Driver of the Year

1/14/04

Is it spring yet? Winter in Maine is always too long and too cold but this year seems to be longer and colder than usual. The Busch North Banquet, although it was only two months ago, is a distant memory and the season opener at Lee USA is still three months away. I hear the Cup and Busch drivers complaining all the time about how short the off season is and how little time they have for relaxation, family and preparation for the upcoming season. They ought to try an off season in Maine.

During the early days of the off season, back before Christmas when the Cup teams were finishing up their silly season, having their banquets and winding down, we were getting 40+ inches of snow followed by another foot the next week. No need to worry about working on a race car or anything else during that period. You couldn’t have found it in the backyard anyway. I had to search to find my street car in the morning and there were neighbor’s cars that we didn’t see for days. After we got the snow all cleaned up, there was still no problem ignoring the race car, or racing in general, because we had a warming spell and steady rain for three days that caused massive flooding over parts of the state and closed most of the roads at one time or another in this area. Even the local McDonalds and the Irving gas station were underwater and closed for a couple days.

There has been plenty of time for relaxation and family since the water subsided, as it has been well below zero for two weeks and no one has dared to venture outside. No worries about having to go work on the race car or do any testing because the family car won’t even start, let alone any race car, hauler, or anything else mechanical.

All the while, the Cup, Busch and Truck crews are hanging out in Daytona Beach and complaining about having no off season. If our off season here gets any longer, we’ll just have a Forth of July race for all the championships and all the money and then let everyone get back to either shoveling, pumping, freezing or bitching, whichever they prefer.

One saving grace of the off season is the annual Busch North Scene snowmobile ride for charity, which will happen again on January 31^st and, I’m certain, will be the best and most well attended yet. Details are elsewhere in this issue of the paper, make your plans now!

The other thing that always happens during the off season is the annual Driver of the Year voting and results. At this point, I have no idea who is leading in any category and probably won’t know until you do. I do have some ideas of my own, though, and as usual, I’m going to bore you with them. If you don’t want my opinions, now would be a good time to go to the refrigerator because, here it is.

Driver of the year: Martin Truex Jr. That may seem to be an odd pick as Martin ran only six BNS races this season, but look at it this way. Martin won 33% of the races he attempted, no one else was close to that percentage. He won the pole for 66% of the attempts he made, way higher than any other driver did. More importantly, he finished in the top five an amazing five times in six races. Those are some pretty impressive stats for anyone but even more so for Martin, considering that he also competed in ten Busch Series races. In the Busch Series he finished in the top five twice and in the top ten three times which impressed enough people that he was offered a full time Busch ride this season with what is arguably the #1 team on the circuit. Again, this may seem an odd pick due to the awesome season that Andy Santerre had, but it’s my opinion and I will live or die with it, as usual.

Sorry, Andy, you are a championship driver and have proven that over and over. Without Martin’s achievements this season, you would be my pick for Driver of the Year, unquestionably, but not for winning the championship. You would be my pick for the fact that you won the most races of anyone for the season. You accumulated the most top fives and the most top tens of anyone for the season and, just as importantly, you had no DNF’s for the whole season. Along with those stats comes a championship. Remarkable! Not enough to sway my decision, but remarkable.

The only other award I have an opinion on that I want to share is the Most Improved Driver award. Last year, the Editor asked me to predict 2003’s Most Improved Driver. My prediction was Joey McCarthy and I think I nailed it pretty well! Brian Hoar and Eddie McDonald were also much improved and deserve plenty of credit, themselves, but Joey gets the nod. Not only did he finish sixth in the points, he had a pole, a win, six top fives and 10 top tens. Joey also kicked some serious ass out in California and that accounts for a lot of my decision. I’m sure 2004 will be another building season for all three of the mentioned drivers and I won’t be at all surprised to see one of them get a championship in the very near future.

As for making a prediction on the 2004 Most Improved Driver, it could go to any one of five or six regulars but I’m going to go off the chart again with this one and predict that the Most Improved Driver for 2004 will be my wife, Robin. After tough 2002 and 2003 seasons involving accidents and speeding tickets, I expect the higher insurance rates, constant nagging from me and the subtle jokes from the kids will give her the incentive she needs to be this season’s Most Improved Driver!

As always, send Questions, Comments, Hate Mail, and Indecent Proposals to, Fish c/o Busch North Scene or e-mail them to fishy@gwi.net