10 Things To Watch For Heading Into The 2008NASCAR Season

1. Toyota's emergence as a force to reckin' with. With the addition of Joe Gibbs Racing in the Toyota racing family look for this car manufacturer to do well this year.

2. Dale Earnhardt Jr racing for Rick Hendrick. This old news from last year will remain current throughout this year, especially if Dale wins races and makes the Chase.

3. The CoT. Complaints about the current version of the CoT will still be made by both the drivers and the fans. My suggestion? Get used to it, as it isn't going anywhere.

4. New open-wheel drivers in NASCAR. Look they can drive a stock car, but who will the Rookie of the Year? Not Juan.

5. NASCAR Wives, especially Ashley Judd. Dario Franchitti's wife will bring new headlines to this sport, and a newer focus will be placed on the wives and girlfriends of the drivers. Who gets along with who, who is fighting with who, etc. If you thought the spotlight shifted more to the wives and girlfriends when Jeff married Ingrid, just wait until Ashley shows up.

6. New Hampshire Speedway. Now under new ownership, will it lose a date or won't it? If it does, which track will get it? Also, will New Hampshire be revamped? All I can say is wait and see, because I can't even venture a guess - actually I could but I will let this one play out a little more before I voice my opinion.

7. Will the Grand National Series, now sponsored by Nationwide, finally get its own identity? This series over the last decade or so has lost it's identity and has become a poaching series for Cup Teams and their drivers, hopefully Nationwide and NASCAR will put the proper people in place to help the series grow and establish itself as something other than the Victim Series to that of the Cup Series.

8. As always the question when someone wins the Championship twice in a row - will he three-peat? Good question, will Jimmie Johnson win a very rare 3rd Championship in a row? Certainly all the key factors are in place for it to happen, so don't ever underestimate the possibility of him and his team doing it.

9. Who going to loose their ride at Roush/Fenway as they must cut a team to meet the NASCAR mandated maximum of 4 cars per owner for 2009. Since Jack currently has 5 cars in his stable, who is going to be the odd man out? More importantly where is he going to go? My guess is that the team (lock, stock, and barrel) will become a team over at Yates, or another Ford team, and remain 'ever so slightly' under the Roush/Fenway umbrella like Boris Said currently is.

10. Brian France. Will he live up to his Father's and Grandfather's reputations, or will he fail miserably at his CEO job? I think he has a long walk ahead of him - up hill no less - but I also think that if he can survive and if he gets help from people such as Mike Helton he might just be able to pull it off - eventually. It isn't going to be a short journey either, this will take years. In the end he will do a good job once he earns the respect that he needs from those within the walls of NASCAR, all the way from pit road to the board room.