CONCORD, N.C. — There’s no denying I’m a sports fan — racing, football, basketball, baseball, golf, etc. Sports are my primary entertainment outlet.
So when I saw a headline on a mainstream-sports site that asked, “Is Logano the driver of the year,” it sent my head spinning.
Don’t get me wrong, winning the NASCAR Cup Series title is a big deal, and it’s not easy to accomplish once — let alone twice as Logano achieved with his second title this season. But being a well-rounded motorsports fan, it was easy to come up with more than a few driver-of-the-year candidates with seasons comparable or better than the four-win Cup Series campaign Logano produced for Team Penske.
Erica Enders — Erica Enders for one doesn’t get the credit she deserves throughout the motorsports world. She drove her Elite Motorsports Chevrolet to 10 victories and a fifth NHRA Pro Stock championship this season. Enders is now one of only five (Jeg Coughlin, Greg Anderson, Warren Johnson and Bob Glidden) drivers to have won at least five championships in the factory hot rods. And she’s only 39 years old.
Brent Marks — Thirty-one-year-old sprint car driver Brent Marks enjoyed a breakout season. Marks, who won 18 winged sprint car features, gained national recognition for topping the Historical Big One and the Kings Royal on the same weekend at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway. Marks won five World of Outlaws features, and also posted five All Star sprint car triumphs.
Jonathan Davenport — Multi-time Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion Jonathan Davenport did not race for a title this season. Instead, he chased money and earned almost $2 million. Davenport, 49, had 23 dirt late model triumphs at this writing, including nine that paid him $50,000 or more. In June, he won the first running of the Eldora Million since 2001 at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway.
Matt Sheppard — Matt Sheppard claimed his ninth Super DIRTcar Series big-block modified title this season, but may have enjoyed the best overall season of his career. Sheppard won 42 features, including sweeping the 358 modified and big-block modified headliners during the 50th running of Super DIRT Week at Oswego (N.Y.) Speedway. He also won a pair of Short Track Super Series titles and two track championships this year.
Anthony Macri — While Anthony Macri, 23, posted many of his 23 winged sprint car victories this season on home soil in his native Pennsylvania, his campaign included two World of Outlaws triumphs at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway and eight with the All Star Circuit of Champions.
Matt Hirschman — The son of Modified Tour champion and current NASCAR Cup Series spotter Tony Hirschman, Matt Hirschman won 26 asphalt modified features at 15 tracks, including races with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, SMART Tour, Tri-Track Modified Series and the Race of Champions modified series.
Eli Tomac — In his first season riding for Yamaha, Eli Tomac won both the Monster Energy AMA Supercross and Lucas Oil Pro Motocross championships. Tomac won seven Supercross races and had five overall motocross triumphs. He also claimed the debut round in the World Supercross Championship.
Max Verstappen — While he may not be the best teammate in the history of motorsports, Max Verstappen had a dominant season, winning 14 Formula 1 races en route to his second consecutive world driving championship.
• In the open-wheel, short-track world, three drivers deserving of mention are Buddy Kofoid, Justin Grant and Kody Swanson.
Kofoid has won a series-best 12 USAC national midget features and led the standings with two races remaining.
Grant secured his first USAC sprint car championship, won in all three national series and still had a shot at stealing the midget crown from Kofoid.
Swanson earned his seventh USAC Silver Crown championship and was also crowned the first Sprint 500 Tour champion.
• Ty Gibbs won seven times en route to the NASCAR Xfinity Series title, while Noah Gragson topped eight races and was the series runner-up.
• Finally, it is with tremendous gratitude and a hint of sadness that we bid farewell to the print edition of SPEED SPORT Magazine. It’s simply time. While details are provided in Joe Tripp’s column on page 7, we say thank you to the readers for their loyalty and support and to our contributors for the fantastic stories, columns and photographs that have filled these pages.
We hope you’ll continue to read this column and the efforts of our contributors in the new weekly email edition. Thank you!