fell short of the Sprint Cup this year. And yes, I know there aren't taillights on Sprint cars. It's a metaphor. Roll with it.
So did you know that 65 different drivers ran in Sprint Cup races this year, to this point? It's true. And it's down only slightly from 2008, when 71 drivers ran. Today, we say farewell to the last of the guys who ran single-digit totals of races, starting from the top down.
Names: Bill Elliott, Aric Almirola, Scott Riggs, Patrick Carpentier, Travis Kvapil, Jeremy Mayfield, Sterling Marlin, Terry Labonte, Mike Skinner, Michael McDowell, Todd Bodine.
Records: No top-10s or poles amongst this group, but quite a few of them have enough merits to coast on that they don't need to worry about late-career accolades.
Where it went wrong: Most of these guys were just short-term fill-ins or part-timers in for another run. So they didn't exactly expect much to go right. (Mayfield, for his part, though, had it go wrong about fifteen different ways. Pick one.)
Prospects for 2010: Not a whole lot different from 2009. Kvapil, Almirola and a few others could be in line for seats in 2010 if there were seats available. Elliott and Labonte may do a few laps for old times' sake, and Carpentier may just stick with open-wheel for now.
Next up: The low end of the double-digit crew.
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