Preview - 2006 Nextel Cup season.

Heading into what could be the final year of NASCAR racing as we know it, there are plenty of pretenders lining up to take Tony Stewart's crown.

With Toyota and the much-debated 'Car of Tomorrow' looming large on the horizon as well as NASCAR's desire to impose team caps, 2006 could see multi-team racing at its finest, or worst depending on your persuasion as every existing team and manufacturer vies for overall honours.

Testing may or may not have given everyone a clear indication of what to expect when the season gets the green flag at Daytona with various murmurings of sand-bagging from several of the expected favourites. However at the end of both the Daytona and Las Vegas tests it was Roush Racing and Hendrick Motorsports sitting atop the charts, as they were during much of 2005.

Jeff Gordon (non draft) and Kyle Busch (drafting) shared best in class honours for Hendrick at Daytona with the younger of the two racing Busch's particularly impressive in both solo and group trim. Come Las Vegas and it was Roush's Carl Edwards preserving 'The Cat in the Hat's' domain as the 2005 king of the cookie cutter venues.

But testing is testing, not racing, and in any case, any NASCAR driver worth his or her salt wouldn't allow any important information to slip past their lips with the blue-ribbon event of the year at Daytona approaching quickly.

Although neither won the title in 2005, Hendrick and Roush were undoubtedly the strongest teams last season with eventual champ Tony Stewart only really receiving any sustained support when rookie Denny Hamlin joined Joe Gibbs Racing late in the year. With representatives of both teams leading all the major pre-season tests there is little to suggest that things will be any different in 2005.

For Hendrick's quartet of drivers things look especially strong with Jeff Gordon finishing 2005 on fire and continuing to rave about new crew chief Steve Letarte. While a Daytona 500 win does not necessarily guarantee a successful season, as Gordon proved last year, 'The Drive for Five' is well and truly back on the rails.

Jimmie Johnson may have been the second main Hendrick standard-bearer driver for the past couple of years but in 2006 he may have to fight for that position with Busch, who looks like an increasing force with the #5 Kellogg's team. With Busch blazing a trail to the front of the pack, it is the fourth member of the squad, Brian Vickers, who has the most to prove in 2006.

In the five strong Roush camp, Mark Martin's final, final year will again be focused squarely on snaring that elusive title although after such a concerted, emotionally draining effort in 2005, it will take all of Martin's strength and faith to match, and then better that effort in 2006.

It may then fall to the dependable Matt Kenseth and last year's breakout drivers Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle to lead the bid to make the new Ford Fusion a champion in its first year. While Kenseth surely knows how to grind out a championship, the fact that Edwards and Biffle both drove over and above general expectations in 2005 and the pressure will be on to repeat those efforts this time around. If either or both manage it, Jack Roush could be looking at his third title in four years.

The new kid on the block at Roush is Jamie McMurray, who must first find victory lane for the first time in more than three years and work on his relationship with veteran crew chief Jimmy Fennig before launching an all-out championship assault, especially as he has missed both editions of the ten-race championship decider to date.

As he did in 2005 Tony Stewart and Joe Gibbs Racing hope to put a big Orange blob on the title aspirations of NASCAR's two biggest teams, although with two rookie teammates alongside him, there is even more of a burden on Stewart's shoulders this year. However Stewart is clearly at ease with himself and his current position and has proved that a happy Tony Stewart can be virtually unbeatable on any track big or small.

The arrival of Denny Hamlin on the scene late last year helped Gibbs' new #11 team to explode into action and if Hamlin can continue the same progress in 2005, and learn from Stewart the FedEx sponsored driver could be the 'Carl Edwards' of 2006. The third JGR driver, JJ Yeley in the #18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet looks like having a tougher learning curve than Hamlin in what is an exceptionally strong year for the Raybestos Rookie of the Year competition.

Hamlin and Yeley are two of seven rookies in 2006 and not the only two on the same team, as Chip Ganassi also has two rookies on his roster in the form of Reed Sorensen and David Stremme. Ganassi is hoping that the introduction of the two former Busch Series drivers can make up for the combined loss of McMurray and Sterling Marlin and revitalise a team that was treading water in 2005.

A lot of Ganassi's potential success could come down to the effectiveness of the Dodge Charger in the hands of new lead driver Casey Mears. Already a winner in 2006 thanks to his triumph in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona, Mears will have to carry more of the load in 2006 as well as earn that maiden Nextel Cup win in the #42 Texaco/Havoline entry.

Still a teenager, Sorensen looks fast and furious while the more experienced Stremme needs to put a somewhat disappointing 2005 season behind him as he gets to grips with the #40 Coors Light team, formerly a title contender in Marlin's hands.

Like his main Dodge powered rivals Penske Racing and Evernham Motorsports, Ganassi and his team will be hoping that the Charger model proves to be somewhat more effective than it was during its maiden season, although with Roger Penske's team already having declared their intent to race the 2004 model Intrepid in the early season races at Fontana and Las Vegas, some quick thinking in the various Dodge camps may be required to keep them on pace with their Ford and Chevrolet mounted rivals.

Even without the services of Rusty Wallace, Penske Racing looks to be the strongest Dodge team on paper, even if its two-cars are numerically overshadowed by Ganassi and Evernham.

Ryan Newman will drive as hard as ever and will certainly contend for pole positions and wins, although some of his aggression may need to be curbed during the long, hot NASCAR summer in order to give him a good position going into the 'Chase.' The fact that there will be less impound races on the 2006 schedule is also good news for Newman, who may have suffered slightly in the races last year when his ace qualifying set-up didn't hold up over longer distances.

For Newman's new teammate Kurt Busch, 2006 is about rebuilding after a sad end to his relationship with Jack Roush. Last November's traffic incident with the police in Phoenix cast a shadow over the 2004 Nextel Cup Champion, whose title defence ended in a whimper not a bang. A new team and chassis should help Busch, whose analytical style will compliment the work done in the past by Wallace and previous crew chief Larry Carter.

Ray Evernham enters his sixth season as a Nextel Cup owner with three full-time teams instead of two for the first time. Scott Riggs and Valvoline join usual partnership Jeremy Mayfield and Kasey Kahne in a year where it could be swim or sink for both Riggs and Mayfield.

Undeniably solid, Mayfield has proven on a number of occasions that he can show the rest of the field a clean pair of heels at times and is a master of coaxing a top 12 finish out of a top 20 car. However after two disappointing runs at the Chase for the Championship thus far, Mayfield will have to carry some as yet unseen momentum into the final ten race stretch if he is to be taken seriously as a title contender.

For Kahne, season number three simply has to be better than season number two, which it almost certainly will be, and a maiden appearance in the Chase looks a distinct possibility. New driver Riggs meanwhile will have to focus on getting to the finish before he can finish first after a decidedly patchy 2005 season with the MBV Motorsports team.

Rolling along just a shade behind their brand leaders are several teams who also have a 'Must do Better' asterisk next to their agendas. Richard Childress Racing, Dale Earnhardt Inc and even Robert Yates Racing all underachieved to various degrees last season and all three have made some significant changes over the winter.

At DEI out goes Michael Waltrip and in comes double Busch Series champion Martin Truex Jr and crew chief Kevin 'Bono' Manion. The #15 NAPA team has been replaced on the full-time roster by the #1 Bass Pro Shops team with the #15 reverting to a part-time schedule with Paul Menard. Dale Earnhardt Jr has had plenty of time to re-acquaint himself with crew chief Tony Eury Jr and look for DEI to come out all guns blazing at Daytona. Whether or not the #8 Budweiser bunch are title material remains to be seen, although Junior will view anything less than a full-on title assault as something of a failure.

Robert Yates Racing retains Elliott Sadler and Dale Jarrett but both have new crew chiefs. Tommy Baldwin takes over at Sadler's #38 team with former incumbent Slugger Labbe shifting to Jarrett's #88. Things went south in the summer for Sadler while Jarrett wasn't on the pace often enough to make him a title contender and so maintaining momentum is just as important as improving overall speed for RYR this year.

For Richard Childress' team the changes have been a lot more behind-the-scenes, a point driver Jeff Burton has clearly stated. If the level of improvements are as significant as Burton thinks they might be, the #31 Cingular team may find itself leading the way for the whole organisation. Kevin Harvick and the #29 GM Goodwrench team have traditionally been RCR's standard-bearers but yet again in 2005 things didn't go well. With rumours already starting surrounding Harvick's future with the team and a possible move to Toyota in 2007, are there too many distractions already that may prohibit a title challenge in 2006?

The third-arm of RCR's Nextel Cup operation, the already popular #07 Jack Daniels team, has a new face in 2006 with rookie Clint Bowyer, whose main task has to be keeping the team inside the top 35 in points after a difficult first year with veteran Dave Blaney.

After many years in the doldrums, there are major murmurings in the Petty Enterprises camp that finally point towards an upturn in performances. The addition of driver Bobby Labonte and crew chief Todd Parrott to the famous #43 team as well as the arrival of Robbie Loomis as vice president of operations are all major steps forward while Kyle Petty is also in fighting spirits despite the loss of his main sponsor Georgia Pacific and Brawny. A win for the Petty team in 2006? Quite possibly.

Of the other multi-car teams, the MB Motorsports group certainly has the experience behind the wheel with Joe Nemechek and Sterling Marlin in for the full-year and Bill Elliott joining the team at Daytona. Nemechek has been solid for the past two seasons and only needs a little extra luck to see him into the Chase for the Championship while Marlin is faced with the task of rebuilding the former #10 team that struggled to stay inside the top 35 in points last year.

Bill Davis Racing also has experience in the form of Dave Blaney, Michael Waltrip and, on occasion, Mike Skinner. However with no factory support from Dodge and Toyota's due in for 2007, this will be a transitional year for the team, who will lose Waltrip and his new buddy Doug Bawel at the end of the year when Waltrip-Jasper Racing branches out on its own. However the fact that Waltrip was able to snare the owner points accrued by Bawel's #77 team last year at least ensures a double presence on the grid to start the season, something that Waltrip and Blaney will have to fight to hang on to as the year progresses.

Such is the perceived advantage of having more than one car that some of NASCAR's minnows are also joining forces, namely the #92 Front Row Motorsports team and the #34 Mach 1 outfit, both of whom have struggled through the past two seasons without major sponsorship and more DNQ's than 'Running at Finish' against their names. Drivers Chad Chaffin and Randy LaJoie are both capable, and it will be interesting to see how NASCAR's newest multi-car operation stacks up.

It is hard to see any of the single car operations as regular top ten contenders, although an occasional win is not entirely out of the question.

Robby Gordon's #7 team has to fight its way into the top 35 in point first, but with DEI engines the charismatic driver could provide more than a few surprises during the course of the year. Scott Wimmer, Morgan-McClure's latest signing, also has to battle his way into the starting field in the #4 Chevrolet, which in itself fought on manfully in the hands of Mike Wallace and several others last year. Ken Schrader joins the famed #21 Wood Brothers team for his final season on the full-time Nextel Cup tour and while Schrader is immensely likeable, it is hard to see him improving on the performances of Ricky Rudd in 2005.

Two teams who look set to struggle are the #32 PPI Motorsport outfit and the #49 BAM Racing squad. Cal Wells has signed Travis Kvapil to replace Bobby Hamilton Jr, although the problems with the Tide Ride seem to run a little deeper than the face behind the steering wheel. Rookie Brent Sherman takes over from Schrader in the #49 formerly occupied by Schrader but without Schrader's veteran guile, the unheralded Sherman may be in for a rude Nextel Cup awakening. Unlike Kvapil, Sherman does have the benefit of a guaranteed starting spot in the first five races.

One potential dark horse could be former Busch Series Champion Jeff Green in the #66 (was #0) Haas CNC Racing Chevrolet. Very fast in Las Vegas testing, the Haas team looked stronger than ever before during 2005 with Mike Bliss at the wheel and could challenge the top 20 teams throughout the season.

The real wildcard could be the #96 Hall of Fame Racing team, who will run former champion Terry Labonte in the first five races in order to make use of his Past Champions Provisional if necessary. The under-rated Tony Raines will drive the bulk of the year and if the team can settle in the top 35 in points, Raines could produce wonders later in the year.

There are a healthy number of 'underdogs' to cheer for, none of whom will pose a threat to Victory Lane but who will all give it 110 per cent and, occasionally, have their day in the sun. Not all will be present at every race, and many of the starting drivers may not see out the year, but they will continue to fight over the scraps and look for that golden opportunity to grab some limelight when the big guns fail.

Hermie Sadler will pilot the #00 Aaron's Chevrolet for more than half the races, while James Finch's #09 team will also partake a select number of races with Mike Wallace. Bobby Hamilton's eponymous team is expected to appear now and again while Germain Motorsports is a new name on the roster with driver Todd Bodine. Fellow veteran Derrike Cope will drive for McGlynn Motorsports while McGlynn's former driver Carl Long will start the year with the #80 Hover Motorsports team. Kirk Shelmerdine and Morgan Shepherd, veterans of the 'underdog' scene are both back, with 63 year-old Shepherd planning an ambitious full-season assault with his #89 team. All has been quiet on the #37 R&J Racing front, although Mike Garvey has been linked with a drive at the Daytona 500. Garvey will then move on to the #51 Competitive Edge Motorsports stable, which will attempt all but the restrictor plate races while the #61 (was #66) Peak Performance team will have Kevin Lepage in the seat for a full season. Finally, Kenny Wallace will help get the #78 Furniture Row Racing team off the ground before handing over to Jerry Robertson for the balance of the year.

In all, more than 60 teams have stated their intentions to appear on the 2006 Nextel Cup grid at some point. Whether all will make it, and who will succeed of those who do, will play out over the next ten months with the King being crowned in late November at the Homestead-Miami Speedway, right back where we started from, in Florida.