I’m sure Darren is not happy that Jimmie Johnson won yet another championship. I on the other hand enjoy being a fan and witnessing records and history being made. I love witnessing history such as Dale Earnhardt Sr. finally winning the Daytona 500. Then there’s Jeff Gordon passing Dale Earnhardt Sr. on the all-time win list, as well as Jeff Gordon’s 545 consecutive Cup Series starts. This year we also witnessed Kyle Busch tying Sam Ard’s mark of 10 Nationwide series victories in a season.

Of course since Kevin Harvick is my favorite driver, I have to mention the fact that with his 2nd place finish tonight at Homestead he extended his streak of running at the finish to 80 consecutive races. That is the longest current streak and the modern era record. Kevin will break the all-time record if he can finish the first 5 Cup series races of the 2009 season and thus passing record holder Herman Beam’s 84 consecutive races.

Tonight, Jimmie Johnson, crew chief Chad Knaus, and the #48 team, capped off the 2008 season with two of the most impressive records to be set in and for a very long. The team wons a third consecutive Cup series championship, a feat that had only been done once before (by Cale Yarborough in 1976-78). Also, Chad Knaus became the first crew chief to win three consecutive Cup series championships!

WOW! I don’t care which driver is breaking or setting records. Witnessing the accomplishments as they happen is what I truly enjoy about being a NASCAR fan.

Now, onto the major news. {rolling my eyes} As expected, Mike proved to me again that he is the master of these types of “pick the winner” fantasy NASCAR games. While he suffered a 25th place finish from the #17 car, he was looking good to take the win with only 2-3 laps remaining as Kenseth ran out of gas while leading the race. Awww, too bad Mike. NOT!

You see, I performed terribly here in this game and only barely pulled myself out of the basement in the final two races of the season. However, in another game I play I was actually leading the standings going into this final race. At the beginning of this game’s segment (consisting of 18 races) each player picked one driver for each race of the segment using each driver only once. At the start of Homestead I had a 3 point lead over the 2nd place player in the standings. My driver, Kevin Harvick. His driver, Matt Kenseth. Needless to say, the last 35 laps of this race were quite stressful as I watched Kenseth leading the field and Harvick running around the 10th position. I couldn’t have Kenseth beat Harvick by more than 3 positions! The laps clicked off, 30 to go, 20 to go, 10 to go, 5 to go, …… “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, RUN OUT OF GAS KENSETH!” I yelled at the television screen with 4 laps to go.

Ahhhh….. the fuel mileage gamble didn’t work for the #17 team and Harvick finished 2nd. I held on to the lead and will be pocketing some decent coin for the holiday shopping season. Verizon Wireless, put a Blackberry Storm on hold for me. I’ll be in on Friday!

PS. Since I won $ in the other game and Mike only wins bragging rights here, “Congrats Mike!” :D