Homestead: One Hand Clapping

Homestead kicked off NASCAR's season finale with the Miami 200 for Craftsman Trucks, and a Truck season that can best be described as anticlimatic ended in fitting fashion, with another ho-hum triumph by Mark Martin and the inevitable driving title by Toyota's top dog, Todd Bodine. Not that the race itself was anticlimatic; it turned out to be downright exciting as Brendan Gaughn made a gallant effort not only to win anything for the first time since 2003, but also to salvage something out of a Truck Series lacking in compelling competition and increasingly facing a future as a one-marque series monopolized by the Toyota invasion.

Toyota's enormous edge in technology, money, and everything else a manufacturer can muster to win racing championships is as bad as many feared when the company first entered the Trucks in 2004. Mark Martin's win in a Jack Roush Ford is sympomatic of the lost cause that is the possibility of victory for a non-Toyota marque; it took Winston Cup Truckwacking for other brands to have any chance at winning in the Trucks. Terry Cook and Rick Crawford salvaged something for Ford and Ron Hornaday salvaged a pair of wins for Chevrolet, but other than this every other non-Toyota win was by a Winston Cup interloper.

The Truck Series saw 14 drivers win races, certainly a strong number, but with almost no non-Toyota winners among series regulars, the stat has a misleading quality to it. And for the interminable future it won't change, because Toyota will get almost nothing in the way of opposition next year, as GM is cutting back its less-than-credible effort in the Trucks via ending direct team sponsorships, while Ford's piddling effort shows no sign of improving and Dodge's enemic one-team campaign went winless in 2006 and likewise shows no future.

Forgive me for one hand clapping for the Trucks, but the series that held so much promise ten years ago can't be said to be on any upswing right now.