The Five Biggest Disappointments Of The 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Season

While there have been a number of surprises thus far in the 2011 season, there have also been a few disappointments, both for fans, the sport and for drivers. Not every season can be spectacular and for some, the first half of the 2011 season has been a bit of a disappointment.

Here are the top five biggest disappointments of the season thus far.

Denny Hamlin’s Championship Run

Coming so close to dethroning Jimmie Johnson for the championship at the end of the 2010 season, many figured Denny Hamlin would be strong right out of the gate in 2011. However, that did not necessarily happen.

Throughout the first eight races of the year, Hamlin had only one top-10 finish (a seventh at Las Vegas Motor Speedway). The team was plagued by engine issues and fell as low as 21^st in the Sprint Cup Series standings.

In fact, Hamlin did not score his first win of the year until the 15^th race of the season at Michigan. At the same point of the year in 2010, Hamlin had already accumulated five victories and was third in the championship standings.

While the consistency has yet to show up, Hamlin has been able to score four top-fives and seven top-10s along with his victory and is currently 10^th in the standings, eligible for the Chase.

Red Bull Leaving NASCAR

Although Red Bull Racing has faced a number of issues since joining NASCAR in 2008, few could have imagined they would pull their support and close their operation at the end of the 2011 season.

Since coming to NASCAR, Red Bull Racing has struggled to make races, had controversial driver changes, lost their top driver Brian Vickers for the majority of the 2010 season with a medical condition and throughout struggled to post the results they expected.

In four years, the organization has only one victory, which came at Michigan International Speedway with Vickers in 2009.

Currently fielding cars for Vickers and Kasey Kahne, the organization was faced with continued struggles, along with the face Kahne is moving to Hendrick Motorsports at the end of the season and Vickers is in the final year of his contract.

Team general manager Jay Frye is seeking investors to keep the team up and running for the 2012 season, saying, “We have every expectation to be a two-car team as we are now, going into next year.”

NASCAR Nationwide Series Leaves Lucas Oil Raceway Park

While this may only affect the NASCAR Nationwide Series, the decision to leave Lucas Oil Raceway Park in Indianapolis is one of the most disappointing decisions of the season. The .686-mile short track has been on the Nationwide Series schedule for 30 years now - since the start of the series - but this year’s race will be the last.

Instead, NASCAR officials opted to move the weekend’s race from the action-filled short track to the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway just a few miles down the road.

LORP has always produced some of the most exciting action of the Nationwide Series season, however the move to the Brickyard is sure to produce a deluge of Sprint Cup Series drivers and strung out single-file racing.

Surely the product on the track will not be the same, and those die hard long-time fans may look at this as just another move away from NASCAR historic past.

Dull Debut For Kentucky

The terrible situation at the inaugural Sprint Cup Series event was documented in Tuesday’s piece on the season’s biggest surprises, but it also ranks among some of the biggest disappointments of the year. Track owner Bruton Smith hyped the event for months, promising a sell-out crowd, top-notch facilities and great racing action, yet failed to deliver on two of the three accounts.

The crowd may have been among the largest of the year, but the track, the state highway system and the parking lots were not prepared for the overflow of cars and traffic headed their way Sunday morning. Therefore, the backlog left people sitting in traffic for up to eight hours, with many ticket holders being turned away from the event.

In addition, some drivers were upset with the racing surface, with many calling for the track to be resurfaced before the series returns. Kyle Busch dominated the event, with the only real action coming late in the race due to multiple late-race cautions.

Jeff Burton’s Miserable Season

There are few drivers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series that are consistent as Richard Childress Racing’s Jeff Burton. Unfortunately for Burton, the 2011 season has been consistently miserable.

Enduring one of his worst seasons of his 19 year career, Burton has no top-10s thus far in 2011. Struggling with engine issues, poor luck and overall poor performance, Burton’s No. 31 is 25^th in the championship standings, and will likely miss the Chase. In fact, Burton is the only driver in the top 30 in the standings without a top-10 finish 19 races into the season.

Perhaps the bottom fell out of the No. 31 team during last year’s Chase, where they finished 12^th after recording three finishes of 30^th or worse. This season, his best finish is a pair of 11^th-place finishes at Texas Motor Speedway and Dover International Speedway and he has led only 32 laps all year.