Now that we’ve popped the cork on 2009 and sung Auld Lang Syne, let’s look back at the 2008 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season, an oddball year in many respects that could be aptly described as “The Twilight Zone.” But for all its quirks, the season still featured dazzling competition and excitement.

Strangest events
Several events in 2008 seemed oddly out-of-place, such as three consecutive first-time Truck Series winners Donny Lia, Matt Crafton and Scott Speed. That’s an odd phenomenon, especially with Crafton taking 178 races to claim his first win. At that rate, it will be 2016 or so before he wins again.

Ryan Newman passing Kevin Harvick Inc. teammate and championship contender Ron Hornaday for the win at Atlanta was weird. Newman essentially stole 15 points from Hornaday, who ultimately lost the title by seven. It’s not too often a teammate impacts a championship in that manner.

Thirdly, KHI won three consecutive races with three different drivers (Newman, Hornaday and Harvick) for the first time in series history.

And who could forget Phoenix when Hornaday spun out on the first lap racing Kyle Busch? Hornaday’s team got him back in the race, but based on where Johnny Benson was running at the time, it initially appeared futile. However, Benson then raced T.J. Bell in the corner and crashed. I was beginning to wonder if neither guy wanted the championship. That’s probably the strangest and most unbelievable race I’ve covered in my motorsports career.

The Kyle Busch factor was another quirky twist to the 2008 season. It’s very rare for a driver to be that successful in all three divisions and still not win a championship.

Finally, Lia’s win at Mansfield came out of nowhere, as he hadn’t been a factor all day and hadn’t ever led a lap until he jammed his truck in there on the final lap, slammed into Todd Bodine and knocked David Starr out of the way. It was a very exciting finish but still strange that he won his first race after leading the first lap of his career.

Biggest disappointment
Jack Sprague and Erik Darnell are tied for this one. I expected Sprague to win two or three races and be in the hunt for the championship but they couldn’t get out of their own way most days. Sprague’s short career at KHI was a total flop, but to add insult to injury, he helplessly watched Hornaday pull away from him in the Truck Series career win totals.

While Darnell finished fourth in the points, he won only one race, a far cry from what we’ve come to expect from the Roush Fenway trucks.

Biggest Surprise
Mike Skinner’s lack of success following an incredible 2007 season stunned me. Keeping with the theme of his championship-ending race at Homestead in 2007, it was like the wheels just fell off the first part of Skinner’s 2008 season and it took his team almost 10 races to get back on the road to recovery.

Scott Speed was a pleasant surprise with his first win at Dover and his improvement with each Truck race. The No. 22 team had been overlooked a lot but Speed helped them shine.

Biggest storylines
The 2008 Truck Series was the highest-rated ever on SPEED, which says a lot when compared to ratings across the board in NASCAR. I think fans like the shorter races the Truck Series offers because abbreviated distances force drivers to go hard every lap. People stop me all the time to chat about an incredible finish they witnessed or to tell me how much they’re enjoying the Truck Series when they hadn’t watched it before.

The economic downturn dominated the headlines and will continue to do so, although most Truck Series teams were aware cuts were coming back in the summer. The Truck Series was the first affected and will be the most hard-hit by the financial crisis in the short-term. This is one storyline I wish we didn’t have to carry over to the next season.

Highlights
One of the season’s highlights was Dennis Setzer’s win at Martinsville for Bobby Hamilton Racing following its reincarnation, although the team has since folded.

And of course, the incredible championship battle waged between Benson and Hornaday is one for the ages.

Also, we’d be remiss not to mention the Truck Series’ longstanding partnership with Craftsman and how it has helped elevate the series since its inception. It’s really cool for those of us who have watched the series from its beginning to look back at how far it has come from the days of running at mostly short tracks and places like Tucson, to first-rate events at Daytona and Talladega with heightened competition every year.

I really look forward to working with Camping World in 2009 and beyond. Watch out for some very cool stuff coming into your TV’s next season.

Finally, we said good-bye to several friends in 2008:
Max Helton, Tim Sullivan Sr., Jimmy Johnson, Brienne Davis, Bill Connell, Jim McKay, Scott Kalitta, Steve Petersen, Click Baldwin, Steve ”Big Guy” Helwig, Dick Bahre, Hal Hamrick and T. Taylor Warren. Thank you for your enormous contributions to racing.